We do, actually. Marley23 himself opened a discussion among the moderators, to check to see if others might have thought he made a bad call. (And we frequently do this in cases like this, to get feedback on our own judgement.) As he notes, the discussion was nearly unanimous to let his handling of it stand, on the grounds that have been noted. We believe the handling of this to have been fair.
You are all wrong. We’ve been over this. 
Did ya miss the part where I mentioned defending Dio? He ranks only slightly behind you and D_T on my list of people that would not be getting Christmas cards if I ever sent such things. Not only did I defend him, I chewed Rand out pretty harshly over something. Because I thought it was wrong. Even to Dio. Hell, I woulda defended YOU against the same charge.
As I stated earlier, **Rand **ain’t my favorite guy, either. I believe he got a raw deal, so I spoke up about it.
That answer your question?
Incidentally, one of you jackbooted types can lock this one if you want. I’ve had my say and I’m not foaming at the mouth any more than usual.
Or you can leave it open so people can laugh at** Fear**'s whooshage of me.
The official warning I received — still on record in my User CP with the notation that it will never be removed — was for using the verb “waddles” with TubaDiva as the subect of a sentence. In the body of his warning, Rico apologized for offending me (but did not warn himself) and proclaimed that I would be “screaming for their head on a platter” if someone else had used the same phraseology regarding me.
So the moderator presumed to know not only how TubaDiva felt (though she never said anything to me in response), but also how I would feel with the tables turned.
Therefore, Giraffe’s statement early in the thread: “I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the mods to enforce the rules based on their perceptions of how the person at the other end of an insult felt about it” seems to suggest that Rico was unreasonable. Or maybe Giraffe was wrong. Or maybe — probably — warnings about offending sensibilities are entirely arbitrary and subjective, and based on who allegedly offended whom. And only a fool would believe that mods in general do not defend other mods. It’s just the nature of the thing.
Reason enough to leave it open.
May I ask if you’ve ever been moderated that you didn’t think it was evidence of political bias?
If so, I haven’t seen it.
Actually, I’ve never been really moderated. Not a single warning on my record. Got a few notes here and there. When I do get a note, I usually apologize for the transgression. Like when I got a little too enthusiastic about debunking some bullshit a guy spewed in GQ. Think I actually reported myself for that one. Generally, when I take to the battlements, it’s over something that didn’t originally involve me. Except for the Czarcasm threads. He and I just don’t get along, as you may have noticed. But, to his credit, he never even attempted to moderate me that I recall. Snark, yeah…plenty of that…but no modding.
Indicating the severe bias on the part of the staff against conservatives. Moderator decisions have nothing to do with a poster’s behavior, and everything to do with their politics.
Oh bullshit, Colibri. That is not what I’m arguing and you know it. Many, perhaps most, mod decisions are politically neutral. Spammers die. Unless Marleywants to play with one for a while, then it dies. Socks get the ban hammer. Mostly. Unless there’s some sort of good faith effort to resolve it before they get caught. Threads about kittehs posted in ATMB are prolly going to MPSIMS by the first available mod. When the thread or incident is politically charged, lefties tend to get treated less harshly than righties.
I think part of the reason for that is because most of the mods are lefties, so even if they see something out of line from a lefty, it doesn’t register as a rule violation because they are in general agreement with the sentiment expressed. If they see something even close to the line from a righty, it trips all the alarms and klaxons, because they strongly disagree with the sentiment expressed.
I do not believe Marley intended to horribly blow this call the way he did. I think he really believes he made the right call. He’s wrong. There was no need to warn anybody under the circumstances. And even assuming for the sake of argument that a warning was justifiable, when the alleged victim starts a thread asking for it to be rescinded, the right thing to do is rescind it.
This is incorrect on every level, and every sentence. There was an insult directed at another poster. Period. That’s warnable. Whether it was provoked is entirely irrelevant: the only issue is whether the provocation itself should also be warned. The standard here has ALWAYS been: when you feel that someone is provoking you, DO NOT respond in kind. REPORT the post to the moderator. Once you’ve responded to the provocation with personal insult, you’re at fault.
The concept that insults can be excused because they are provoked is insidious. We might as well toss out the rule against personal insults. Everyone would say that the other person “provoked” it. The mods need to decide whether a provocation is warnable, but the insult is always warnable.
