Good thing DT doesn’t use profanity all that much, then. CAlling people “delusional” or “evil” is not the same as what you suggest in terms of flamebaiting.
Left is not the same as Liberal. One can be against all the sins of the Right *without *being invested in all the mistakes of the Liberal ideal.
OK, but I don’t see that the distinction makes any difference. Lynn Bodoni did not prefer to "let the Pit mods handle it’ when it came to one of her pets - she charged right in and issued a warning for trolling.
Correct, IMO. The thread I cited is a further example of why it is clear that this “rule” was a fig leaf for “I don’t like my own sacred oxen to be gored”.
I think you have hit on the standard. If you post from one side of the political aisle, you benefit from the assumption that your post is “obviously” hyperbole. If you are from the other, it’s trolling.
It goes back to one of my original examples. tomndebb says it is a violation for me to call a post “a steaming pile”. In the very same post, he calls my post “bullshit”. Why? Because of his default assumptions. It was obvious to him that I meant to disrupt the debate, while it was equally obvious to him that he did not.
That’s why these kinds of threads (unfortunately) don’t go anywhere - they are based on unfalsifiable assertions. tomndebb and Lynn Bodoni assume that threads and posts from posters with whom they disagree, or on topics they feel strongly about, are made in bad faith. Then they can ignore, or misconstrue, evidence that contradicts them.
Regards,
Shodan
There is a leftist bias on the part of certain moderators. There is a general leftist bias on the part of the administration in general in enforcement of the rules, but that’s not their fault - the board is about fighting ignorance, and anti-science people like the dearly departed Silverstreak Wonder are necessarily going to have some of their discussion points barred.
ETA: For the record, I thought the whole thing with Euthanasiast was a fairly blatant and partisan overreaction.
Shodan said:
I don’t understand what your point is. You pointed out a thread in GD that seems to violate the “misleading titles” rule. Marley23 commented that if you think it violates the rules, did you report it to draw the moderators’ attention to it? As explanation, he adds that he did post in the thread, but since the thread was in GD, he preferred to let GD mods handle those things. This is out of the sense of GD mods being more self-consistent and informed as to what goes on in there.
Then you responded that the rule on “misleading titles” is not reserved for the mods of the particular forum in which it is posted, and give an example of some other mod who chose to intervene. Nobody said only the GD mods can enforce rules in GD and only Pid mods can enforce rules in the Pit. Marley23 said that he prefers to let the GD mods do the moderation in GD.
So what is your point? That you think Lynn Bodoni was being partisan? What does that have to do with whether or not Marley23 took action on a different thread in a different forum that he does not moderate? 
This is an excellent and important point. One side’s humorous hyperbole is fighting words to the other side. One person’s strong snark is a deep insult to the next person.
Here’s the problem - some people want to see a good slugfest. They want to use all the “tools of rhetoric” available, including shaming and belittling the position and running down the opposition. They want to be able to call someone else’s true beliefs “a steaming pile” or the ravings of the lunatic fringe or whatever. But that kind of thing is inherently insulting - “your beliefs are so stupid three year olds know better”.
This board has drawn a line - outside the Pit, you may attack the message, but not the messager. You may attack the belief, but not the believer. Well, that sounds simple on paper, but in practice it’s sometimes fuzzy to tell the difference. And some posters can’t tell the difference. (There was an example just the other day on Cecil’s Columns where a new poster came in and felt the responses from the old time poster were very insulting. It got handled, but not without the newbie taking a warning, while the old timer didn’t technically do anything wrong. Is it fair to use superior knowledge of the environment to hold the upper hand in how to infuriate the opponent without drawing moderator fire yourself?)
So why don’t we just shut down all “belittling comments” or whatever? Well, there’s another example (from Staff Reports) where someone posted in a thread on “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” about how the Jews have been infiltrated by “fake Jews” and all the anti-Jewish sentiment is really against them, not the real Jews, and he posted several pages of repetitious explanation and justification. That rule would prevent characterizing that post as “insane ramblings” or “delusional”.
So how are we (and the mods) supposed to tell the difference between insults of the post content made in good faith and ones made to be disruptive?
It’s really an impossible task to be certain when judging someone else’s motives. But when the mods are charged with making that determination, I would think that they would consider the pattern of the history of the poster for one thing.
In another direction, which end of the spectrum do you think would be more likely to call for censorship of a post or thread – conservative or liberal? Which group would be more likely to want someone banned?
You do know that everyone with an interest can go back and see that you are making this up, right?
I never said that your “steaming pile” comment was a violation of board rules. You are making that up.
Rather, I told multiple posters who had engaged in vitriolic attacks that were taking a thread off the rails–and without naming any of the posters since there were several posters on both sides of the argument engaged in the same behavior–to refrain from engaging in a particular tactic of insulting various politicians or ideas as proxies for insulting other posters.
You came back with a whiny complaint that you could not tell if I was Warning you when you had done nothing wrong, and I reiterated my specific point that I was not accusing anyone of a rule violation but that I was tightening the rules for that thread to permit the discussion to continue without having to close the thread.
