I have to agree with elucidator. In the grand scheme of things, saying “Free Market Mouseketeer” within the context of that thread shouldn’t even be a blip on the mod radar.
I’m surprised that it warranted a mention.
Now, I gotta ask, for clarification:
What is inflammatory about the phrase “Free Market Mouseketeers”?
The phrase? Nothing in particular. Thrown in as one more tedious shot as a synonym for “Mickey Mouse opinions” when not backed by anything of substance, it is raising the heat of the thread with insults while shedding no light and lacking even the mitigating aspect of humor.
It was not a rule violation and I did not treat it as such. I simply found it to be an unnecessary shot in a thread that was borderline hostile with a good chance that it would raise the hostility without improving the thread.
I’m a bit surprised that it prompted a whole thread as a response.
Why the Hat? If you had no official business to conduct, why the Hat? You are always free to offer helpful suggestions so that, one day, I might bask in the glow of your approval, I wait with bated breath for such pearls of guidance. But you don’t need the Hat to do that.
And while I regret that my shabby jests fail, the fault is either yours or mine, and in either case is most likely permanent. I’m not funny or you have a limited sense of humor, either way, we’re stuck with it. But you don’t need the Hat to tell me you don’t like my jokes.
And while we’re about it, when did judging “substance” fall under your jurisdiction?
Tom, it was not elucidator’s choice of words that prompted a thread, but yours.
elucidator, I suggest that the following in this thread is an example of the empty rhetoric that you will want to avoid if you don’t want to “raise the hostility without improving the thread”:
The irony of the self-referential!
I did not judge the substance, I merely recognized its absence.
As precious a semantic distinction as I’ve ever seen.
All my distinctions are precious; that’s why I get the big bucks.
By “precious”, I mean vacuous, sophistic, and evasive. No cute kittys are involved.
Anytime a moderator is moderating, they need to use the hat. He was moderating in the sense of making sure that your comment didn’t go unheeded, and thus start hostilities.
As for judging whether a post has content: that’s been the purview of the mods since I’ve been here. Threads are shut down here for lack of content. The actual rules are mostly in MPSIMS, but that forum actually has the laxest standard on the board for content, with the whole “Mundane and Pointless” part.
The only reason your content-less posts have been left alone seems to be that they usually are humorous, and at least point back to actual content. But, if they are judged to be inflammatory, don’t be surprised if you get called on it.
Yeah, except for the small fact that we are all adults here and don’t need Minority Report-style moderation in instances like this one. Often enough, “hostilities”, as much as they exist on a messageboard, iron themselves out without moderator intervention (or mention).
If genuine hostilities had ensued after the fact, then bring the mod hammer down. Not before then.
Not gonna happen.
I am aware that there are a number of posters who view Moderation as though it was fully circumscribed by a set of rules and that, like referees in some sport, we should be constrained from taking any action that does not explicitly enforce a rule after it has been violated.
Following that sort of scenario–particularly in GD–would result in an even more hostile environment for discussion, in which numbers of posters who did not want certain topics discussed or positions espoused would simply walk the line, submitting as many inflammatory posts as they could get away with, so as to distract from serious discussion.
The Mods in GD have always sought to push posters back from the edge and to sprinkle water on the flames.
The only enforce rules after explicit violations concept will not work well, here, and we are not going to switch to that model after more than ten years of following a model of moderating the interactions of posters.
Note that I’m okay with this only as long as there are no preventative warnings or worse. Ultimately a moderator’s job is to enforce the rules, but also to help people not break them.
It really has less to do with keeping people from getting warnings, and more to do with keeping the thread from being destroyed. As much as people protest–we really don’t act “adult” enough here to not to need at least gentle reminders not to break the rules and ruin threads.
But in this instance Tom, it really seemed more like a prediction of an outcome that you chose to try to nip in the bud than actually administering to an actual violation of the rules.
Anyway…whatever. My annoyance is only superseded by my apathy, so you will always win anyhow. It wasn’t a big deal then and isn’t now.
But you have to admit, it was a pretty mild “infraction” to even merit a moderator mention. More egregious examples of insulting behavior have occurred in GD with less moderator interaction, and they resolved themselves all right.
No, I don’t have a cite!
Given that I just explicitly noted that Mods will intervene in cases other than rule violations, that would hardly be surprising.
I was responding to the complaints of other posters. I did not consider it an egregious example of anything and I do not recall having claimed that it was a serious breach of the peace. Further, I explicitly noted that the post to which I was responding was not alone in its “content free” expression and my only actual recommendation, directed to all the thread participants, was that “more thought and fewer insults might turn [it] into an interesting discussion”–hardly a ponderously threatening Moderator action.
Really. Well, that’s odd. There is only Xtisme making any complaints, and then you step in. But there were plural, posters. Moving you to comment about me being rude and inflammatory. Yeah, it was right after this…
Which isn’t rude and inflammatory, otherwise it might have drawn a rebuke. You would have said something if it were rude and inflammatory. But you didn’t.
You must have determined that it was offered as constructive criticism, aimed at improving my character and style to be more wholesome and productive. Yes, that must be it.
But there were others? Or is the plural an oversight? Must have been private messages. Well, since I don’t know these people who hold me in such warm regard, would you be so kind as to extend appropriate gratitude? Since you know who they are, and I don’t. They probably didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Yes, that must be it.
But give me a ballpark, just for curiosity, was it ten other posters? Seven? Five?
