And I thought moderating was a difficult job… controlling… that is on another level altogether. Just a word of warning: your control of MPISMS will eventually conflict with my quest for world domination. I’m beginning with Turkistan, so you have plenty of time before I reach MPISMS, but just be aware that you are on the List.
So you think the personal insult was “mild”. Big whoopdedoop. It was, in fact, a personal insult and it was, in fact, in the wrong forum for personal insults, “mild” or not.
People don’t post their personal opinions of other posters “all the time”, as it isn’t allowed anywhere outside The Pit. And if they did, as I said above, they’d at least be scolded.
“Attack the post, not the poster” is the SDMB motto for god’s sake!
You broke that rule and even went so far as to admit it.
Why can’t you just admit you made a mistake and apologize?
What? Tesseract should have posted to the pit? No, he was just commiserating with the OP and trying to get the thread back on track – hardly a serious complaint about moderator action – and no more of an offense than your insult and following actions.
Perhaps you meant the first person to make a federal issue out of it. Hey you’re on:
Judging by the thread, you responded to someone who told you to shove off if you didn’t like their immaturity – as they would have told any other poster. YOU are the one who made into a moderator issue. You could have simply said – “That’s my opinion and that’s that” or “It’s a friendly comment about raising the tone.” But instead?** “Further, I suggest you do not attempt to tell me what to do, or not do; that is highly inadvisable.”**
He’s not telling you what to do, he’s telling you off. As a poster. And you respond by hiding behind your moderator hat and really admonishing him?!?
You were insulting, and you certainly know your own rules. You then hid yourself behind moderator privilege when called on it. Don’t you think you can do better than snarky ex post facto justification?
Again, you once pitted someone, at which time I complained that you couldn’t put a strict wall between Moderator and Poster; that it was unfair to have to defend oneself against a pit thread run by the judge of another forum, owing to human nature. Several people saw no issue with it saying “Moderators are posters too.” I thought this was ridiculous, and your actions underscore that point.
I see now that you’ve responded thusly:
Damn it, UncleBeer! Are you fucking listening? Your response to Rhinostylee discusses just that, and it is clearly a “poster-type” complaint, not a “mod-type” complaint.
That’s the damn point.
Because I don’t believe I did?
Care to provide some examples of scolding for mildly insulting opinions of the character of a member?
Here’s a number of them that didn’t result in a specific warning, all posted recently and all accusing another member of immaturity.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=2998345#post2998345
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=2925989#post2925989
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=2724152#post2724152
Next up on Fox When Mods Go Bad …
No, I fucking didn’t. A simple search will show you that I’ve started exactly one Pit thread in the past year. This one:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=162955
The minions of the Grammar Gestapo would have you know that if anything, he’s a martinet, not a martinette.
UncleBeer, that you don’t “scold” every single solitary instance of personal insults outside the Pit is irrelevant. And before you try to play spin the words with me, I’ll remind you that you’re the one that claimed personal insults go on “all the time” and I responded that they don’t go on “all the time” and if they did go on “all the time” whoever did it would at least be scolded. How are we to know that you even saw any of those examples until you just now searched for your keywords? There’s always a chance those were missed. Or even <gasp> relevant comments based on a poster actually asking for feedback about themselves or their opinion.
And for that matter, your last example doesn’t even qualify because they called the post immature, not the poster, thereby following the motto I mentioned above – insult the post, not the poster. AND, your second example does contain an admonishment from a moderator – Coldfire – though not for the specific insult of calling the poster immature, but for everyone’s behaviour who was insulting and/or rude to the OPer, telling them all to knock it off. So basically you found one example where someone got away with it (possibly without notice). That hardly supports your contention that personal insults go on “all the time” outside the Pit, or that they’re tolerated.
The bottom line is this: you posted a personal insult to a poster, as a poster, in the wrong forum, merely because you don’t like him generally (not even because of that specific thread, since you said you weren’t addressing that thread’s content, which makes it a completely irrelevant hijack for the mere purpose of insulting him!), then you put your moderator hat on to admonish him when he said, basically, “if you think my posts are immature, don’t read them.”
You broke your own rules, then stepped in with your authority and are now trying to justify your bad behaviour by pointing out other people’s bad behaviour. Nice.
But what the hey, it’s your forum. Just don’t be surprised the next time someone complains about the rules being arbitrarily enforced around here.
That’s all. I’ve said my piece – you know how I feel, I know how you feel and clearly we disagree. I don’t see the need to further this argument, so I’ll just close by wishing you a great afternoon and evening.
