Indeed–and it’s almost always the only productive option.
THere’s a great scene in the movie The Big Kahuna, where one of the other characters calls another character a liar. But before he does so, he spends a lot of time saying, basically, “I’m about to say something big, and it’s not something I say very often, because I’m basically saying there’s no point in talking to you after I say this, and because I’m about to call your fundamental decency into question when I say this, and because I’m about to say one of the worst things I can say to another person.” It’s a powerful scene, and it’s one I try to keep in mind before I call someone a liar. It’s not an accusation to throw about lightly.
Okay, thank you for the reply. Like I said, I don’t interact with Der Tris. I did look at a few of the examples in the OP, and more than just the quoted lines, but it begins to overwhelm.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Besides, Marley says he has given DT warnings (or at least a warning) and that didn’t generated any ATMB threads about heavy handed moderating, did it?
[/QUOTE]
There are complaints about heavy handed moderating in this thread.
That’s not unusual. Most threads in this forum contain such complaints. The claim was that that threads would be started to complain about it, which doesn’t make sense since previous moderating of this behavior did not result in such threads.
You seem to be misunderstanding what tomndebb said. He wasn’t saying that Der Trihs would start ATMB threads if he received more warnings. Whatever you want to say about Der Trihs, he doesn’t make a habit about complaining about notes or warnings; he hasn’t started a single thread in ATMB in the past five years. Concern about DT complaining could hardly be a factor in deciding on whether or not to issue warnings instead of notes.
What I understand tomndebb to be saying is that if he began to warn* some other posters* who had received multiple mod notes similar to those received by DT, those posters would complain about “heavy handed moderating.” (Given that some posters complain vociferously even about mod notes now, I think this is very likely to be true.)
No, I understood that, but I was using DT as the only example we knew of in that set of posters. Without knowing who those other posters are, I think it’s not particularly useful to speculate about what they may or may not do.
Really? You think that if a poster got 12 mod notes about a certain behavior in one year and then got a warning, that would most likely result in an ATMB thread about heavy handed mod’ing? REALLY? And if it did, how much sympathy do you think that poster would get from the rest of us.
And, as I said in the original post about this, I think/hope the moderators here aren’t intimidated about giving warnings by the fact that some whiner might open an ATMB thread about “heavy handed moderating”, so I’m not sure what point Tom was trying to make.
Although I don’t frequent GD much, from threads in ATMB I have a good guess as to who some of them are, and what they might do. But I’m not going to name names.
Yup. But actually for some of them there would have been 12 ATMB theads about the notes previously.
Irrelevant. Some posters complain, and continue to complain, even if they get little or no support.
Speaking only for myself, I do make a special effort not to refrain from warning a poster who deserves it just because they are a chronic complainer. That doesn’t mean it’s not a pain in the ass to have to deal with the inevitable ATMB thread on it.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t implying that you should name names.
I thought you weren’t going to name names.
I didn’t mean for that to be relevant to whether or not they might start an STMB thread, but more of a: So what? Let them start their whiny thread-- they won’t get much sympathy.
Yeah, but I’m sure that PITA is mitigated by all the other perks that go along with being a moderator here.
First, the point that you seem to ignore (or disbelieve) is that Der Trihs did not receive twelve Mod Notes in a year for the same behavior. Several of them were, but other Notes were given for different situations, several of them along the line of “you two break it up.”
The issue of complaints is not that the staff would be frightened of a hostile response, (no Mod could survive a month if that was the situation), but that if we were going to issue Mod Notes (and Warnings), to other posters for the sort of actions for which it appears that a number of posters, here, would like to see Der Trihs Warned, there would be a HUGE outcry that we had “changed the rules” and were now handing out Warnings to “good” posters for things that they had never been Mod Noted previously.
That is why I suggested that a different thread be opened to see whether the TM want new criteria for behavior. I have a serious problem with handing out Notes or Warnings to one poster for actions that are identical to the actions of other posters. The fact that none of the other posters who have engaged in the same behavior at, (what appears to me to be), the same rate as Der Trihs makes this look very much like personal antipathy to the poster rather than a reaction against the behavior.
Well, hell, you know where I’d come down on the issue. If a person repeatedly engages in posts that are not conducive to actual productive conversation, I’d love it if they’d be shown, gently or un-, the door to Great Debates.
Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder novels always have a scene at the bar, early on, and the titular character walks past a bunch of drunken idiots having hilariously inept conversations full of conspiracy theories, logical fallacies, and outright bullshit. It’s really fun to read in a point-and-laugh-at-the-dumbasses way. But I wouldn’t want to be part of that conversation myself. I figure we need to decide whether we want those barflies to feel at home in Great Debates. I’d rather they not.
It doesn’t need to be, as others have suggested, tea-and-crumpets. I do think it ought to be a place filled with vigorous and rigorous debate, and the people who should be least tolerant of foolishness ought to be the moderators.
