Thus far I’ve been pretty careful about revealing personal information on the boards. I’m a pretty private person. I think many people would assume I’m older than I am, and that I’m a white person. It makes me chuckle a bit. Both of these things are untrue. I registered at the Dope in 2003. I was just out of college. My parents immigrated to this country – poor and not speaking any English. I’m first generation American. I’ve also been the target of quite a bit of racism growing up as a minority in a predominantly non-minority community. I became a CPA, am raising a family, and am currently serving as an elected official. I’m basically the American Dream as I see it.
My main reason for coming to the Dope has always been to argue. I like arguing. I like the challenge, and I like to learn. I feel the way to get to the best arguments is through adversarial discussion. I even wrote about how I like to argue. Arguing on the Dope actually helped improve my skills both in online written debate, as well as live in person debate, and most likely helped me win election.
When Ed asked me to become a moderator, I was glad. I had hoped to help leave this community better than it was when I got here. I was the one pushing for some of the more detrimental forces to be removed, like Clothahump and Starving Artist. As is plain to see in warnings and moderator action, I am responsible for the departure of other negative forces like WillFarnaby, and have put even more on notice. I have argued against more severe action towards some of our more liberal members who got over exuberant in their transgressions.
I always strived to be impartial – often withdrawing from threads where I had to moderate, or not even starting to participate when I felt the thread may need moderation in the future. But that meant I got to participate a lot less. And as more and more likeminded folks have left the board, it became increasingly frustrating when good arguments were not made in lieu of bad ones.
Lately I’ve been a bit disillusioned with the state of things. Most conservative voices on the Dope are gone. There are a few voices left who I think always present strong arguments, but their voices are few and far between. What’s left are many of the dregs, and it brings down the quality of discourse. Nearly any prolific conservative poster has a running pit thread. Every comment is interpreted in the most negative way possible, and after a while it gets pretty tedious. Granted, much of what is said is well deserved. But some of it isn’t. But rather than quality argument, intelligent voices gets drowned out by low quality bickering.
The board just isn’t the place it once was for me – a place to engage in spirited debate. And as more and more conservative voices leave, the chance of that coming back gets less and less. I can’t do it as a moderator, and there are few conservative posters left who can and are willing to engage in the level of debate that I enjoy.
This weekend I lit into a few posters at Giraffe Boards who are also members here. I had some harsh words for them, and it’d be easy to make some excuse, but that wouldn’t be honest. I meant what I said. It’s really nothing that I couldn’t also say in the Pit here, but as there wasn’t a relevant Pit thread, I said it over there. But saying it out loud is a no no for mods. We can complain about privately, but doing so publicly is not allowed. We’re not supposed to bitch about other posters. I knew this. I simply got tired of people who make the board a worse place for discussion to continue to spread their crap. I rarely participate in the Pit, and when I do it’s generally nothing that can’t be said in any other forum. I’m probably one of the few conservative posters with a significant amount of posts who has never been pitted.
But really, these aren’t even the worst offenders – they were just who was available. Having run out of patience to suffer fools is incompatible with being a moderator. So a combination of things probably not getting better, as well as a lack of patience in dealing with it, means I am resigning as a Moderator, effective immediately.
I’ve had a good run, but it’s time. Since I’ve gotten here, I took the time to catalog every warning ever given – by moderator, time of day, day of week, reason for warning. I read through every email from the mod loop since inception. I did this to ensure consistency. I kept track of every vote for every suspension and every banning to see if there were trends we may be unaware of. In my time here, I’ve grown fond of a great many posters – a group whose posts I would make a point to read even if I wasn’t interested in the thread. People like Bricker, Richard Parker, Ravenman, Hamlet. All of whom have continually offered strong, intelligent, and forceful arguments, as well as with some cutting wit. My favorite posters for sure, and we didn’t agree very much. But most of whom don’t post regularly anymore, and it’s too bad. One of these days I hope the spirited debate returns in some way.
Good luck.
