There has been a quite a bit of hoopla lately regarding your moderating decisions. I wanted to put this in the thread about what constitutes as off topic, seeing as my concern stems from the same thread, but I didn’t want to make it go… off topic.
Seriously, it just seems like your heart’s not into reigning Dopers in anymore.
Now, I see that you’ve apologized for your error, so kudos for that. But one would think that a moderator would actually read it through carefully and confirm that there was something to reprimand instead of being trigger happy. Your moderating decisions are generating a whole lot of ill will around here lately.
I don’t agree with a lot of Czarcasm’s decisions but in this instance he made a mistake and then apologized for it. Give the guy a break. He might deserve to be called out on some issues but not this one.
It’s the second apology he’s had to make in that thread, both for different reasons.
**Czarcasm’s **problem, I feel, is that he gets way too involved in the topics he’s supposed to be moderating, which compromises his ability to act reasonably. When that happens, he ceases to moderate logically, and instead reacts in a knee-jerk reaction out of emotion. Or so it would seem.
Was he actually acting as a mod in that thread? There was no “mod note” designator. I thought the comment was out of left field, but as a poster, not mod.
Eta: looking at linked area (apologizing for modding a bolder quite)- perhaps he needs to clearer when acting as a mod.
I don’t think this applies in this case. I didn’t detect any hint of emotion or knee jerking in his post. I think Czarcasm was reading quickly, missed a line in my post, posted his mod note, then edited to indicate he’d made an error and apologized. It’s a fast-moving, messy thread in a very active forum and Czarcasm is, I am assuming, human, so I’m all right with allowing him a normal human allotment of mistakes.
I think it might have been a carryover from the first mistake, which **Czarcasm ** even noted was knee-jerk. I wouldn’t be surprised if he continued to moderate in his heightened, emotionally-charged mod mode. Though I’ll concede it could be an isolated incident.
He’s accrued many more than his peers judging by the amount of threads in ATMB about him. Mistakes are fine, but there’s a time when their frequency and inanity become a problem. Hence, I imagine, why the OP felt this thread was necessary.
I don’t know if the moratorium on using the phrase Usual Suspects is over, but it’s my totally subjective impression that a lot of the noise is coming from a relatively small number of posters. In particular, there was one minor disagreement that spawned several, I don’t know, knicker-knotted revenge threads that give the appearance of a larger issue/problem with decisions.
Yeah, I agree with Rhythmdvl. There was one probably-bad moderating decision that led to a shitstrom (not a typo; that’s a shit-filled maelstrom) of spin-off threads.
How much overlap has there been? I’m honestly curious. These new threads were all started by posters–who as far as I can tell–were not at all involved with the “shitstorm.”
“The Usual Suspects” implies a history of similar behavior. I personally hadn’t publicly expressed by displeasure before a week or so ago. Are there posters involved now that have a history of complaining about Czarcasm’s actions?
Actually, while Czarcasm has apparently apologized for two of the calls he made in that thread, i don’t even think anyone has mentioned (what i think was) the worst moderating post he made in that thread.
To wit:
I think this is a bullshit instruction.
Firstly, chiroptera broke no rules. There was no personal insult; nothing that would warrant sending that post to the Pit.
Second, i think that jamiemcgarry’s history of posting threads about handicapped parking space issues is completely relevant to that thread.
Like it or not, some people post a lot on single issues, and their obsessions often affect the way that other people perceive their posts. In his time here, jamiemcgarry has posted enough about disabled parking that it is one of the things that he’s known for. Also, in those threads, he has drawn quite a bit of attention for (what many perceive as) his unreasonable attitude to some aspects of disabled persons’ issues.
I think all of that is relevant information in a thread, started by jamiemcgarry, about a dispute over a disabled parking space.
I can’t speak for Czarcasm here, but WTF? Some of you are setting the bar for moderator mistakes really low these days. As I read this, he’s not admonishing anyone, but clarifying the point that it’s perfectly fine for jamie to have opened his thread in IMHO. Possibly MPSIMS would have been even more appropriate, but there’s usually a good deal of crossover between the forums, particularly since we’ve enabled polls nearly everywhere.
It was chiroptera who questioned the placement of his thread, and Czarcasm was responding to that. There’s no warning or admonition anywhere in here, at least not the post referred to here.
Czarcasm admonished chiroptera for bringing up jamiemcgarry’s posting history, and suggested that if chiroptera wanted to “castigate” jamiemcgarry for anything related to this issue, he should take it to the Pit.
Still, i shouldn’t have expected anything more from one of the few mods around here who is worse at his job than Czarcasm.
I’ve never complained about a moderator here, or even been bothered by a mod decision before so I don’t think I’m a usual suspect. Also to the best of my recollection, I’ve never been admonished by a mod here.
Also, I made my post in ATMB before I even read this one.
If I was “questioning the placement of the thread” that’s news to me. I was asking jaime what he expected to accomplish by posting yet another story about him v a hostile world, when every other one of them has gone predictably downhill. I thought my question was fairly transparent; apparently not. I didn’t intend any hidden meanings or implications.
I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to be a shrill harpy here, calling for Czarcasm’s head on a stake. It’s bumming me out that the same moderator has been taken to the mat so many times in the last couple of weeks; for the most part moderation on this board is fair… there are times when I don’t agree, but at least I feel respected. I don’t get the same vibe from Czarcasm’s moderation lately.
Yes, the moderators have a tough job, but if Czarcasm can’t handle the duties of IMHO, switch to a fluffier forum, like Cafe Society of the Game Room. It’s not cool that he’s making admonishments left and right, often a little quick to the draw. Moderating should be about making sure people have discussions and share their stories in a respectful manner, not about nitpicking the minutia of each specific sentence.
And asking that question out in the open makes it an insult, and would very likely derail the thread into yet another “Let’s bash the disabled guy for daring to say his life sucks,” thread. Before Czarcasm got back, this is how every thread pileon started.
I don’t like Czarcasm’s moderation very much. But he’s not wrong here. If you’d really wanted to know, you’d have PMed him.
