(members name replaced with xxxxxxxxx in above quote)
*
[Moderating]
And you’re a really bad liar. That’s a warning to you, too.
[/Moderating]
and here*
I’m not concerned with the official nature of the mod’s actions, that’s between the member and the staff. What concerns me is what appears to be snide, snarky, insulting additions to the warnings. Are such comments professional and in the best interest of the board? Are they necessary?
Moderation here is almost exclusively rude. That’s what’s so great about it: the mod team’s clear distaste for everyone they moderate, without even trying to pretend to be even a little bit polite. Miller’s usually cool though. Maybe he started drinking early today or something.
I think a harsh tone can sometimes be helpful in communicating the severity of a particular infraction. I also think that, by posting in the Pit, you’re implicitly agreeing to a looser standard of civility to begin with. Not that I’m condoning outright abuse, but I don’t think bringing in a little “bad cop” to the moderation of the Pit is inappropriate.
That being said, I do want to justify the second post, where I warned spinky. Calling him a liar wasn’t just me taking a shot at him, it was part of the justification for the warning. Here’s the post he was warned for:
I felt it was important to let him know that I was not accepting his excuse. Given the open hostility he’d already expressed, I did not feel compelled to be particularly polite about it.
We do it occasionally to get a point across. People have also complained at times about the phrase “being a jerk,” since jerk isn’t a nice thing to call someone. We try to be polite unless the situation calls for something a little tougher.
For what it’s worth, I had just called him an idiot, so I don’t really feel like insulting me back was out of line. Although I like to think he really spoke it something like this:
That is, responding to my insult off-duty and then giving me a warning with the hat on. Seems fair to me.