“Refusal to cooperate with board moderators or to abide by these rules is grounds for revocation of your posting privileges.”
It’s acceptable to disagree with how the board is operated or to question individual moderator/administrator decisions; it is never acceptable behavior to be deliberately abusive, which the above clearly falls into.
I don’t get it. That whole thing was one great big abortion all around - I can’t follow the situation well enough to even guess what Ellis Dee was going on about, but a failed attempt at a pitting doesn’t seem like that big a sin. Out of curiosity, what exactly did he do to merit suspension?
We don’t expect you to put staffers on a pedestal.
Honest disagreement is great; we’re not perfect, we make mistakes, we want those called to our attention. Sometimes we even learn from these incidents, it’s been known to happen.
You can even continue to hold dissenting opinion with our enforcement actions; that’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion and we can agree to disagree, no problem.
We insist that you treat the staff with basic civility and some decent manners. (As you are also entitled to from the staff, at the least, at the very least.) Ellis Dee was abusive. That’s never the good way to go.
I guess I don’t disagree in principle, but that doesn’t really seem consonant with what’s generally done in the pit. I mean, staffers have been pitted before, and even if calling them “cunts” isn’t very nice, is it usually the case that you can flame away in a pit thread so long as you’re not targeting a mod? Because that sort of abusive language is permitted all the time in pit threads. Since the pit is where we’re required to start threads relating to SDMB policies, it seems to me that you should be able to flame the mods if you choose the same way you’d flame other users.
Lemme stick my nose into (yet another) place it don’t belong. It seems to me that while what you say is true enough, you’re missing a crucial distinction. That being, becoming abusive over an issue of board administration, rather than simply over one’s personal/private opinion on any given topic.
It’s never a good idea to refer to anyone who works for this board as a “cunt.” Or any of the other Anglo-Saxon words people like to throw around when describing others.
I see no reason why staffers should have to tolerate this sort of behavior from anyone.
Disagree with what we do? Okay. Call staffers names and make personal attacks on them for it? Nope.
We’ve banned people from the board for this kind of bad behavior n the past. Ed used to refer to it as “Rule #2: Don’t piss off the moderators.”
No one who works here should have to put up with abuse as an everyday part of the job, and if you can’t see that, well, we will have to agree to disagree on this one too.
The practice as I’ve perceived it up until this point has been that if it’s the pit, you can flame, as long as you don’t cross the “wishing death” line. Some people even go way overboard with the flaming on purpose in order to cathartically express their anger. Especially when it’s overboard and short-lived. That has always been OK, even the number one reason to read the Pit for some people.
The post seemed a little too nasty to me, but there have been plenty of equally over-the-top flaming pits in the past, even of mods, without this kind of response. It didn’t seem genuine, it seemed like hyperbolic over-expression of anger.
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Unclebeer**, that’s true, but it isn’t a distinction that has resulted in disciplinary action in the past, as far as I’m aware. A cite proving me wrong would make me and probably a lot of other people feel better. A snazzy “shame on you!” post would’ve been more in line with the way business has been conducted in the Pit in the past, when people flame way unfairly. Would most likely have resulted in a sincere apology, everyone feeling better and going along with their day.
The rule TubaDiva is quoting refers to “refusal to cooperate with board moderators,” which I don’t see Ellis Dee doing AT ALL. I think he’s been railroaded here, particularly since it’s apparent he went out of his way to follow the rules. Mods, can you reconsider?
That’d only be apropos if they claimed that members and admins/mods are equal. IMO they’re not, nor should they be, and I don’t recall the admins saying otherwise.
You believe that staffers should be required to accept personal abuse, is that a perk of your membership?
Staffers are actually less equal than members in a lot of ways; they’re members too, but restricted to what they can say and what they can do on their own behalf. They are not allowed to get down and dirty with the rest of you. They often cannot tell you their personal feelings about situations. They are held to a far higher standard of conduct than any other member. AND they work their asses off to get you the best board experience they can come up with on their own time, which they generously contribute.