You came back, once more, still whining that you had never done anything to cause a problem, at which point I noted that you had set the tone of the thread by opening post number 2 with your “steaming pile” comment. At that point, I noted that your comments were both disingenuous and irritating, expressed in the exclamation, “bullshit.” And I still never claimed, as you have twice lied, that your “steaming pile” comment was a violation of the rules.
My first response to your disingenuousness included the following statement:
so I could not have claimed that you violated a rule, in that post. My second response to your game playing opened with this:
It would be curious to see what phrase you have decided to reinterpret to mean that I claimed that you had violated a rule with your “steaming pile” comment.
Now, years later, you come back to invent a claim that I smacked you down for using one phrase as a rule violation when I explicitly noted in at least two posts that no one had been Warned and that there were no specific violations of GD rules to that point.
Historic patterns of posts very definitely figure into determining motive.
As to who is more likely to cry “I want him banned!”, it is pretty equal. I’m sure that various partisans can come up with great explanations why their side is constitutionally more disposed to tolerance and the free market of ideas while their opponents are all secretly plotting to control the all expression for their own nefarious purposes, but in real life, both sides include a few people who just want to see certain posters banned because they find certain posters irritating.
Or maybe the major conservative new outlets make a lot of lame claims that simply don’t hold up to scrutiny. So those with conservative dispositions get frustrated here, where our mission is to fight ignorance (and make wisecracks).
This wouldn’t affect the better conservative and conservative-leaning posters such as Bricker, Una, John Mace and Sam Stone. They are an asset to the board. But these folks have both sharper minds and familiarity with some of the less traveled parts of the information space.
There’s a lot to what Nemo said though, so I quoted him in full.
I don’t know how much irony to put here, but frankly I think Shodan gets cut a lot of slack. I wouldn’t bother with this, except he seems to complain about the volunteer moderators with maximum intensity, which I find quite rich.
Let’s review the rules, shall we?
“Making shit up”, seems to fall under the purview of “inaccurate”. Such behavior is wholly inappropriate in a board devoted to fighting ignorance.
Shodan does this with substantive matters as well. Here’s a (very) early example:
First Shodan claims the following: “Yes, I am in favor of a balanced budget. But the chances that the Democrats will provide it are darn near zero. The Republicans provided it, more than once. The Democrats have never provided it anytime in the modern era.”
That was an embarrassing fabrication. I took the trouble to find and post the budget data: it demonstrated that Clinton had budget surpluses (so Shodan was false on that) and that Reagan had spiraling deficits.
Shodan replies with a sidestep, implying that he wasn’t talking about Presidents, but who was in control of Congress. (Shodan shoulda said so to begin with, but I digress.) Then Shodan fabricates, “The budget was balanced in 1969, when Republicans controlled the House.”
I was stunned. That couldn’t be right, can it? So I checked my memory with the facts and sure enough the Democrats had overwhelming majorities in 1969 – 245 to 189. So that’s two in a row, in the same thread on the same page.
This sucks. This sucks because Shodan can fabricate evidence faster than I can check it out. It also sucks because it wastes my fucking time. I called foul on Shodan, but he received neither warning nor reprimand from the mods, despite this explicit rules violation. Nor did Shodan offer concession or apology.
Ok, ok, this was from um 2003. I seem to recall another budgetary snafoo from Shodan within the past couple of years though. Admittedly, I tend to steer clear of the guy typically, but occasionally I feel obliged to work cleanup crew.
It seems to me that the more energetic conservative posters bolster their persecuted-minority fantasies by testing the rules and pushing the mods. “Liberal” posters get warned all the time, and generally take their lumps and move on, unless they’re clearly set on flaming out. The more theatrical conservative posters will take an otherwise minor rap on the knuckles and smear it into an extended multi-page threadshit of rules-lawyering, rhapsodizing about the unjustice and the unfairness and the hypocrisy and oh, God, the humanity. It’s a shame, really, because liberal-leaning folks need to hear from the smart, sane conservatives.
ETA: So the reason for the apparent bias is that the conservative drama-whores are actually cruising for mod action because it reinforces that whole martyrdom thing.
2003, huh?
Talk about wasting perfectly good time…
Well, if I really wanted to waste my time, I’d dig up the GD budget deficit thread from ~2008~.
Do you have cites for the above, so we can see it in context? Because Clinton did not have any budget surpluses until the Republicans took control of Congress.
Although you are correct about the balanced budget in 1969. Democrats controlled Congress then (although Nixon was President). My cites say 243, not 245 (cite).
If the President is responsible for balancing the budget, then Nixon is responsible for balancing the budget in 1969. If Congress is responsible, which is what I assert, then Republicans (note the plural) are responsible for balancing the budget the only times it has happened in the last forty years.
Democrats took over Congress in 2008. In that year, the deficit was $455 billion. Currently, the deficit is $1.42 trillion, or roughly tripled. Democrats now control all three branches of the federal government, and Obama’s proposed budget is scheduled to increase that deficit to $1.53 trillion (cite).
