# In which Miller oversteps his bounds... **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 23, 2011, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068 "2011-07-23T07:20:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/181 "2011-07-26T23:27:26Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > As I’ve explained, **Starving Artist** was hijacking the thread into another rant about his politics. We usually allow a lot of latitude for topic drift, particularly in the Pit. However, **SA** displays a regular pattern of hijacking threads to be about his own particular politics. This sort of behavior is a problem, because it makes every thread in which he participates into copies of each other. So, I instructed him (in perhaps not the clearest language possible) to stop the hijack. …just to be clear here: is this your opinion as a poster, or an official opinion as a moderator? How many times has **Starving Artist** been warned to stop hijacking threads? And your mod note in the other thread was absolutely not in clear language: you didn’t tell him to stop the hijack, you simply told him to shut up. You compare **Starving Artist’s** style of posting to **Le Jacquelope’s,** now I’ve been on this board since 2002, and interacted several times with **Starving Artist** , and do not see this comparison at all, in fact I’m shocked that you can make it. Starving’s been on this board for eight years, participates in a wide variety of forum and thread topics, and as far as I knew he has always been a member of good standing. I’ll never forget this [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=353800&highlight=brightpenny+bitch): **Starving Artist** was honorable in that thread, the kind of guy whose politics I absolutely disagree with but would be more than happy to sit down and have a beer with all night long. There is no way that he fits into the pattern of a poster like \*\*Le Jacquelope’s. \*\* Again, from my interactions with **Starving Artist** , he has always been respectful of other posters when treated in kind. I get the feeling in the last couple of years he has become less restrained in his temperament, but participating in a forum where you hold a minority opinion can be very hard. I left my first message board to come here after things went crazy after 9/11: I couldn’t face arguing with people who I considered online “friends” who couldn’t see past the fact that I was “wrong” in their eyes. Of course, when it comes to politics, he is always 100% wrong. 😉 Right now in the pit in [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=617713) thread is a much more blatant, substantial hijack conducted by a poster who has a much stronger “one topic agenda” than anything IMHO **Starving Artist** has done on this board, you participate and engage with that poster yet you choose not to tell him to “shut up.” That thread has now been hijacked by another group of one issue posters and is now talking about Israel and Palestine. Again, no shut up warnings. I’d venture to say less than a quarter of posts in that thread are on topic, surely if you were being consistent you would be intervening in that thread? The biggest issue with your moderation in this issue (from my point of view) is one of simple _expectation._ There shouldn’t be double standards: there have been posters here who have hijacked threads for ever and never been given a warning. How can someone get away with blatantly hijacking a thread like the Glen Beck pit thread, yet **Starving Artist** gets a mod note for firstly correcting the OP, then responding to posts made to him? Is this new policy for the pit, or only for **Starving Artist**? Is it okay for me to hijack a thread, because no one ever notices me anyway and people typically agree with me? How many times is a poster allowed to hijack a thread before he garners mod attention? Did the “shut up” mean he can no longer participate in the thread? I don’t think it should be up to members of the board to correctly “guess” your intentions, and your interactions so far in this thread have been unhelpful, and “unprofessional.” And I say this as a fan of your moderation style, and as a big fan of you as a poster. I’ve never been one to complain about the moderation here, and I never thought I’d be here in ATMB complaining about you. But I think you dropped the ball here. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068/182 "2011-07-27T15:11:37Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > There shouldn’t be double standards: Of course there are no double standards. (boilerplate) Mods can’t be everywhere all the time. Did you report the thread for being hijacked? Huh huh did ya? Why do you expect mods to magically know when a thread is being hijacked. If you want the mods to do something then you need to report it. Of course this non-double standard has nothing to do with Miller not liking SA as a poster. Nope not one single thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-miller-oversteps-his-bounds/590068.md?page=9)