I, for one, think it is HIGH FUCKING TIME that rhinostylee at least got his wrist slapped. He’s been cruising for a bruising since he got here and I’d like to commend UncleBeer for being the first mod brave enough to step into the breach and take care of it.
Look, people, you all were quick enough to berate Ryan_Liam when he had his shit all over the board, right? And when lobsang was using MPSIMS as his own personal lj. This is the same type of crap, and I’m tired of it. Apparently so was UB. That’s what the mods are for. He told the guy that he thought the thread he started made him look immature. Boo fucking hoo.
I don’t think the mods should have carte blanche to go around closing any threads they don’t feel like continuing to read, but they’ve got to have the leeway to make some judgement calls. And in this case I think UncleBeer’s judgement was right on the money.
Quote: (for some reason my buttons aren’t working)
I’d like to commend UncleBeer for being the first mod brave enough to step into the breach and take care of it.
I agree, White Lightning, that is true bravery. How valiantly he stepped in and spoke up while all of the other moderators huddled in the corner, too afraid to even speak! Not only did he interject, but he STEPPED INTO THE BREACH!! Wow, I hope that America’s soldiers over in the Middle East display one-fourth that amount of bravery, because if they do, the war will be over in weeks!
Consider my wrists slapped (ooh, it stings, I wish that UncleBeer would have stayed away from the breach) and I will stay away from posting anything that could be considered “highly inadvisable!”
I don’t mind being told I’m immature because I am, and people like White Lightning and UncleBeer I guess can’t handle it. But yesterday on another one of my posts that got removed, he UncleBeer called me an asshole and then closed the thread before I could retort. THat’s way worse than saying I’m immature! The only difference is that since he closed the thread, nobody could see that he called me an asshole for very long. Not that I care, I’m sure that you probably all would have agreed (another immature post).
But I do think it’s really funny how many people were offended by UncleBeer trying to flex his moderator muscles! Ha ha! That’s what you get for being a clown!
And there’s my two cents. Sorry to all those who defended me if you now want to change sides . . . .
The problem with your reasoning, WL, is that according to UncleBeer himself, he was not acting as a moderator to proscribe rhino’s content:
He may have insulted rhino’s maturity as one poster to another, but that’s not a moderator action, slap on the wrist or otherwise.
Unclebeer in that other thread -
Diane in this thread -
Well, I was thinkin’ that maybe UncleBeer was overly harsh. Luckily, rhinostylee swiftly corrected that first impression. I would think that, at a message board dedicated to fighting ignorance, posters would exhibit at least some level of adult behavior. Those that cannot perhaps ought to consider alternate message boards.
I’ve said what I have to say – I can’t make you listen, and you certainly aren’t rushing to address my main points, so that’s it for me, too. Parting bit of advice: The way to shake the “laughable” tag is to make serious responses, not compound your error with further laughable explanations.
I addressed your main points. Your second post was a re-hashing of them and a continued insistence of something which I did not do. There’s nothing new and substantive to be addressed. Also, since you continue to perpetuate a lie, I feel justified in disregarding your re-hash.
What’s laughable is that you refuse to back up your assertion with some hard evidence. Post the link to what you claim exists. Go ahead. It’s your last chance to show you have credibility.
I’m feeling all ahead-of-the-curve here, since I’ve been of the opinion that rhinostylee is a first-rate asshole for a whole week now—ever since he shat all over Hamlet’s “Cute Sweatshirt Wearing Girl” thread. (Here.)
Maybe Unc’s comments were a little out of line, but personally, I’m not going to mind too much when the target is such an annoying little wanker.
He’s definitely kinda smushy.
.
Ferrous, you and I are on the same train. I actually pointed out how obnoxious the rhinostylee was here.
RT, I see what you’re saying. Frankly, I can’t figure out why UncleBeer closed the thread in question; he didn’t seem to justify that action in his closing remarks in that thread. But I don’t really have too much of an opinion on that. Any outrage I might have felt at the seemingly arbitrary thread closure was quashed and stifled by my rejoicing at seeing somebody stand up and say that they were tired of the DRECK (UncleBeer’s word, I use it for its sheer appropriateness) that was being produced by this poster.
Hold on a second, that thread wasn’t even closed? What in the world is the problem, then? Is this thread seriously about the fact that UncleBeer said im MPSIMS that he thought the rhinostylee was immature? Seriously?