Enough is enough. . .

The BBQ Pit
1

I am sick to death of all the “If you don’t like it take a hike!” crap. Is it a crime to see a way the board could be improved and state that opinion. After all, it is just an opinion.

The hostility of people telling other board members to take a hike everytime they voice an opinion regarding the message board is getting a little old. I never in the past felt this board was about sinking or swimming. I thought it was a friendly, community place where we could exchange ideas and once in awhile get our blood flowing with a bit of heated debate if we so chose. I am so frustrated that things have gotten so hostile. I know I could leave if I wanted to, but guess what. . .I DON’T WANT TO! I still see good things here some of the time, and I am hoping all the rudeness comes to an end soon. I like it here most of the time.

I also like almost all of the regular posters I respond to here. But I am losing respect for a lot of you who can’t stand to see others giving constructive criticism to the board moderators once in awhile. I know it has gotten to be a bit much recently, but the standard response of telling people to take a hike if they don’t like it is too harsh in my opinion. I think posters know they don’t have to be here, and if enough people let them know their criticism is not helpful, they will lay off or leave. But there is a difference between telling people to fuck off, and telling them that their criticism is not warranted.

So stop showing people the door! They came in through it, I think they can find their way out of it. If you want to use the standard houseparty reference that has been used lately, then let’s. If I show up at my friend’s house for a party, and I see him be a bit harsh or questionable to another friend of ours, I would hope that I could say “Hey Ed, ya know Tuba wasn’t trying to be x, y, or z…maybe you oughta be a little nicer/friendlier/less harsh.” I don’t consider that rude of me, and I would hope our other friends would call Ed on it too. I am not saying that people should come to the party and say “Fuck Ed, shut your cake hole.” That definitely earns them the right to be kicked out of the party, and that is what the goal of banning is.

If you don’t understand where I am coming from, I am more than willing to try to help you see where I am coming from. I really don’t know if this should be in the pit, seeing as how I am not trying to flame so to speak. . .but I am sure I am going to get flack for this. . .so, I guess say what you will. But please read carefully before you give me shit. I am not trying to say that every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes here and bitches has a right, but remember not to lump them all together, because some of them have their heart in the right place.

2

Your points are good ones. They are reasonable and considerate ones. I think people are quick to jump to conclusions and flame before first trying to intelligently lay their opposing points out calmly without wrath or to try to reason through the crux of what the other side’s position is.

I have seen people jump on moderators too quickly, jump on those who jump on moderators and moderators who go both ways jumping on others or on others who jump on others. I frankly am a fan of the Rodney King line “Can’t we all just get along?”.

3

I ain’t going for lovey-dovey, let’s all have a group hug sorta shit. Just plain old respect when it is earned would be nice.

Oh, and that line about shutting your cake hole is supposed to read more like “Fuck, Ed, shut your cake hole!”

Please don’t think I am trying to be rude to Ed though. It was just a theoretical example, and his name is the one that came to mind.

4

Take an aspirin, dear.

Problem is, it hasn’t always been constructive criticism one in a while toward moderators. The plain fact is this place is a free-wheeling venue for exchange of ideas and opinions. Yeah, the rules and interpretations are drawn with broad, generous strokes.

The alternative is rigid nitpicking, footnotes, case law and endless, dreary nitpicking. The benchmark rule is, “don’t be a jerk”. The mods and administrators have to digest entire threads, linked with related discussions, personality clashes and make a judgment call–spoing! there ya go.

Please keep in mind none of us are paying upfront for this and board housekeeping is done in spare time, unpaid (ok, a coffe mug) and done for The Greater Good. I’m not sucking up to the mods. There are exotic benefits and punishments involved? Get a grip.

But it gorks me when those judgment calls are met with outrage, forensic examination and assumed martyrdom.

People make mistakes, get carried away and cross lines. I’ve never seen a site more genuinely tolerant of that. It’s loose, imperfect but DAMNED if it isn’t high minded.
“Don’t be a jerk” encompasses the capacity and forgiveness to say, “yeah, I was a jerk; oops.”

Plain fact, Sins, this place owes us dick. Don’t confuse your emotional investment with ownership. The mods give explanations, sometimes belated or ambiguously worded to spare cut slack for posters–real posters, real people–who crossed lines and then regretted it. But pressing, demanding, insisting on “rights” when explanations have been offered is just plain presumptuous, crass and wrong.

So yeah. If it doesn’t suit you, walk on by and don’t look back. You heard the answer and didn’t like it? Tough. Get over it or get out, that simple. If even loose rules offend you, good luck, toots, 'cause you’ll need it.

Any part of this you didn’t understand?

Veb

5

Like how you confused my post with all the other hoopla going on with Otto. I never once said a damn thing about owning this place, or having rights to do what I want. Don’t even know where ya got that. It sounds like you are someone who read the post closely all right…close enough to insert your own meanings into it.

To clarify, I am sick of exactly what you did to me in the end of your post. People like you who insist on telling people with any single little issue with the message board that they can “leave if they don’t like it.” You are kidding?!?! You mean I don’t have to come here and relax a bit and enjoy a laugh or two from Wally and Coldfire? You mean I can do something else with my day?? No shit, Sherlock.

