So you’re opining that the staff doesn’t share culpability?
It’s not a question of culpability. Even assuming that a mod made a completely wrong call, s/he doesn’t deserve to be called a cunt or told to fuck off. That was the purpose of moving comments about SDMB administration to this forum, where insults aren’t allowed. I think it’s worked out a lot better. We’ve got a lot of people expressing their opinions in strong terms here, but everyone is remaining more or less civil, and the discussion is a lot more productive.
So that’s a big 'ol “no”.
Back to normal, I guess.
Perhaps if you’d (and that’s a general “the staff” you I’m using there) handled the things on Fenris’s excellent list professionally, things wouldn’t have gotten to the point where members felt such vitriol toward things out of their control.
I’m certainly not suggesting one side is without blame here. But you are. And that’s not going to help anything.
Ed, straight up, you need new/better mods. You can’t mod. Lynn, Skip, Marley, and Dex need to go. Not sure who you’d replace them with, but those 4 are either burned out, or just not any good. If I were picking new mods here, I’d take a hard look at Bricker, if he’s willing to do it.
Gfactor is the best you’ve got, and he’s very good. Promote him to “Boss Mod” or whatever you want to call it.
Sure, that’s the way it is now, for the most part. You mentioned the “past few months,” and that’s the timeframe to which I was referring. I was just asserting that there was a reason the staff had directed at them animosity from other posters. Posters didn’t just call any of your staff cunts simply out of the blue.
Sharing culpability = both sides at fault
That’s all I’m saying.
If you think we need to start over, which is what replacing half the mods would amount to, this isn’t really a practical solution. The mods are volunteers; on the whole they do a pretty good job. Sometimes we make mistakes, but we generally come clean about it and put things right. I presume you disagree.
Okay, so I guess the question is, were they getting abused as staff or as regular posters? If it’s the former, then I can understand your concern. But if it’s the latter, then it’s disturbing that you would only step in when your “friends” or colleagues or whatever are getting smacked around, as opposed to all the regular dopers who have taken a licking over these many years.
Also (and I think based on your most recent apology it’s fair to say) the execution of these new rules has been disastrous. We can’t go back in time of course, but if I may make a suggestion – Why don’t you just ask the community how we as a whole can prevent staff members (acting as mods) from being abused?
Just my 2c
Yup, I disagree. Nothing happened to Lynn for abusing her mod powers over the Planned Parenthood Thread. Nothing visible happened to Skip for his fiasco the other night. You’re starting to feel the pinch of so many of us leaving. You’ve made some efforts to apologize, but given no indication that anything would actually change. I can’t speak for everybody…or really anybody but myself…but I have very good reason to believe you aren’t going to stop the Exodus without showing real change. Axing your worst mods would be a step in the right direction.
And don’t take this the wrong way. I don’t want a mod gig here. I’ve been an admin elsewhere for most of a decade, so I know the challenges from your side of the table. Good people can be bad mods. Good mods can get burned out. It’s time for a change.
I agree – though one by-product may be that ATMB becomes a bit more heated, overall it will prevent the staff acting as mods to be abused. I think most people would agree that if that was the *only *rule change you made, none of this craziness would have happened. (Hell, even if you had just made “cunt” verboten, most people probably wouldn’t care.)
But all this other stuff is just silly, and frankly beneath you. You must have better things to do than write up a list of banned words.
Personlly, I don’t think Lynn (or anyone else) should need to put up with being called a cunt (or any other demeaning anatomical part). But I hope she’ll pardon me for being lesss than cheerful about that sort of namecalling being banned while stalking remains unaddressed by the rules.
When I was young, I worked for a florist. He was an ok guy, tried to do the right thing in general, ran his business for a very long time. One of the most important things he ever taught me was this:
Every Valentine’s Day, he would sell dozens and dozens of roses. They were sold at a premium because this was a florist, he had a good reputation, and this was a huge holiday.
Every year he would have a few customers come in the next day, or the day after, and complain that the roses never opened up, and died right away. The customers would want their money back, or at least an exchange or credit.
He ran them through the wringer. He’d argue, and make excuses, and give them the run around.
Every single time, he’d eventually give in, and either give them their money back or exchange.
And every single time, whether he knew it or not, he lost a customer Oh, not because he didn’t give them back their money or work out a satisfactory agreement, but because he drew out the process and made the customer work for it. By the time they felt they were heard, they were so pissed, it didn’t matter what the settlement was.
The thing I learned was this.
If you are not going to give in, don’t. Understand that the customer is lost, but you stuck to your guns. Sometimes you don’t want them anyways.
If you are going to give in, give in right away, and kiss ass.
The customer may not come back, but at least you have a fighting chance to keep their business.
Long drawn out arguments just piss everyone off, and are a waste of time and energy.
If you are reversing your position, Ed, than do it quickly, do it totally, and move on. Don’t drag this out, grudgingly giving inch by inch.
Cut your losses, move on.
For whom?
Never mind.
Are we sharing the same reality?
This entire blow-up came because literally hundreds of us are saying that very often you make mistakes, virtually never do you come clean about it, and your actions put things a step backward.
No. That’s not enough. We haven’t just been saying that, we’ve been doing everything but walking into the Chicago Reader building and blowing trumpets in your ear to make you recognize that your utter total lack of recognition of this is what makes people so angry.
And then you say this.
:smack:
And here, I suspect, is where you screwed the pooch.
I just reread the OP to your Pit Changes thread. “Staff abuse” is pretty much mentioned only in passing. Three of the five new rules had nothing to do with Mods. A fourth, that excreble Rule Number Two, did so only indirectly.
It would have been much, much better to announce just changes regarding treatment of mods and staff, making emphatically clear what you were doing and why you were doing it. You would have gotten gripes from the usual Oscars, but I think most folks would have understood the situation and, by and large, accepted it. The other matters should have been taken care of at another time.
Instead, we have what we have. And I have grave doubts you can unring this bell.
I suspect you tried to pull your punch with these rule changes. But as a certain rodent friend of mine is fond of saying, “That trick never works!” Instead of pussyfooting around, you need to make your intent clear. Never try to sugar-coat things. Never try to “pull a fast one.” Say what you mean!
It’s too late.
It was probably too late years ago for the kind of institutional change needed to keep the board vital.
Time to turn out the lights and say ‘adieu’.
Good night, Gracie.
Thats pretty much what I have been thinking. Move discussion of Mod actions to ATMB. No insulting of mods doing their duty. But if you do that you also have to make it clear that mods can not be snarky, insulting or sarcastic while making official rulings (even and especially with those who may seem to deserve it). And if the mods continue to act as posters they have to expect to be treated like everyone else and not retreat under their modhat when it gets hot. There would have been some complaints but I doubt it would be that bad. And it would be easy to enforce and explain.
No, you do not. Lynn does not. Most of them mods you have left do not.