And finally, no, no, no, we do not rescind a warning simply because the insultee asks for it. Personal insults are not permitted outside the Pit. The “wishes” of the insulted person are irrelevant. The warning is not about “revenge” but about maintaining standards of polite decorum.
And, for cryin’ out loud, it’s just a warning. It’s not the end of the world. All this bullshit about political biases? What crap.
Actually, I think there is precedent for exactly that. IIRC, there’s a pair of posters here that are father and son. One bantered at the other, a rookie mod overreacted, warning issued, target requested rescinding, rescinding granted.
Maybe I misremember.
Whoa—zombie poster.
Why exactly do you think that your judgement is so far above that of all the 18 moderators on this site, that you are capable of “calling it as you see it” and we are not? How exactly did you come to be so astonishingly immune from political bias? Please, please, tell us your secret. I’m sure we would all like to know, so we can be unfailingly objective like you.
Personally, I find this attitude on your part extremely arrogant.You’re kidding yourself enormously if you think you are actually free of bias. From my point of view, I perceive your own posts here to be highly biased and non-objective.
We do make an honest, good faith effort to enforce the rules without reference to the politics of the person involved. If anything, we do some self-examination to see whether we might be not be reacting as you claim we do. As I said, after his decision Marley did run it by the other moderators. We reviewed it, and ended up calling it the same way he did. To the extent that Rand’s politics came up, it was to recognize we would inevitably catch flack from those who believe there is vendetta against righties on the board. But in my view, since he had committed a definite rules violation, letting him off the hook just because some might perceive bias would not have been the right thing to do.
IMHO, Oakminster hasn’t responded adequately to this central point. Insults are a per se violation of the rules. Disrespecting another poster falls under the rather more ambiguous Do Not Be A Jerk rule. In practice, GD is pretty rough and tumble, within certain clearly defined boundaries – like no direct insults. It’s not. That. Hard.
Some would argue that the board needs to be more polite. Others believe it is too polite. There are satellite boards that cater to both persuasions.
As for the political stuff – well much of it is a matter of calibration, right? For example, I’m a centrist by European standards -I could easily see myself voting for a center-right or center-left party in any number of countries. But since I live in the US, I am positioned in the far left portion of the Democratic Party.
I don’t think I’ve said most of you are incapable of being fair. I think I did say that about Czarcasm. What I’m saying is that there have been enough instances of unfairness to raise my concern. So I brought them up. In the appropriate forum, and within the rules.
For the most part, y’all do a good job. And when ya get shit on for things I don’t think are fair, I have in the past and will in the future defend you. But when you do things I don’t think are fair, you’re gonna hear that too.
Personally, I’d find that a personal attack which is not appropriate for this forum. It’s also probably true, so I ain’t gonna bitch about it.
Oakminster said:
You misremember. It was cited as a rules violation, and the formal warning was let stand.
Why do you keep implying I was ‘calling Rand out’ or something along those lines? I like Rand’s posts because even though I don’t agree with them he has a viewpoint different than my own which makes me rethink my own views (I like Sam Stone’s posts for the same reason). If I didn’t like his posts or wanted to be malicious I would have been pretty clear about that.
When I started this thread I was wanting to see if I could help get Rand’s warning taken back because I, as the recipient of the ‘insult’, didn’t feel insulted and realize my behavior helped bring it about due to a miscommunication. I don’t want Rand to run the risk of being suspended or banned because I was engaging in playful banter.
Because that’s the way I read it, and that’s the way I would have interpreted it if you’d named me.
Essentially, that line translates loosely has “Hey everybody, let’s all pile on Rand Rover because we don’t like him or his ideas on tax policy”. Not only are you calling him out by issuing a challenge to debate, but you’re basically asking him to come get gang raped by the usual suspects on the left in GD.
I accept at face value your word that you did not intend it that way. But that’s still the way I’d read it without knowing otherwise.
It would be different, in my view, if you two were all buddy-buddy and joking around all over the boards. If Skald starts a thread called “Oak should be fed to the Flying Monkeys” no one in their right mind, knowing anything at all about this board, would think there was any ill intent involved. If you start the exact same thread, given that we have clashed in the past, I’m going to consider it as at least a shot across my bow, if not an all out declaration of internet war, and respond accordingly.
Which would be to report the post to the moderators and let them handle it, or at least ask them for advice on how you should handle it.
Right?