Just to clarify for everyone else…This has nothing to do with Otto, or any of that shit. This has to do with an observed pattern that has occured over the past few months of people jumping on anyone who questions or gripes about an occurance on the message board being told to leave.

Oh, and TVEblen, if you had read my post, you would see that I too have a problem with some of the people who have gone way fucking overboard with their criticism and questioning. Yes, I understand there are limits, but you people need to remember that not everyone crosses the line just because they make a suggestion about the way the message board is run. I have seen some helpful suggestions.

6

Yeah, I read your post, darlin’, and my response stands.

Constructive suggestions are given by email, to the mods and admins, referencing the issue in question. You chose to post this in a public forum, and the Pit at that. Not enjoying vigorous disagreement with your position?

Tough.

You chose it. Live with it, or get out.

Live by the sword, die by the sword, honey.

A little different when your own standards and arguments are applied back to you, hmmm?

You made it public.

Putz.

Veb

7

Is something wrong?

Your replies don’t seem to be syncing up with SINs posts.

Summary:

SINs: I think it’s stupid to tell people to leave if they ever complain about anything. People should stop doing that. Some criticism is helpful, so isn’t. It shouldn’t be attacked indiscriminately.

Veb: Shut up. The Board doesn’t owe you anything and the moderators work really hard. If you don’t like it, leave.

SINs: What the hell? I wasn’t criticising the mods. I think you confused me with the Otto fight going on. This isn’t involved with that. I just think you shouldn’t tell people to leave for criticizing the mods. Those people should just be told to shut up.

Veb: No, I understood everything. If you don’t like me attacking your posts, you shouldn’t have made them. This is your fault. *A little different when your own standards and arguments are applied back to you, hmmm?
*

Now, none of those posts are bad posts, but they don’t make any sense together, in that order. The line in italics (a direct quote, not a summary), especially, made no damn sense. And since SINs had the OP, it ain’t her fault.

It seems like you’re having a flame war with in a thread no one else can see.

–John

8

It’s a soap opera.

Except that I wind up (usually) learning something. Such as the word, omphaloskepsis. Thanks Tom!

The fussing, fighting, name-calling, bitching, moaning, groaning, pissing, complaining–hey, it’s all very entertaining.

At least it is to me.

Of course, I’m as green as grass, and therefore have not so much emotional investment as some.

9

Um, TVeblen. First of all, I am not criticizing the moderators. This has nothing to do with the moderators. If you were reading closely (at all for that matter) you would see that nothing I said had anything to do with the job moderators are doing. I think they do a pretty damn good job as a rule. This has to do with posters like you.

When did I say that I didn’t want/couldn’t handle disagreement. I can handle disagreement as long as it has a damned thing to do with the OP. The reason I can’t handle your disagreement is because it has nothing to do with my argument, and I am not appreciating you being condescending towards me when you obviously aren’t even grasping my argument. It sounds like you are just in the mood to disagree with and piss somebody off, and you don’t want to be bothered with understanding the argument you are disagreeing with.

If you would like to reread my OP, and try to grasp my point, and then argue that I am still wrong–feel free. Until then, please don’t waste mine and others’ time. And if you still can’t understand my OP, try reading Yue Han’s post, he summed up my points well enough to get you started on the road of understanding.

And a huge thank you goes to Yue Han. I have to keep reading and rereading your post. I laugh and cringe at the same time. I don’t mind if people disagree with me, but the fact that he is so oblivious (as highlighted so magnificently by your post) is just mind-boggling. Iswote called me SINsBaffle in another thread, and I am beginning to think it is appropriate, because people like TVeblen baffle me as to how they have gotten this far in life without being careful readers. :rolleyes:

10

(see the sig) TVeblen is a she.

Wait a second. I think there may be a technical problem in here. Beakeroni just made a similar (by which I mean bizarre and OT) post.

In it s/he thanks TOM and mentions how “this thread” taught hheirm the word “omphaloskepsis”.

Has this thread got its wires crossed with another?

–John
Posting in a thread titled “Enough is enough”

11

I agree with SINs. People are a little to quick to throw people out the door. I’ve seen trolls and newbies. Most of them get lumped into the same pile.

Then they get ushered out the door. I think its a little over the top. I probably make more mistakes than the average poster. I just hope people wisen up before I get shown the door too.

12

Well, I read the OP–for the fourth time–and my responses still stand. Well, mostly.

SinsA, your central argument is you’re losing respect for posters who jump on people who make constructive cricicisms to the mods, and everyone should be nicer. People should be able to criticize without being driven from the board. Is that a fair summary?

There is an entire forum for suggestions, etc. It’s called About This Message Board. (Yeah, yeah, I know, related opinions can also be posted in the Pit.)

Genuinely useful suggestions are treated with respect. But unfortunately most of the “constructive criticisms” lately (and not so recently) have consisted of rehasing mod decisions, demands for definitions of “edit”, “delete”, etc. and “show me the rule that says that!”