What do they get for that? A coffee mug and a big thank you from management.
So are they “more equal?” No. They’re different. And not having to be abused while they work for you is appropriate.
If it was up to me, all name calling would be out, period . . .but some of you really enjoy that too much. I’d like to see more civility extended to everyone here and to each other most of all.
To me, that is one of the most hateful, insulting words in the English language. Discussion here has me convinced that it isn’t universal to find that word that offensive - although in my experience, it is (i.e. women from similar backgrounds as me find it as offensive as I do). We don’t tolerate hateful words flung at our gay, black or Jewish members - why do we tolerate it flung at our female members? Some things are over the line, even in the Pit, and I’ve always thought this word should be one of them.
You’re right, of course - I’ve never seen a claim of equality.
OTOH, reading TubaDiva’s logic: “No one who works here should have to put up with abuse as an everyday part of the job…”, I have to wonder why people paying to post here should have to put up with abuse as an everyday part of the service. If we follow this logically, we should suspend all posters who flame mods and posters entirely. Yet it’s been repeatedly argued that this is impossible, hence the “safety valve” of the pit.
Put me in the bewhildered camp. It was a crazy, over the top post in the appropriate crazy, over the top forum - and furthermore, the poster apologized and agreed that it was crazy and over the top. A suspension seems ridiculous.
On preview, I see TubaDiva agrees with my first point. But this:
Seems to indicate that there’s some administrative policy that mods cannot be sworn at, the same way there’s some administrative policy that mods get a coffee mug and a thank you. Is this true? Is it in a sticky? Has it ever been enforced before and will it now be regularly enforced in the future? Even when the poster realizes the error of his ways and apologizes (which is what we’ve been told a suspension is for)? If so, cool. I’d be fine with that myself. But it really ought to be put in a sticky somewhere very prominent.
I have no problem following rules, but I have a big problem with management making rules on the fly and not telling anyone about them, or citing non-applicable rules that haven’t been infringed.
Especially, and I can’t say this enough, after a sincere apology.
[QUOTE=TubaDiva]
You believe that staffers should be required to accept personal abuse, is that a perk of your membership?/QUOTE]
I mentioned in the other thread that I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that we not use abusive language in reference to moderatorial decisions. I don’t remember there ever being a claim that “All Dopers are created equal”. The problem here is that it’s not a rule any of us can ever remember being enforced before, which makes it seem arbitrary. I can except this under the general auspices of “Don’t be a jerk”; this decision doesn’t strike me as wrong so much as confusing. It would be nice to see a ruling on exactly what is and isn’t permitted.
You make a good point. While there’s no rule against flaming, there is a rule against hate speech. I would agree that “cunt” qualifies as hate speech. It’s not a word I’ve ever heard people throw around lightly (though I think it’s used more casually outside the United States.)
Let’s try that again, without coding mistakes this time.
I mentioned in the other thread that I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that we not use abusive language in reference to moderatorial decisions. I don’t remember there ever being a claim that “All Dopers are created equal”. The problem here is that it’s not a rule any of us can ever remember being enforced before, which makes it seem arbitrary. I can except this under the general auspices of “Don’t be a jerk”; this decision doesn’t strike me as wrong so much as confusing. It would be nice to see a ruling on exactly what is and isn’t permitted.
You make a good point. While there’s no rule against flaming, there is a rule against hate speech. I would agree that “cunt” qualifies as hate speech. It’s not a word I’ve ever heard people throw around lightly (though I think it’s used more casually outside the United States.)
Clearly the art of invective is lost on you, and it is an art, and an old and noble one. The fact that people (including Mods) may enjoy the hurly-burly of insult and counter-insult, sometimes richly imaginative, sometimes blunt and Anglo-Saxon, and feel the better for getting it off their chest, is something you obviously cannot grasp. This was the very reason for the creation of the Pit, was it not?
If I may say so, you have allowed your personal feelings to cloud your judgement and you should have the grace to recognize that.