So it would seem that my predictions that Democrats would not balance the budget were entirely accurate.
So you are correct about 1969. I am correct about everything else.
Regards,
Shodan
You are cherrypicking numbers. Your own cite says
Without turning this into another GD thread on the deficit, I’ll point you at Politifact for more detail on those numbers (and some other commentary on the national debt).
No, I am not.
If “Clinton balanced the budget” is true, then ‘Nixon balanced the budget’ is true. If “Congress is responsible for a balanced budget” is true, then Democrats balanced the budget once in 1969 and Republicans balanced the budget in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 (cite). If “spending money like a drunken sailor” is stupid and counter-productive, then Bush and the Republicans are stupid, Bush and the Democrats are stupider, and Obama and the Democrats are four times stupider.
Regards,
Shodan
I used this old example, because the discussion was relatively compact. The issue is whether Shodan was fabricating evidence. Conveniently, the thread is old so IMHO moderator action in 2010 is highly unlikely, a policy which I support.
You are blowing smoke Shodan. You made 2 claims. The first was made in the context of a Presidential election. Let’s review:
There’s nothing about Congress there. Shodan only mentioned Congress when I showed with the budget numbers how deficits under Reagan were worse than deficits under both Clinton (who came after) and Carter (who preceded).
So that’s one fabrication: the original claim was about Presidents and subsequent discussion of Congress is just smoke-blowing.
The second fabrication came after I noted in fairness that, “Nixon produced a small surplus in one year.” Out of thin air, Shodan asserts that “The budget was balanced in 1969, when Republicans controlled the House…”
How could anybody with a rough understanding of US history make a mistake like that? How could anybody with a horrible understanding of US history make such a precise claim? A: Such a person who makes such claims of fact is simply manufacturing evidence. I condemn such behavior. Again, according to the 1978 Statistical Abstract it was Dems-243, Repubs-192 in the House in 1969. (I’m not sure where my 2 member discrepancy came from, but it’s small and doesn’t affect my conclusion.)
I’m not debating fiscal policy here: such a discussion belongs elsewhere. One would compare trends in deficits under different political regimes, as well as concurrent proposals by the various parties, with the understanding that budget deficits are advisable during recessions. But that’s not my concern here: I’m documenting an example of lax treatment of Shodan on the part of the moderators.
This is, of course, quite straightforwardly false. See my first post to the thread, #21, where I said
You are also stating an untruth in that your first post to the thread mentioned the Senate specifically -
So, it appears your statement about how the discussion was limited strictly to Presidential matters is also a fabrication.
I also note that you do not consider it unfair that no mod action was forthcoming against the poster who made the following false statement -
when, in fact, as I pointed out
Here you are correct - I was mistaken. Republicans controlled only the White House in 1969.
You had to go back seven years to find somewhere where I made a mistake? Pardon me if I fail to panic.
Regards,
Shodan
Bringing this up one more time, because I think it is truly relevant to the topic of the thread (potential and perceived left/right bias by moderators) and somehow has been [del]ignored[/del] overlooked.
From posts 49 and 122 (and being elaborated), could the perception of moderator bias be caused by an unintentional bias that results from the dynamics of the board membership? This board has a larger liberal membership than conservative membership. The Moderators take action based upon “train wrecks” or potential “train wrecks”, i.e. causing a disturbance to the smooth flow of the board. What causes train wrecks isn’t just someone posting something controversial/inflammatory, but the size of the response to that controversial/inflammatory post. So when a liberal throws out something vile, contentious, stereotypical, opinionated, whatever against conservatives as a whole, you get a few conservatives stirred up, but there are only a few so it doesn’t create a mess, just the potential for the mods to deal with an individual or two who cross over the lines.
But when a conservative throws out exactly the same kind of flame bait, the hoard of liberals respond in exactly the same way as those conservatives did, but the volume of response suddenly creates a “denial of service” attack on the thread - the thread is flooded with bickering and is headed for a brick wall. The issue that drags the mods into heavy action is preventing said collision with the brick wall, so they have to get heavy-handed in policing the thread topic, which means the actions come down biased against conservative position threads over liberal ones.
Anyone want to comment? Agreement? Disagreement?
If this is the case, is it really fair? Is it unfair but unavoidable? Is there a better way to stop the train wrecks without creating the same bias?
I think this is pretty obvious. Another factor is that I am sure the mods get much more Reports of conservatives for “trolling” than liberals.
It is more or less unavoidable. Some few of the mods could do a better job of not allowing their own biases to affect their moderation, but overall, probably not much can be done about it.
What might help is a bit less ascribing motivations to posters.
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, this does not happen that much. There are a few posters on the Right who will Report only posters on the Left, but posters on the Left tend to Report violations, even of other posters who are supporting the same arguments.
Some few of the posters could do a better job of not allowing their own biases to affect their views of Moderation, but overall, probably not much can be done about it.
What might help is a bit less ascribing motivations to Mods. (Particularly when there is no evidence that any bias was involved in decisions affecting both sides of an argument.)