I would still like a definitive statement if possible: Cursing the staff in the pit is/is not permissible?
What more do you need? Treating the staff in an objectionable manner, Pit or not, will run you the serious risk of being banned, at least temporarily. We are all on notice.
I do agree that this should be announced. The sooner the better. Everyone should understand the new rules and the consequences.
It’s not.
You can complain about what we do as much as you like (within reason, there’s limits to everything), but why would you want to name call in the first place? What’s served by that?
I should also point out that there’s a big difference between what a staffer does personally when participating in a thread and enforcement action. Staffers are also members of the community and have a right to make posts like anyone else – up to a certain point – but you cannot hold their PERSONAL participation against them just because they happen to be a moderator or administrator. You give up some rights when you become a moderator, but you don’t lose your right to play on the board. Don’t confuse what they do as members with what they do as staffers.
TubaDiva
Well, counseler, if I understand it correctly, Ellis Dee was suspended for calling a mod a cunt in the pit, then that suspension was lifted. What I want to know in no uncertain terms is, is cursing the staff against the rules in the pit? The responses Tubadiva has provided thus far seem rather amorphous (to me, at least) on the point.
Compounding the issue, reading some of the above posts, it appears that textually abusing mods in the past was apparently at least de facto kosher.
Perhaps cunt it just right out and everything else other than hate speech is tolerated?
That’s definitive for me. Thanks!
What about the other way around? Ought not the staff differentiate just as carefully between what members say to them as members, and what members say to them as staffers? If one member may disrespect another in the Pit, then if a mod joins in the fray as a member posting retorts and jabs, ought not he be required to endure the same sort of response that any member would have to endure? Isn’t that different from a member disrespecting a mod in his capacity as mod? I can understand the historical and political reasons that you would protect your own brood, but now that your customers are paying, it seems to me that your responsibilities are as much fiduciary as they are parochial, are they not?
I can’t help but feel the banning served to make an unnecessary point. With this post, Ellis Dee humbly crawled back into his shell:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6952677&postcount=6
I thought the mods actions up to that point and even several posts afterwards were fair. The point was made, taken, and a lesson learnt. The banning then totally overboard, and rightfully undone.
TubaDiva seemed to want to make a point, and Ellis Dee happened to be a way to make it, but that’s just conjecture on my part.
I think it is reasonable to ask of users to treat Moderators with respect, but generally I think Moderators manage to earn respect pretty well without having to enforce it in God-mode. A threat of action wasn’t even necessary in this case, but should otherwise have been the normal next step, and only after that a week of suspension to cool off in order. Or so at least has been my experience with these matters (I personally have never been banned in my life, but have seen a fair few unfair bannings).
Sorry, I’m still confused. Are you saying that it’s not okay to insult a moderator for a moderator action, but it is okay to insult a moderator for a non-moderator action? As in, I can’t call tomndebb an asshole for closing my thread, but I can call him an asshole for advocating a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Belgium?
Which he would never do. tomndebb’s geo-political knowledge enables him to realize that it is Luxembourg which is in need of a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
Why do you care if namecalling serves any purpose? It’s a freakin message board, for crying out loud.
I have to disagree. I think the word “bitch,” esp. in the US, is applied to both genders. Thanks to hip hop, now men can be called bitches, which means they are wimpy and less powerful. I’ve also heard “cunt” used towards men, esp. by Brits, to carry a similar meaning as “bitch” when directed at a man.
I don’t think so. I think both “bitch” and “cunt” are increasingly unisex. They are both still insulting to women because the use femaleness as an insult, but are not solely directed towards women.
I can’t understand why one word is so much worse than another. Using words like this only demean the user. Why let it splatter on you by taking it seriously and getting all huffy and enraged? What happened to “sticks and stones”? JMO, YMMV.
So I take this to mean Admins will continue to overreact to naughty words and ban/suspend people on a whim until they come crawling back? Ellis was plenty contrite and corrected his behavior long before he was suspended. The suspension was not the correction, it was petty vindictiveness.
Still there’s been no clarification on why the supposed “infraction” as quoted here was patently untrue. There’s been no clarification of who exactly was upset by the action and presumably found his apology insincere.
I’m glad he’s been reinstated. But I don’t like the message that’s being sent here. If you offend a mod, even if you almost immediately say you’re sorry and stop doing it, you’re likely to be suspended for a month? No thanks.
What I haven’t seen here is a thank you.
Thank You TubaDiva (and others involved) for the early lifting of this suspension. I appreciate the position of the Mods/Admin.s on this and thanks for listening and reconsidering. I know you didn’t have to do it.
:rolleyes:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6960763&postcount=76
More than one forum, you know. I even linked to that thread in this one.
Save the rolleyes. I read this thread, not every thread, didn’t follow every link and didn’t do a “Thank you” search. I appreciate you making the statement in that thread and am glad someone did but my statement stands for the thread in which it is posted. Many asked for reconsideration and got it but never even skipped a beat in the derision. To your credit, you obviously are not one of those.
Fair enough. Peace, my tobacco byproduct abbreviation plus a year friend.
Back to the name calling topic. What if the name calling accurately describes the Mod in question? For instance, calling them a smarmy right or left winger? Or like the case of Skipmagic, who is a poopyhead, can I call him a poopyhead? Okay, just answer the serious part of the Q, if you’re gonna be that way about it…
Yeeesh! It was Lichtenstein. Beligium’s got too much good beer and Luxemburg is too close to Belgium.
For what it’s worth: we are still working out some of the boundaries. I am certainly not going to get upset about being called names in the Pit over personal posts I have made and I have generally tried not to slam people with rudeness if I am also slapping them with a board infraction. (I will not claim to have succeeded in all cases.) For that matter, I am unlikely to get bent out of shape if I use board rules to smack down a poster and the poster responds with anger in the Pit.
One of the issues that came up in the Staff discussions of this incident was the perception that Staff is occasionally (and with increasing frequency) subjected to abuse out of proportion to the event when carrying out routine chores–such as shutting down a thread. I, personally, do not know exactly where the line should be drawn. I have tended to laugh at the insults hurled at me over the years (as a poster and also as a Mod on Fathom, for example), but there is also the issue/concern that simply ignoring abuse seems to encourage it to get worse.
I am not going to set out guidelines, here. For one thing, I think the staff is still trying to sort out where the boundaries should be and I do not have any intention of prematurely stating a boundary that has not been agreed upon by the staff. But I think it is important to realize that there is neither a desire to make Mods untouchable nor a desire to set up random traps in which to catch posters.
Besides, some of you are totally unimaginative in your name-calling. Tomndebb yawns at the sight of asshole. Try gullible or unprogressive.
Ooh! Ooh! I find some of you boring and unimaginative.
Take that.
Can we at least still call SkipMagic twee?