This isn’t the Pit anymore, it’s the Whine Cellar.

And I will state strongly that the whining has NOT been limited in any way by age or tenure on the SDMB.

So…people can criticize and give input already. BUT there are limits. This is just a message board. It is not the land of our birth, that we must reform or lose. If people aren’t happy here, then yes, they should leave and find someplace that suits them better. That isn’t mean; it’s common sense.

What is this? A message board version of the mythical Old West, where reformers and enforcers drift from town to town, instilling Order and Truth? Posters drift from board to board, smack the evil varmits silly and then ride off into the sunset to clean up another board? (“SHANE! SHANE! We looooove you, Shane!”)

Yeah, I came down pretty hard on you, SA, but it was for a reason. There’s no way in hell you, me or anyone else will get 6000 plus bright, opinionated, vocal people to agree which direction the sun rises in the morning, much less the best way to maintain a relatively calm social order. Being a critic is a lot easier than being responsible for the asylum.

So…that’s my take on the central issues: freedom to criticize and the board/poster balance.

That said, I re-read my own responses, and yeah, they did come off angrier and less satirically than I’d intended. I apologize for that. (Topic bleed? Broader context of whining and britching board-wide infecting a single post?) Whatever.

Veb

13

"Tough.

You chose it. Live with it, or get out."

Amen Veb!

I can’t believe how a concept as simple as this is so hard to comprehend by some people.

14

I still think you are missing my point Veb (I am not going to bother with Diane, she wouldn’t agree with me even if my name was Cecil Adams). My point IS NOT that “We should all just get along.” My point is that some of you people (like Diane) should understand what a person is saying before they tell them to take a flying leap.

I don’t expect 6000 people to agree on anything, I agree with you there. But I do expect 6000 people to comprehend what they read and react accordingly, instead of doing exactly what you did to me with your first few posts–which is tell me if I don’t like it I can leave, without understanding that we are on the same side. You just lumped me in with the same old group of people who bitch about anything and everything.

(since some of you folks seem to have missed it the first time)For your information, I do like it here. And I deeply respect many, I would even hazard to say most posters here. I don’t want to leave. And like I told Veb in an email, this board seems to have its ups and downs…I am just waiting for another up and hoping it comes soon.

15

Hmmm.

Okay, SINSapple, you referred to an email to me. Just for clarity, I’ll interject that it was a reply to my email to you, apologizing in person for any distress my responses may have caused to you individually.

Just for clarity…it was an attempt to “agree to disagree” and a civil attempt to mend fences.

No, you don’t have to accept my apologies–public or private–for unintended but real consequences of words of my choosing. I offered public and private amends for opinons I expressed. And you are under no obligation whatsoever to accept them.

But, just to set the record straight, they were offered.

Veb

16

SINsApple- I’m with you 100 %. Just because someone talks bossy, doesn’t make them the boss.
Whoever says “Leave The Playground It’s Mine” is just a bully, and should be sent home by the moderators.

lswote- Watch out. They (concrete/Notthemama) are linking you to me in another thread.

17

Ho - hum here we go again!

18

Why is it that no one seems to understand my point???

this has nothing to do with moderators, banning, or pissy people who bitch about every little move made by the mods and admins

I guess I am doing a poor job of explaining what I mean. All I am trying to say, in a nutshell, is that I wish people would understand what others were saying before being so quick to respond and label them a dissenter. Not everyone who offers advice, constructive criticism, or general commmentary about the board is necessarily unhappy with the way the board is run. Some just see a way that issues could be handled differently, and that goes for posters as well as mods and admins.

All I am asking is that you don’t continue lumping people together under labels without first understanding which of your little categories they must be in.

Sadly, I know this is not going to clear things up with people who think I am just joining everyone else in bitching about the message board… so ironic that with my OP I am demonstrating my OP.

19

SINS, I agree with your OP, if only because I felt fairly put-upon last week. Thankfully, I’m over it - I made my point(s). :smiley:

Esprix

20

I think I understand what you’re saying, SINs, probably because this is something that really bothers me. I think everyone should let the moderators be the moderators…let them do their job. They are the only ones who can ban people and I trust them to ban when they feel it’s necessary. If someone’s not following the rules, they’ll be outta here, not by choice. If someone’s not breaking the rules, other people shouldn’t take it upon themselves to suggest they leave. If you don’t like what someone’s saying, either don’t respond or logically state why you don’t disagree. Don’t just say, “If you don’t like it, get the hell out.” It’s not your place. It’s presumptuous. It makes you look like an ass.
In addition, voicing criticism is not a sign that someone isn’t happy posting to the board. It simply means that the criticizer thinks he can see something that could be changed, thus improving the posting experience for everyone. If you don’t agree, fine. It doesn’t mean the criticizer should pack his bags. Maybe he has a point and his suggestion could help.
Finally, if you do see someone breaking the rules and you think the moderator just hasn’t caught it yet, email the moderator and let him/her know. The moderator will handle it appropriately.