But you didn’t explicitly say this in your note. His point, to myself, was clear when he said, and I paraphrase “Your cites bear false witness.”
We can call anyone’s cites bullshit. And furthermore, bearing false witness can mean lying, but to a finer point, its true motive is to put a false spin on something; to slander.
I agree. There may not be much daylight, per the mod note, between “lying” and “bearing false witnesses”, but the post was clearly directed at the cite, not the other poster. Perhaps it would have made more sense if JC had indicated he knew that and was just trying to remind us not to use “lying, or its equivalent” against other posters.
As for the OP, it would help if you didn’t move the goal post so much. The “warning” in the thread title became a “semi-warning” in the text of the OP even though there is no such thing as the latter. It was a mod note, plain and simple.
There’s a bright side to this though. Given that it’s GD, and many of the rule and subtleties in that forum are difficult for even God to keep up with, I think it’s pretty nice of the mods to point out when someone has strayed into that wide minefield just this side of a rule violation. Much preferable to letting them find out the hard that they were “over the line.”
Except that we are disagreeing that anyone strayed anywhere near a rule violation. There is no rule against calling non-posters liars.
And, no official mod action was taken with respect to breaking an unbroken rule.
Frankly, mod suggestions are much preferable to mod warnings and notes. It’s just that you’re now on notice that you’re headed in a dangerous direction if you don’t pay attention. I’d rather see questionable mod suggestions than notes or warnings when someone didn’t realize where they were headed. Please don’t complain so much they stop offering us that courtesy.
I very much do not want more moderator throat clearing, thanks all the same. I’m sure most of the mods don’t want to spend their time pointing out gray area wanderings either. Jonathan Chance seems to look at a post and ask himself “How can I moderate this post?” rather than “Should I moderate this post?”
If someone breaks a rule, mod it. Otherwise, don’t.
And if multiple people reported the post in question, I think we need to look at limitations on post reporting. Perhaps something like the NFL or MLB. If you request a review and you’re wrong, you lose a future review request. It’s very possible to post here and never report a post.
I never said one was given.
Once again, no one was “headed in a dangerous direction”, so no courtesy was needed.
The way the mod note was written, one would assume that had the poster said “lying” instead of “bearing false witnesses”, he would have received a warning. And that warning would have been wrong. I can only speak for myself, but I’m not “complaining” about anything. I’m pointing out what I see as an error. Your analysis completely ignores the key point of this discussion, and so it’s not really relevant.
We can’t. We’ll get modded.
Yes!
I’ve reported my own posts a few times (whoops, thought I was in the pit). Other people’s posts if they needed moved or were spam.
[Moderating]
If Grotonian isn’t allowed to discuss his warning in this thread, neither should anyone else. Let’s leave that issue alone from now on, please.
[/Moderating]
You can. You’ll get modded. At which point, it will suck to be you.
Of course…
It’ll really suck to be me.
Ditto
This post may (or may not) be true and thus break (or not break) an existing (or non-existing) rule. Reported (or not reported).
You engage vigorously in the Pit…but would prefer to stay out of GD? Howcome? I mean, the Pit is where the devil makes potty. (Okay, I swiped that. 4Chan is where the devil makes potty.) GD is where we try to make reasoned arguments for and against specific knowable ideas.
Both are fun…in very different ways! A wise SDMB member told me to make sure that it was all fun. Argue in GD…for fun. And call rude names in the Pit…for fun.
Anyway, I said my say, Andros said he’s okay, the recipient of the message in question said he’s okay (in the thread in question,) so…if the mods want to close this thread, I think that’d be a good idea. The principle concepts and values have all been communicated.
Oh, and…the moderation here is light-years better than anywhere else I’ve ever participated.
You keep missing the forest for the trees. The key point is a mod directing traffic, not a cop issuing tickets.
What I said was, “It’s just that you’re now on notice that you’re headed in a dangerous direction.” That doesn’t imply anything more than a mod telling the thread there’s a potential problem ahead. Quit trying to apply this a specific situation and you’ll understand what is meant.
A nice response – I agree with it all. Except maybe the “meh.”
That said, although the sentence directs the accusation of “bearing false witness” toward a poster’s cites, rather than the poster, it was done so vehemently and sloppily that everything got covered in hogwash.
The money quote from Andro was:
** “Nice effort, I suppose, but the sky is not falling. Your cites are alarmist hogwash and, frankly, breaking the spirit of the Commandment against bearing false witness. If not its letter.” **
There’s no effort to honestly discredit the cites (which were, yes, IMO, hogwash), so the vehemence was pointless agitation. The primary source of the cites was David French, a writer for the National Review. I know nothing about him beyond his NR bio, but that bio makes no mention of his religious beliefs. Unless Mr. French can be shown to endorse the 10 Commandments, it’s pointless to accuse him of violating one of them.
To me the accusation of bearing false witness seems to land on the poster (Omar Little) more than the cites, despite the actual structure of the sentence. It seemed like an attempt to shame him, since we don’t know if it makes any sense to shame David French. Andro implies that that was not the intent, but that’s how it came off.
Furthermore: The use of the present tense verb “breaking” makes the accusation more “in the moment” – more like what **Omar Little ** *is *doing in the thread, rather than what the cites did when they were published. (Although the cites were published very, very recently.)
I’m not missing anything
Talk about missing the forest for the trees. WE ALL KNOW THAT NO TICKETS WERE ISSUED. THAT IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
The poster was NOT headed in a dangerous direction and there was no potential problem ahead. If I’m driving straight down the road, I don’t need a cop to tell that I need to turn my blinker on if I plan to turn. I’M NOT PLANNING TO TURN!!
You’re screaming because?
Because you don’t seem to be paying any more attention to his argument than Jonathan Chance did. It is completely irrelevant that there was no official warning by JC. It is relevant that he felt the post was worth moderating. There was nothing wrong with the post. It did not need moderating in any way, shape, or form.
I just want to step in here and address this comment, it’s not always that black and white.
Notes can be given out to posters if they break the rules, yes, but they are also used to head off possible fights/insults/heat in a topic too. Hijacking a topic on here isn’t against the rules technically, but if people start talking about politics, say, in a thread about puppies…and it starts to get heated, then I’d give a note to knock it off and get back on track. Was a rule broken? Not yet. Notes work that way too. At least, I use them that way and I’ve seen many others use them that way before too.
This is just an aside comment for you comment here, though.