The fact that there are people disagreeing with mods–including people whose disagreement with the substance of magellan’s post is, to put it mildly, vociferous–may indicate that there’s genuine confusion about this rule. I thought, and after reading the rule still think, that whatever the quality of his post might be, the format of it broke no rules. A warning for something this ambiguous is not a good idea. This may be a good opportunity for a clarification of the rule.
It has been discussed here in ATMB previously, and other moderators have commented previously.
I would quibble about whether what magellan01 did was “parody” - if it is, it’s terrible parody - but that being said, I thought he’d taken all reasonable steps to make it clear that he was not actually quoting another poster. If this is a violation of the rule, then I certainly have been misunderstanding the rule for years.
I sure do, and I took it to mean all forms of quotation except those that are sacrosanct…which would be quote tags.
That is the thread I remembered.
I don’t have any history of “fixing” things, but I have been known to report posts with misattributions. For myself, the bright line has always been that it needs “Originally posted by [insert name here]” for me to bother reporting it. But what I’m reading in this thread is that in the view of most Dopers, that bright line is immaterial.
Could I get a confirmation from a staff member, please? Ta.
Personally, I considered magellan01’s post to be snark, as opposed to parody. If the prevailing opinion in this thread is correct, I have no quarrel with the warning he received.
It’s somewhat ironic, on multiple levels, that the substance of that post was about bias exhibited on the board.
From the linked thread:
Seems pretty clear to me.
And I know the meaning of sacrosanct, and I took it to mean all text in quote tags is sacrosanct, except those that are a parody and to which no name is attached.
And when you apply what the mods say in the linked thread, tomndebb in particular?
Missed the edit window – AGAIN :dubious:
*(up to about post 8, which is where it was when I got called away from this response)
Is this an official warning?
Not to be a Junior Mod, here, but I’m going to guess “No,” on account of Czarcasm isn’t a staff member with “official” warning privileges.
Consider it an impolite request to not accuse me of junior modding when I give an opinion in this forum.
It changes my reading, but my view is that for one, if that is the case the rule itself needs to be less ambiguous, and for another, tomndebb’s statement is silly. Is there anyone who could read magellan’s post and come away with the impression that the text inside the quote tags was “taken from some post verbatim by the software.” ? He made it abundantly clear that he changed whatever was inside the quote box, and what it was that he changed, and made sure that there was no way the statement could mistakenly be attributed to someone else. How does he stray outside the spirit of the rule(even if some mods, not all, as evidenced by posts in this thread, believe he broke the letter)?
Not at all. If it were up to me, it would also be OK to alter text in quote boxes as long as it was made clear that it was changed (‘FTFY’ or equivalent). But I understand why it’s easier for the mods to apply a zero tolerance policy instead.
I called it ambiguous for the reason bldysabba states. Yes, I saw the “sacrosanct” rule, but we’re also permitted to use bolding, to use ellipses, and to include bracketed text for purposes of clarification, so there’s sacrosanct and there’s sacrosanct.
When he said
He referenced a particular poster, and when he “fixed”(changed) the quote of that particular poster within quote tags he broke the rules, in my opinion.
But the “sacrosanct” part was applied specifically to quote tags, according to what I have quoted repeatedly.
Yeah but what you’ve quoted repeatedly is mods in a different thread, not the rule itself. There’s also a mod in this thread saying that unattributed parodies are treated differently. Ambiguous enough for you?
Can you encapsulate the spirit of the rule? I would sum it up as “Do not make it seem as though someone said something they did not”. Do you agree with that? If not, how would you put it?