A week or so ago a poster asked several questions about Twitter including
and I responded
IvoryTowerDenizen came in and said
I told him I think my response was appropriate, he disagreed, and I dropped it.
A bit later he posted
Ahh, that explains it.
And now today he comes up with
I think his dealing with me has been an abuse of authority in a snide, arrogant manner – an attempt to quash my personal opinion (in a forum for expressing opinions). “I dealt with this guy” = I crushed the unworthy creature under my the heel of my jackboot.
I feel an apology is order. I also think this mod should be reprimanded for abusing his authority and informed that the opinions of other posters are permitted in IMHO.
Turble, you were fortunate not to have received a warning instead of just a note in that thread.
Your first post was blatant threadshitting, which is against the rules. The OP was asking opinions from those who use Twitter. If you do not use Twitter, you had no reason to post in the thread. In addition, you used an insulting term to denigrate the other posters in the thread who use Twitter.
You compounded the offense by disputing moderation outside of ATMB, which also is against the rules.
I think that you owe an apology to all the other posters in that thread, as well as to IvoryTowerDenizen.
I would strongly suggest that you familiarize yourself with the rules and standards of behavior of this message board if you are going to continue to post here.
The OP was ostensibly new to Twitter and was seeking input about who people follow, how folks use it, basic operation, etc. Your response was that you don’t utilize Twitter and not so subtlety implying that those that do were twits. So, threadshitting.
ITD identifying threadshitting and informing you to stop doing so is perfectly within the scope of moderator authority and not an abuse. If you wanted to share your opinion about the pitfalls or lack of value of Twitter, I’m positive that would be welcome in the forum, just not in that thread that had an opposite purpose. The “I dealt with” comment was meant to stave off hijacks and again, perfectly with the scope of moderator authority. Is your objection to the word “guy” rather than “issue” or “matter”? The value judgment you are engaging in is entirely your own. There is no indication of crushing or worthiness.
Your first post was the very definition of threadshitting. You not only pointlessly informed everyone that you don’t use twitter you called everyone who did twits.
“Who’s your favorite Star wars character?”
“I have never seen Star Wars and do not follow children’s films.”
“What’s the best gear for Bass fishing?”
“I prefer more sophisticated activities than spending the afternoon in a boat drinking alcohol and making boorish conversation.”
As for the second post, ITD was responding to Big T, not you. If being referred to as “this guy” offends you so deeply, maybe you shouldn’t call other people twits just because they do something you don’t. In fact, maybe the internet is not the best place for you.
IvoryTowerDenizen posted “… I dealt with this guy a week ago …” and that’s factually correct … I think ITD’s intent here is clearly to stop other posters from teasing you about it, giving you grief long after the fact and/or just simply trying to keep the thread on track … which is consistent thread-to-thread and moderator-to-moderator … we ordinary posters just aren’t allowed to rub your nose in your “accident” day after day, week after week …
You threadshitted … it’s not demeaning when ITD stops others from flicking your shit back on you … no apology needed or warranted … I hope she does the same thing every time it happens … I can’t tell you how sick and tired I am of hearing about one minor slight transgression of mine from many many years ago …
“The OP was asking opinions from those who use Twitter. If you do not use Twitter, you had no reason to post in the thread. “
I see nowhere where the OP mentioned that he did not want to hear opinions from people who have tried Twitter and didn’t find it to their liking.
“If you wanted to share your opinion about the pitfalls or lack of value of Twitter, I’m positive that would be welcome in the forum, just not in that thread that had an opposite purpose. “
One of the purposes of that thread was to explore whether or not Twitter is worthwhile. I did it concisely and with a touch of humor.
I did not call any specific person a twit and can’t imagine that all of you would deny that are, indeed, a great many twits on twitter.
I still think the comments from ITD were personally motivated and not in the spirit of the boards. The ‘this guy’ comment was personal and demeaning.
“For the record IvoryTowerDenizen is the nice one. “
Agreed. I was very surprised by this. I hope things don’t go the way of the Oozlum bird here.
Note that there is a way to express your opinion without threadshitting.
jz78817 also mentioned he doesn’t use Twitter. Even though his post wasn’t absolutely necessary, he didn’t insult Twitter users by calling them Twits, so it went unremarked on and didn’t draw a mod note. And you got only a mod note, and not a warning, so it’s not really a big deal. I think you’re making much ado about nothing.
From the FAQ at the top of this forum:
“Threadshitting – basically, shitting on a discussion, by belittling the topic or the people discussing it. It typically takes the form of a dismissive comment, like “Who cares?” or “This is stupid!” or similar. The implication of the threadshitter is that discussion of such a topic is beneath them, and should be beneath everybody else. If you really do think that a discussion is inane or pointless, the appropriate thing to do is to not participate in it. And, of course, if you see someone threadshitting, please do not respond with personal insults or accusations: instead, REPORT the post to a Moderator.”
If you can’t see how that applies to this instance I don’t know how to help you.
I really don’t have anything to add to what others have said.
Your post was threadshitting. Threadshitting is as much about tone than content and your tone was dismissive and rude, rather than simply opinion expressing.
I was trying to head off more criticisms of your threadshitting post by stopping the Jr Modding that was happening. If the term “this guy” came off as dismissive to you I do apologize for that- it was mean as absolutely literally as “this individual poster” not in a judgmental way. However I can see how it could possibly be read that way, especially if someone was already peeved.
However I take exception that being a twitter user somehow colored my reaction. As pointed out others said they didn’t use twitter either and it drew no note, because the tone as not dismissive and no insults were used.
And I am female, just for the record.
Whether or not I’m the nice one remains up for debate.
I see nowhere where the OP was asking people to insult him and others who use Twitter.
Your post was not in the least humorous.
You indicated that anyone who used Twitter was a twit, a category that would have included the OP and most other posters in the thread.
As has been said, if you feel free to call your fellow posters twits, yet find such an innocuous reference “personal and demeaning,” this is probably not the best board for you.
Really, if you’re not understanding this at this point we probably can’t help you.
