In the real world, I agree that nitpicking can be rude. But on the SDMB? That’s what we all do, all the time. It’s part of the culture of the board, and especially that of GQ. We constantly will come in with little bits of “Um, actually…” despite this being considered rude elsewhere.
That doesn’t mean the bickering can’t be a hijack that needs to be stopped. But the initial nitpick is supposed to be allowed. It’s part of the Fighting Ignorance aspect that we don’t let false information go without correcting it.
Sure, you can do so in a jerkish way, and that should be discouraged. But nitpicking itself is our ethos. It’s been completely accepted since I got her 10 years ago.
His comment isn’t fighting ignorance, it’s just supercilious snark that jabs without enlightening. And screw that. Helpfully telling folks cool things they didn’t know is one thing. Snidely telling people they’re wrong without letting them know how or why is another.
Had the correction been part of a post actually contributing something to the thread, I’d have been okay with it. The way it was presented, however, was all snark with no substance. I gotta agree with the moderation on that.
This. I can’t object to occasional pedantry since I’ve been guilty of it myself, but usually in support of some kind of actual point or contribution. This was completely pointless snark and IMHO was gently but properly moderated.
No, actually, everyone would not know who you mean. If I Google “Queen of England” I get 748,000,000 hits and a picture of Queen Elizabeth II. If I Google “President of the Continental Congress” I get John Hancock.
This seems like another issue where the overall parochialism of the mod staff is a negative factor. Yes, **AK **should have been a lot less snarky and more informative in their nitpickery. But at the same time, no mod indicated an awareness of *how *hot button a topic this was for non-English UKers.
I think dismissing it as *just *a hijack or pedantry is dismissive of real concerns of marginalization and exclusion.
However, as far as I can see the correction was not made on those grounds. AFAIK AK84 is neither a Scot, nor Welsh, nor Northern Irish; I believe he is Pakistani. If in fact the correction had in fact been made by someone of those groups your point might be more relevant. Coming from AK84 it was a nitpick.
I agree. If someone asks how many football games the University of West Virginia has won this year, I could correct the error and provide helpful information. I could say:
They have won 8 games. However, the school is West Virginia University, not the University of West Virginia.
or, I could be snarky and say:
As there is no University of West Virginia, it has won zero games this year.
I think that #2 should get a mod note as it is needlessly snarky.
So if I correct someone who says “Democrat Party”, that’s just pointless nitpickery because I’m not American?
**AK **has, from what I gather, spent quite some time in the UK, enough to get a sense of what’s a hot-button issue there. Hell, I’ve only spent holidays there and even I know “Queen of England” is going to get up a lot of people’s noses.
Several posters have addressed this. If someone asks “Did the Democrat Party win control of the NY Senate?” then you may respond that the party is correctly referred to as the Democratic Party and that some people consider the term Democrat party as offensive and denigrating, but that yes the Democratic Party won control of the New York State Senate.
What you may not do, in GQ, is come across with a shitty snarky answer like “Since there is no such thing as the Democrat party, they won no elections this cycle.”
The politics of the answer in the OP had nothing to do with the moderation.
Thank you to LHoD for finally posting a link. Jeez!
No warning issued. Good.
LHoD shows best practice.
Sort of. No worries, but I think engineer_comp_geek jumped the gun. A few wisecracks now and then are part of this board’s culture (though GQ has been tightened up somewhat over the past 4 years). Methinks 2 posts on the subject (and maybe an erudite tangent) wouldn’t have hurt.
Yes, it was a tangent and a bit of snark (from both parties). But do you really think it was headed towards a lengthy hijack and would prevent the OP from being addressed? Does engineer_comp_geek believe that? If so, we’re all good. But I question that assessment. IANAmoderator, this is not legal advice.
Well that looks like a political jab. But I don’t see a big problem with the snark, aside from being insufficiently amusing. Not my style, but still.
Best practice I say? If you must do snark and you’re not sure if it’s amusing, try at least to tack on some helpful information. A lot of posts get moderated because the snark:content ratio is off. Note that I’m pretty sure this would NOT be considered best practice by eg LHoD or the moderators for that matter.
Yes, because us Democrats should always let the GOp decide that our name is a pejorative.:rolleyes: Maybe we should laugh at their ridiculous attempt and take back “Democrat”?
The term “American” commonly and correctly refers to a citizen of the United States of America, even though there are many other American nations.
The term “Queen of England” commonly and correctly refers to the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of the associated Commonwealth, even though that Kingdom and Commonwealth encompasses many other nations.
Said monarch could also be correctly referred to as the Queen of Canada, or the Queen of Australia, or a number of titles, even though she isn’t commonly referred to in that way.
And in fact, “Queen of England” is a better descriptor for her than “Elizabeth”, or even “Elizabeth II”, since there is one and exactly one Queen of England, but there are multiple women titled “Elizabeth II” of various places.
Wow. I had completely forgotten about that thread. So imagine my surprise when I clicked here and and began to read. :eek:
I’ll ignore the merits of the mod note, just to say that this post…
…is completely, utterly wrong. Elizabeth II has many titles and has had many more. One which she has never had, is Queen of England. The comparison with Canada and Australia is misplaced. Those are nation-states. England is a sub-national entity. It has no monarchy of its own, anymore than Manitoba or New South Wales do.
England was once a nation state. Nowadays it’s a constituent of a nation state. Just because it once was, does not make it one today. The President of Italy, is not also the President of the Two Sicilies and Florence, Piedmont and Venice. The President of Tanzania is not also President of Zanzibar*.
*The President of Zanzibar is the title given to the Head of Government of the federating unit, though.
Yes, because she is in fact the Queen of Canada, Australia etc. But she is not the Queen of England; England has no Queen.
No, because she is “Elizabeth”, and she is “Elizabeth II” but she is not Queen of England. There are zero and exactly zero Queens of England.
“You should be polite and helpful if you’re correcting someone’s terminology” is a good ethos.
“If you’re not polite and helpful when correcting someone’s terminology then we can just ignore your correction” is a bad ethos.
“If you’re not polite and helpful when correcting someone’s terminology then they’re actually right” is a ridiculous ethos.