In this post, Jonathan Chance semi-warns Andros that he was dangerously close to calling someone a liar.
But Andros said that the cites which were invoked were lies, not that the person who invoked them was. That’s still legitimate here.
There was no warning, or even a note. The mod made a point about the phrase “bearing false witness”. At worst, he was letting everyone know that that phrase may be treated as using “lying.” The nitpick about whom the phrase was directed at is unnecessary as the mods can jump in early out of an abundance of caution if no one’s getting penalized with notes or warnings. (They can jump in early anyway, even with penalties, I just mean there’s no legitimate bitch if no penalty was issued.)
If people want to post, “your source is a liar,” they should make sure it’s clear they’re referring to the source(s). If they leave it ambiguous through an awkwardly long construction, they may get a clarification from a mod. No big deal. And neither is this statement from the mod in the OP.
Omar Little, the poster to whom andros directed his comments, agreed that he made a good point.
Swear to god, if I ever start posting extensively in gd, please put me down.
If you want to see a horseshit mod note, though, check out this note I got 2 days ago over punctuation marks. It’s comment #91. The way a previous discussion over insults was twisted to try and make the point that I was ignoring mod instructions is hilarious, but it was necessary because I had broken no rule.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18499252#post18499252
Meh. I don’t think I’d see it as close to the line as Jonathan Chance did (well, obviously), but I’m not in his shoes. And I absolutely think I should have been clearer.
I also think that note was entirely reasonable.
Jesus fucking christ just install fainting couches in the forums; holy crap that’s a load of nonsense.
Grotonian, if you want to complain about a mod note, start a thread of your own. Don’t hijack the discussion of an unrelated issue. In particular, don’t try to use such hijacking as a way to get around the moderator instructions you were given by Idle Thoughts a few months ago. These apply to posts in ATMB as well as starting new threads.
Well, and so did the mod, presumably. I think the reasoning is funny (funny haha, not funny odd) because there’s no insult and that was the discussion the mod cited. Whatever. What is there even to bitch about? All in all, it’s pretty small beer. The point of even posting it is that people gets notes and warnings without breaking rules (I do, anyway) so a complaint over a mod comment that didn’t even result in any penalty seems unnecessary to me, to say the least.
The mod was posting in his official capacity, and that makes it the business of this forum.
I thought it was clear… But…
Yer a gentleman, sir, that’s what you are. I thought it was completely clear you were razzing the cites, not the poster, and so I said so. But I applaud your aplomb. You’re a better man than I am!
Of course he was. So what resolution are you seeking? An oops-I-take-it-back?
You’ve never received a warning except for a rule violation. And mod notes are issued all the time for posts that are not yet rules violations, but are getting close.
Once again, if you have a complaint about your own warnings, start a new thread. Don’t use someone else’s thread for that purpose.
Trinopus is correct. That was another terrible piece of work by Jonathan Chance. JC, I’m sure you’re great at a lot of things. Moderating is definitely not one of them.
Well, yes, that would be fine.
Just as when any of us make an error in a debate thread. I make a lot of them, get corrected, and say, “Oops, you’re right.”
Impossible to believe that Jonathan Chance is less a gentleman than I am! 
Your recognition that andros is a better man than you made me realize he is a better man than I (me?) also.
I’m thinking as of right now it would be andros, kayaker, Trinopus. All hale and hearty good men, but ranked in that order. Other posters can imagine their own standing in descending order.
Jeez, I’ve been asleep. Even mods sleep.
I can’t retract a warning because none was given. That was just a ‘whoops, careful there’ based on my reading of it and the number of reports I got about it.
False witness is an interesting thing in the bible. It’s not…quite…lying though it’s often interpreted it that way. Nonetheless, I didn’t want that to become our latest ruleworkaround du jour so I decided to at least give a ‘heads up’ over that particular usage. Still, no permanent record, no black mark, no nothing.
Feels like you’re missing the more fundamental point. The non-insult was directed at content written in a cited source.
Are we now not allowed to call Dick Cheney, for example, a liar?
It’s 100% clear you were mocking what his username IS. You chose obviously incorrect punctuation marks – and FFS, his username has 'i’s, NOT punctuation! – and snidely asked oh golly, these are the right punctuation marks to use, right? Like you can’t, y’know, see his username right there.
And it’s not like you hadn’t directly replied to him – WITH attributed quotes – earlier in that thread… 9 times.
If you know someone who named their kid Mykal (Michael) and you wrote, “and little Mâai’kühlle – did I spell that correctly? – is just SO precious…” Everyone and their grandma would know that’s passive aggressive bitchy sn at their parents for spelling the kid’s name like they did. Same thing.
Yeh, that mod note was like a cop stopping you on the street to tell you he’s letting you of the hook, this time, for walking around naked… underneath your clothes.
I’m not offended or anything, but I didn’t agree with JC accusation of lying here: Link
My reading of hajario post was that he was referring to a lie that is commonly told by bigots or fundamentalists or what have you. He wasn’t calling the poster a liar.