But that isn’t what this thread is about at all - this thread is about trmatthe getting very close to calling people liars in a forum where that is not allowed, and a moderator telling him not to go there. It isn’t about the issue that prompted his calling people liars post at all.
Won’t someone think of the CHILDREN?
Because, right or wrong, most people cheat at one time or another. And it seems the ones most vocally opposed to it are often the worst offenders.
And you have every right to indulge yourself. Fire away. And I’ll go check the pool to see who correctly predicted the date of my first pitting!
You’re right, trmatthe. It’s a pretty lame pitting. We have a line you’re not allowed to cross. You put your toe over the line and said “look at me, I’m not over the line.” I told you to cut it out. It’s all quite straightforward.
And since we’re in the Pit now, I can go ahead and respond to what you were actually saying: I understand that some people don’t have an ethical problem with the kind of cheating that thread discusses. But it’s really sad to see someone like you that doesn’t even comprehend that other people have a code they live by. You honestly don’t even know anyone that wouldn’t cheat on a college paper? You’re pretty pathetic, and it appears your circle of friends is, too.
Yes, he was. That’s the point. If there’s a thread where four people have said, “I have a cat” and you said, “I question the veracity of everyone here who says they have a cat,” you have directly and unambiguously called those four people liars.
Oh, but I did point it at him. You see, part of my job as a moderator is to spot potential problems and resolve them before they escalate. Had I given an OFFICIAL WARNING ™ for what trmatthe said, it would have escalated. Had I said nothing, trmatthe might well have continued down the line he was going. I made what I thought was a pretty polite statement cautioning him not to go that way. That thread didn’t escalate, and it spun off a lame pitting thread. Sounds like an appropriate outcome to me.
Hmmm. InvisibleWeasel. Nope. Just doesn’t have the right ring to it. I don’t think I need to repeat what I said above, but I’ll reiterate this point: he stated (not implied) that a specifically-identifiable small group of people (not the “large group” in your quote) were lying. I told him to stop doing that. No warning, no slap in the face, no insult. Just, “don’t keep doing this.”
Were that the case, the mod non-warning would have read something like “Remember that personal insults are not allowed on this forum. While your post was not such, it is close enough that I think it is fair to remind you of the rules to avoid a future incident” instead of “how dare you insinuate someone is lying on the internet”.
What this thread is about, IMO, is a mod who used his mod hat to swat away a position contrary to his. The almost-warning was completely unwarranted and the mod will never have the cojones to admit it and apologize for it. Which is par for the course, of course and nothing to write home about.
Ok, my post came while IW posted. I am in time to delete that one, but that is not my style.
I will just say, InvisibleWombat, that style matters. Your comment to the OP came off as very personal and more about how you took his insinuation than about respecting the rules.
Fair enough. I should have made two separate posts: one with mod had on cautioning him about pushing the rules and another with mod hat off disagreeing with his conclusion.
I was not attempting to “swat away” his position while I had the mod hat on (although I obviously disagree with it), and I am certainly willing to apologize if it came across that way.
You have become a parody of yourself–were you always this sour?
I’m sure people cheat. People lie a lot, too. To write a college paper for someone else and have them take credit, hell to even ask someone else seriously to do so is wrong. It’s just wrong. If you can’t see it’s wrong, I’m sorry for you.
I would look askance at anyone who claimed to have never lied or cheated, human nature being what it is. That doesn’t make it right or good or ok. Having someone else write your paper for you is a big deal. It says bad things about your character.
As someone said in that thread, this is how the Bush’s of the world get to where they do. Frankly, I hope the kid does cheat, gets caught and gets dropped from this class and learns a hard lesson.
But wait–we don’t know if Kid is the instigator. We do know Jim may be a good boss, but he’s a lousy dad. Good dads don’t try to make things right for their kids in this way. Did Dad write his papers for his kid in middle school? This is not something that just crops up all of a sudden. This smells of an established approach to “problem solving” to me.
featherlou–I was following along, but this whole Pitting is so lame. I can’t get past the “what’s the big deal?” stance of some folks, so, I expressed myself about it. To me, the mod possibly overstepping pales in comparison to “let me write Jr’s paper because he doesn’t need to do it himself and it’s only a lit class and it’s ok to cheat because everyone does it” stuff.
Great. Giraffe made a great post a while ago, that I am afraid got lost in the shuffle (very intense and lengthy pitting). Long story short, mods often go for short and it comes across as rude.
Although us posters should keep that in mind, that many times what we see as rude was meant to be just concise, it would also help if mods are sometimes willing to look back and reexamine their posts if someone yelps.
Anyways, all is well that ends well, I guess.
(Now go do something bad so we can continue spitting serpents about you)
I don’t know; are you always this stupid? This is the second time in this thread you’ve completly missed both the meaning and point of someone’s post. Not even close. I was just stating a plain fact of life which has been borne out time and time again in various ethics studies; where you get “sour” in that is beyond me. In fact, I offered no opinion one way or the other of the thread being referenced.
For the record, and to avoid confusing you any further, yes, I think it’s wrong.
What the fuck? Now you’re putting words into my mouth. I just wrote what I thought. The rest is your back-pedalling for justification.
And I stand by my OP. I do not believe that every single person who expressed abject outrage was telling the truth. I’d wager that there is plenty of proof in the prior postings. Out of interest, if[1] I found a posting from one of the horrified masses where they documented their utter immoralism, would you retract the thought crime, err, insult warning?
I think I may just fuck off back into GQ; I can’t get in trouble for having an opinion in there as we just stick to the facts.
[1] Which I doubt very much I’ll bother with. Not for the lack of evidence, but it’s sunny outside and this is only the internet, after all.
My apologies, Q.E.D. I conflated posts and threads. I was (am still) taken aback re the cavalier attitude toward this by some, and I responded in anger.
Fair enough, then.
Nope. You’re full of it, InvisibleWombat. trmatthe did not state anything about a group of people lying, either a large group or small.
He said, “Based on the number of “OMG never!” responses I wonder about the level of truthfullness being shown here.”
responses != people. Saying that I have doubts about the truthfulness of your reply does not equate to stating that you are a liar. He did not state or imply that anyone was lying. He stated difficulty with believing that all responses posted were truthful, but he did not say everybody’s post was untruthful, nor did he single out anyone’s in particular. He was vague enough to be given the benefit of the doubt.
Again, I am not a moderator, nor am I attempting to engage in “junior modding.” I believe the moderators as a whole are fair and do a good job. I believe in this instance, you did a crappy job. You paid undue notice (as a mod) to a post that broke neither the letter nor the spirit of the rules. Either have the cojones to issue a warning, or let it go. Don’t be half-assed and threaten a warning. If it wasn’t enough of a violation to result in a warning as is, then there was no violation, just a post that rubbed you the wrong way. You should have taken exception to it on a personal level, not with your mod hat on. That’s all it deserved.
So far as I can tell, that’s not exactly what your link says:
(emphasis added).