I see that now, but no, that’s not what I was objecting to. I didn’t comment on your use of the phrase, or hers.
It’s not an insult. If it was an insult, I probably would have warned you for insulting her. What it is is obnoxious and condescending. I was trying to get you to stop addressing her in that way so the thread would stay on track without the two of you sniping at each other.
As I said, I didn’t construe it as an insult. I correctly saw you were being snide, and that’s why I said to dial it back.
Next time, less flavor and more content, alright?
I think this is just selection bias. But if I see two people veering over the line, I do try to address my mod notes to both of them. That sometimes causes complaints of its own, but I’d rather do that than just flagging whoever retaliates.
“Wake the fuck up” is rhetorical, and I don’t see it as a problem.
While that’s true, I’m still obliged to try to be fair: I think your comment was over the line and hers wasn’t. I didn’t expect that you were going to not only misunderstand my comment, but continue to go after Eva Luna.
But the situation has already been dealt with. tomndebb gave her a general mod note, and that’s the same thing I would have done.
That’s one way of putting it. I think the goal of the rule is to keep the discussion on track. Once people start insulting each other, the factual part of the conversation is usually over and it turns into an insult contest. Those are fine but we have a different forum for that.
That’s not even close to true.
Tom admonsihed her for general tone. The “lies” is a specific violation. It does seem to merit an instruction, but if you’re fine with letting it pass, that’s the end of it for me.
Thank you for your responses.
Now only if that tom would show up, hat in hand, falling over himself with profuse apology. As he is so quick to do.
Just thought I’d throw my opinion in here that the moderators did a great job of trying to defuse a fight in GD and acted perfectly reasonably throughout. Kudos.
He did something similar with me when we were debating an issue. The word he used was hun. I couldn’t decide if that was an uncapitalized reference to Atilla or his warriors or a misspelled term of endearment. At any rate, I asked him not to call me that, and he did it again. Such words as Hon, Missy, and Toots are not “snide,” as Magellan01 describes them. They are attempts to diminish the other person. Women my age grew up with those words and know exactly how they are used. I suspect that Magellan01 also knows since he has demonstrated that.
Good call, Marley. The same to Tom.
Agreed. More bitching goes on in here than the Pit.
Respectfully, I believe I can identify the root of the problem in this moderation episode:
Marley23 said:
What is “this”? This thread is yet another example of several I have seen where a moderator comment/note/instruction has used vague terms “this” as opposed to explicitly spelling out what the infraction/violation/unacceptable behavior is.
Instead of “this isn’t called-for, dial it back”, try
“Patronizing other board members isn’t called-for, dial it back.”
or
“Your tone isn’t called-for, dial it back.”
or something specific, so the person knows what “this” is.
It should cut down on threads being started over “why was I moderated?” and situations like Sleeps with Butterflies violating what she was warned not to do in the thread because nobody responded to her in-thread request for clarification of what it was she was being warned not to do.
Freudian Slit said:
Amen. And don’t turn every exchange with a moderator into a pissing contest.
They probably would.
Baal Houtham said:
Your summary is illuminating. What we have is an exchange that is a series of escalating remarks and tone, starting from perfectly acceptable and ending in direct personal attack. Now the moderator comes along and has to sort out which are acceptable and where the line is and who has crossed it.
Of course, the simple and unambiguous thing would be to ban both parties for starting a fight and be done with it. That would get rid of the ambiguity and unfairness that many people seem to be complaining about. Somehow I don’t see that reducing the complaints about moderation.
magellan01 said:
Seems to me the whole point of those kind of “snide” remarks is to be dismissive of the other person. Seems to me those are personal remarks that escalate the argument to a flamewar rather than address the salient points. Seems to me that kind of tone is a way to start a fight, not continue a discussion. That form of address seems to me rather jerkish.
I agree, and I’ll try to be clearer on those kind of notes.
Well, technically the rule changes of last year forced it to go that way. Complaining about The Powers That Be here has always been one of our favourite things. 
First, thanks for taking the time to dissect this. I think some of this is spot on, some of it misses the mark. Let me explain:
I think you have the right idea here, but it might not (as in the case in question) be specific enough. One of the things at the heart of the disagreement is that what I surmised Marley23 had in mind was different from what he actually had in mind. Something like “Cut back on the snide remarks, like “toots””.
I think **Baal Houtham ** got much of it right. I did take Eva Luna’s “wake the fuck up” as a direct personal attack. One that was out of the blue, as I hadn’t even addressed her at all. That said, I think just banning people willy-nilly isn’t the answer, but when the temperature is being raised by two people, a gentle admonishment to both seems the best course. As you move from there to Warnings and Bannings, I think the NBA-like notion of just throwing out both players can be quite unfair. I do think that in this particular instance it would have been fine to either Warn both of us or neither of us.
It would be jerkish if it came out of the blue. The question is whether the other poster did something to be sneered at or deserving of a hint of disrespect. As I said, I thought, and still think, that Eva Luna was out of line in her first response to me. And that once she started with that she earned whatever disrespect that she got served.
Food for thought: Can something be “snide” and “sneering” and intentionally displaying “disrespect” without being insulting? We are talking about GD here.
William Buckley had a way of undercutting his opponent, but it was with wit and intellect. And I never heard him cross the line into offensiveness. Besides, his arguments were well prepared. Why resort to nastiness? (Politically, Buckley and I did not agree.)
Yes. Examples:
You don’t know what you’re talking about, genius.
Look, son, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sorry, missy, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Let me help you out, hun,…
Granted, the first one is a little different, but these are all examples of snide comments that are not insults.
In response to nastiness. It’s an option that I feel is sometimes appropriate.
Sycophant.
But no one was being nasty to you. You just came off as petty being rude when you had no reason to.
Her very first response to me was rude. And I hadn’t even addressed her. And then she accused me of weaseling, which I did not do in the least. At that point, she deserved what she got. And more. And the fact that Marley came in and mishandled things (IMO) didn’t help. Inadvertently, his moderating inflamed the situation instead of calming it.
Disagree
I nominate this post for a sticky.
I was reading the thread yesterday and my first reaction to your first “toots” comment was “Damn he sure doesn’t like it when people correct him!” because you were talking about “anchor babies” when there’s really no such thing these days.
This is simply how your comment came off to a passer-by. Her first reply didn’t seem personal at all, just annoyed at seeing the same old tired myth being spread. This is her area of expertise so I can see why she would be annoyed by a misrepresentation of how that particular law works.
Whether this was your intention or not, this is how it was perceived by at least one person. Because of my reaction, I felt your first unofficial warning was justified.
And because you then behaved like a total jerk in reaction to the unofficial warning, hijacking the thread to stomp and pout I think the official warning was justified. You should have PMed a mod or started the complaint thread here THEN instead of causing a disruption in an otherwise calm conversation about a rather heated topic.
Sorry you don’t see it that way, but sometimes we need an outside opinion to see how we’re coming off to others. No offense intended, you seem like a perfectly fine person and I don’t know your posting history at all. This is just based on the one thread.
Know how going in circles makes you dizzy? Remeber what Ferdinand Magellan was known for? That’s how this magellan’s posts come across.
Eva Luna did not insult you, and in any case you increased the nastiness in the thread. That’s why I got involved. So the response is usually not appropriate, and it invites the very moderator intervention that you’re complaining about in this thread.
It inflamed you, not the situation. That’s not quite the same thing. 