In this post: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11891431&postcount=50 Twickster issues a warning to Hajario for supposedly snarking on a post by Lynn. What really happened was that Lynn posted that she sometimes gets up in the middle of the night and eats pie from the fridge, Haj replied that there’s no wonder BMI’s are so high in America, Lynn posts back that no, really, she has a sleeping disorder and only eats cheese and crackers, Haj posts back that even if HE gets up to pee at night he doesn’t eat several hundred calories worth of cheese and crackers before going back to bed.
Are you trying to argue that Haj’s post was not snarky? Not even a little bit? That is going to be awfully difficult position to take.
I think it was snarky but that the warning was not warranted, but maybe I’m jaded from my own warning that twickster gave me yesterday. She must not have received my Christmas present yet.
No it was NOT snarky…if someone posts that they throw on a bathrobe to get up in the middle of the night to EAT PIE, there’s no reason why someone shouldn’t make the comment about BMI in America.
It sounded more like a throw away comment to me. Anyway I don’t really see the big deal about eating in the middle of the night if you wake up and are hungry. I have a BMI that’s close to really low and on occasion I’ve been known to eat in the middle of the night. And sometimes it’s junk food.
No problem then. I’m just really curious why the warning was issued for that comment. It makes no sense at all. It’s a fact that eating right before going to bed adds fat to your body, therefore, saying something about the BMI should be okay. Unless, apparently, you’re talking about someone on this board. Someone that is an admin at that.
To quote the full exchange, for those who can’t be arsed to follow a slew of links:
At post #3, **Lynn **said the following:
At post #35, hajario excerpts the bolded sentence (a humorous aside in a series of scenarios about when one might wear a robe) and comments:
Lynn responds:
And we finish with the post I warned hajario for:
hajario went out of his way to comment on one sentence from a much longer post with a self-righteous remark, Lynn responded testily, and hajario came back with another swipe comparing other people’s eating habits with his own superior lifestyle choices.
It seemed clearly jerkish to me to interrupt a thread about bathrobes to snark on overweight people, so I warned him. hajario accepted the warning with equanimity.
ETA: The two posts immediately above this were not there when I started writing my own post.
I actually think the mod went a little easy on this one. If I were a mod I probably would have banned hijario purely on the grounds of posting inane information about his/her BMI and exercise habits.
chacoguy, I understand that you made clear that hajario didn’t actually say that, and your edit was relevant to the discussion, but please note that we do not allow edits inside a quote tag. If you wish to change the content of someone’s actual post, please use the quotation marks instead.
I found the warning fairly strange as well. I think what bothers me about it is that I think if it were different people and/or a different topic, no warning would have been issued. Imagine the same exchange, but with two random posters whom twickster doesn’t know from Adam and the disputed topic being smoking instead of eating/obesity:
Poster A: I throw on a robe to get up in the middle of the night to smoke a cigarette.
Poster B: People actually wake up and smoke? No wonder cigarette sales in this country are so high.
Poster A: I don’t sleep well, and once I’m awake I can’t fall asleep without a cigarette. Don’t let that stop you from judging me.
Poster B: I’m a bad sleeper, too, but I still don’t feel the need to give myself cancer. [Some comment about judges which is analogous to the exercise exchange which I’m not clever enough to think of right now.]
Does anyone think a warning would have been issued to poster B for that? (I post way more in IMHO than MPSIMS, so I don’t actually know what the norm is there for disagreement, but I’ve seen people commenting on each other’s choices and habits in IMHO with far stronger language than that.) And if not, are people’s unhealthy eating habits and/or weight issues more off limits for us to comment on than other habits and/or beliefs?
Different people involved (specifically, I’m assuming, a non-staff member)? I think a warning would have been warranted and issued; in fact, based on past experience, we would have heard complaints–publicly or privately–if a mod hadn’t stepped in to say something. In this case I see it as treating Lynn like every other poster instead of letting it slide because she’s a mod.
Different topic? Depends on the topic. As it is, however, hajario made a couple of pokes at someone’s weight in a thread not even discussing weight. Like it or not, weight is a pretty personal issue, and focusing on one throwaway line just to drag the (sensitive) topic up is borderline jerkish. Continuing to harp on it like he did was definitely jerkish.
He did nothing of the sort. He made a general comment that Lynn twisted to be personal to her, and included a gratuitous insult. For which she hasn’t been warned, I note. Also of note, if it’s against the rules to talk about Lynn being fat, she ought to be banned by now because she’s the one who brings up her fat, her digestion, how often she shits and what it smells/looks/smears like, mentions fucking CATHETERS in that post under discussion, for gods sake, and in general spends quite a lot of time and effort rubbing other people’s noses in her bodily functions. So, please, by all means, MAKE it a banning offense to say anything at all about the fat, eating habits and any and all other TMI regarding the corpus Bodoni, and in true Dope style make it retroactive–and get that big old ban stick out and smack Lynn upside the noggin with it, because she’s the biggest offender.