That said, I’m probably not the best person to start a new thread in ATMB suggesting another rules interpretation change, not at this point.
This is exactly it! If he does it at a greater rate than other posters, that is the problem.
If a person is caught speeding once every five years, then a warning (or a “mod note”) is appropriate. If a person is caught speeding once every five days, then greater action is needed besides a warning every time..
By your admission in the quoted portion above, you would agree that Der Trihs needs extra modding.
As far as needing bright lines rules, since when have you all needed those? The “don’t be a jerk” rule allows you to mod without bright lines rules.
I can see that there’s only one way to deal with Der Trihs, Oakminster, PseudoTriton Ruber Ruber, Diogenes the Cynic, and all other posters past and present, and all the posters who want some clarity on exactly what gets modded and how.
We need a high-resolution system with mathematical precision. Let the mods rate all Mod Notes on a severity scale from 0 to 10, and let all Mod Warnings be likewise rated on a severity scale from 1 to 10. (There would be no such thing as a 0-value Warning.) The specific rules could differ from forum to forum.
Each individual Mod Note Point (MNP) or Mod Warning Point (MWP) would also be tagged with the date it was issued, and they would depreciate over time according to some formula. Thus, each individual point would gradually “fade out” over time.
Let there be some defined formulas equating MNP’s with MWP’s (also possibly differing from forum to forum). For example, 6 accumulated MNP’s would automatically be escalated to 1 MWP (remembering that older MNP’s count less according to formula). Various specific accumulations of MWP’s would, in turn, lead to suspensions of varying lengths of time. And some specific accumulations of MWP’s and/or suspensions would result in one IBP (Infinite Banmation Point).
The formulas would only fill 5 to 10 pages of small-font text per forum, and nothing more advanced than knowledge of elementary Differential Equations would be required of the mods to implement this (and of the Rest of Us to understand it all). It would all be computed by computer anyway. Posters who take an on-line proficiency test in the rules and the math (and who pass) would get an automatic 25% reduction of their point accumulations, good for two years at a time.
Only in this way can we have the necessary mathematical precision, predictable regularity, and scientifically repeatable determinism to mete out MNP’s and MWP’s in a fair and even-handed manner that everyone can accept.
The overriding rule is “don’t be a jerk”. If DT’s behavior doesn’t qualify, I don’t know what does. I would suggest that ANYONE who gets 12 mod nots in 1 year, for whatever reason or collection of reasons, rises to the level of getting a warning.
TM?
Well, if there are posters behaving identically to DT who have not gotten mod notes, then it seems you should either stop giving DT mod notes, or issue more to those other posters.
I don’t agree with Der Trihs, and think his comments often border on misogyny, but this opinion has been stated, in plain english, by quite a number of female posters on this board. I’m not going to link to them because I think it would start a hijack, but a quick google search turns up plenty of results. The surveillance thing is pretty weird though, assuming he wasn’t being hyperbolic or using it as an analogy.
I find it astonishing how many posters than usually display intelligence are still failing to comprehend that receiving a Mod Note doesn’t necessarily mean that one has broken a rule, or otherwise done something wrong. A note that says “that’s enough of that” means what it says - that enough has been said on a topic and any more will be a rule breach. One could receive such a note for every single post without being in violation of the rules, or requiring a warning.
So yes, it’s perfectly possible for someone to get 12 notes in a year or whatever without it being a problem in any way, as long as those notes are obeyed.
No it hasn’t. “Potential rapists,” yes. “Monsters,” no. There’s a ginormous difference between the two, especially if you’re familiar with the definition of “potential”, and extra-specially if you understand the idea of limited information.
Not really relevant to the topic at hand, since Marley says he has given DT a warning for the behavior under discussion. The question is why does that same behavior not get a warning again when it happens the next week.
And, as noted multiple times, the overriding “rule” on this MB is to not be a jerk. When the mods tell you over and over to “stop doing x”, but you keep “doing x” on a regular basis, that’s well within the bounds of “being a jerk”. And it speaks to concern that many people have on this MB that moderation is considerably less consistent than it should be. No one expects perfection, but when clear moderator instruction is ignored over and over an over, one has to wonder why it is continued to be tolerated.
But yes, my last post was muddled and did mix the idea of “anyone who gets mod notes” with this particular poster, so I’ll withdraw that comment entirely. Especially since it detracts from the particular situation we are discussing per the OP.
The Warnings given were for occasions when his posts wandered from the general into the specific against another poster, violating the no personal insults rule, not for simply posting obnoxious nonsense.
Do you really think that the instructions were: Stop doing this in the current thread, but it’s OK if you do the exact same thing tomorrow in a different thread?
Really?
If you do, then I’d just like to know what color the sky is in your world?