Depends on who’s gore is getting oxed, I’d say. I’ve seen other posters issued similar ‘warnings’ (keep in mind, it wasn’t an official warning here, just a Mod telling a poster they were skating close to the edge) for as much or even less…just as I’ve seen posters do more and not get anything at all. My take is that the Mods can’t be everywhere, or look at every post in every thread, so sometimes stuff slips by…while sometimes they try and step in early enough or soon enough to prevent the kinds of situations where things can spin out of control BEFORE they have to issue official warnings or even suspensions or bannings.
Frankly, seeing 'luci’s ‘Free Market Mouseketeers’ coming from this particular poster would have elicited some counter jibes <which, considering the forum we are in I’ll manfully restrain myself from making here>…and I doubt I’d have been the only poster inclined to respond with those counter jibes. Now, perhaps this would have all managed to magically work itself out, since we are all such good friends here and all, but somehow, on this particular subject, I’m not seeing it. YMMV of course.
I still fail to see why 'luci is given such a pass on this kind of thing, both by the mods and by other posters (though I note that most of the folks scratching their heads about why Tom could possibly have issued his psudo-warning on such a subject aren’t exactly those who would be stung by the phrase, or, more importantly who was making it and why). I have to wonder, though, if the poster wasn’t 'luci, and if the playful phrase (all in good fun, no doubt) was something they are more in tune with, if the reactions would have been the same.
I’m a bit dismayed that Tom seems to be back peddling in this thread, as if the massive weight of 'luci’s argument (which amounts to whining about getting called on one of his little remarks that we are supposed to pretend is all in fun) has made him see the light. If that’s the case, then I expect the next time I toss out a similar content free remark aimed specifically to take a poke at some left wing ideal that I think is bullshit (but don’t want to go to all that work stuff involved in actually making an argument thingy), that I won’t be warned off either…right? And we’re all good with that…correct? And we’re all good with responding to 'luci-like comments about Free Markets and Mouseketeers with equal venom filled content right back…correct?
If so, then fair enough. I’m good with that, if that’s really what we want GD to degenerate into. Gods knows, there is plenty of that in there now, but if the mods are going to back peddle about telling a poster to back off because the poster is popular and, really, it was all in fun anyway (besides, it wasn’t all THAT insulting, unless you happen to be one of those stogy Free Market types…you know, like most reputable economists and all that) then I can see much more of this kind of thing in the future (even with the mod interventions we get enough of it NOW…and I do it as much as anyone else. I have to say that I keep it to a minimum BECAUSE I know the mods will spank me if I go over the line too far, in fact). And I can see much more of people thinking that the mods are taking sides if such a remark as that whined about (oh sorry, I mean mentioned) in the OP is given a pass (even if only a retroactive pass) while one that attacks other sacred cows are not.
Personally, I feel up to the task of meeting Free Market Mouseketeer type remarks in kind, if that’s REALLY where we want to go. I guess my question would be…IS that where we want to go, more-so than we already have? I mean, isn’t that what the Pit is for?
-XT
Your civility and decorum are a beacon to us all.
Just as elucidator’s implications that my heavy jackboots on his neck are threatening his very spirit, (or whatever his accusation is), seem overblown, your claim that I am backpedalling seems odd.
Having received some not-going-to-be-divulged number of Reports regarding his post that I quoted and then reviewing the other posts on that page of that thread, I noted that his crack was inappropriate and also noted that the general tone of the thread could use some improvement. Both of those statements are in the actual post quoted at the beginning of this thread.
= = =
There are a number of posters whose “contributions” typically lack the erudition and evenhanded balance of those provided by, say, Tamerlane, (to unfairly pick on a poster whose posts are routinely erudite and balanced). They run the gamut of partisan politics, declarations that one or another philosophy or theology (or lack) are stupid or evil, and personal prejudices. Such posts are, (again, typically), short, predictable, and lacking in cites and the majority of posters tend to ignore them.
Allowing such content free posts has more to do with allowing them to fade into background noise than permitting anyone to get away with anything. (I am always amused by the complaints that the staff is favoring one view or another, given that the posts cover the whole spectrum of views and the occasional objections are brought by posters from the entire spectrum of views (generally from posters whose views are in opposition, of course).
On those occasions when a post or two seems to have rankled enough people to potentially disrupt a thread, the Mods will step in.
To the implied threat that if he can get away with it, then maybe others should do the same thing I would point out several drawbacks:
- The posters who “get away” with such comments tend to be the ones who do not provide much in the way of substance and they get away with it specifically because they get ignored.
- If someone decides to make a practice to retaliate with similar remarks, then it probably will compel the Mods to lower the boom more tightly on all discussions, but the posters on whom the hammer will first be dropped will be the ones who are raising the noise level by upping the rhetoric.
(Some of the discussed posters do get reported, regularly, but when we notice that they are always reported by exactly the same poster and no one else appears to be bothered by it, we tend to pay less attention to the complaints as personal grudges. If anyone finds themselves reporting the same poster over and over to no effect, consider that it might be a case where you seem to be the only one bothered by the matter.)
Ah, heck no! (“Heck” isn’t too strong, is it?) Got a lot of faults, and its a long list, but “delicate”? Not there. I think of you as a pretty good egg and a fair-to-middlin’ moderator. When I get done making fun of you, I’ll most likely continue to scamper through the forest, like the timid woodland creature I am, searching for nuts and berries.
This is a little disappointing. Curiousity, mostly, to see the breakdown of Dopers who clutched their pearls and fainted dead away at the scorching epithet “Free Market Mouseketeers”. As compared to the ones who were shocked! shocked! at my relentless parade of content-free postings, being, in total, as of that moment, two.