In this thread **tomndebb **edits the thread title Catholics thinking of ordaining women adding [Title is not topic. Topic is “RCC=evil”. Ed.] This after two mods had already commented on the thread. I also note that **tomndebb **is a well known member of the RCC.
I’ve been here 9 years and never seens this kind of thing before. Is this acceptable behavior by a mod?
Given that the OP was
the bias wasn’t entirely restricted to the edited bit.
Yeah, poor form. Using the edit-title functionality to improve clarity is one thing. Using it to advance an argument, or to dismiss an argument, dilutes that function and is skeezy.
It was a shitty thread, and I stopped reading it after a couple of posts, given the obnoxious OP. But Tom’s edit is unnecessary, snarky, and an abuse of that mod power.
You expected something else? This is from the people who banned fuck you in the pit. If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know, I don’t know what will.
Maybe he just added it for clarity. I didn’t see the thread, nor would I have read it if I had, but only a few days ago I heard discussion, on the radio, of a Catholic child abuse apology. They said that the Archbishop admitted that 60 priests had abused children. I assumed that he meant world wide but no, that was for Melbourne Australia alone. There are only just over 200 diocese in Melbourne. What an appalling history. So **“RCC=evil” ** = pretty close to the truth.
That’s as maybe, but despite a poorly articulated OP, it seems entirely inappropriate to use moderator control to edit a thread title and skew it in this way. I’ve been a member here for about 10 years now and, as I see it, posters tend to moderate OPs quite capably without such intervention.
Perhaps mods shouldn’t moderate on topics in which they have a vested interest.
If you think the behaviour was not acceptable, why don’t you just report it?
Isn’t that what this thread is?
I tend to side with the mods in general as we agree to abide by the rules of the messageboard and its chosen representatives, but in this case I think the mod edit was, if not actively biased, certainly done hamhandedly. I druther the title had been left as was.
I’m fine with it. This board could use more snark and heavy-hitting. This is supposed to be the kind of place where you need thick skin and the ability to take some lumps. It…well, it is getting less and less like that as time goes on.
The only point of the edit was to clarify the topic as it existed in the thread. I am not even sure what bias is being perceived.
As posted in MPSIMS, (where it originated), the title would have been fine as an intro to whether the RCC actually intended to ordain women. (It still would have been mildly misleading since the answer is clearly NO, but as a teaser it was not extraordinarily out of line.)
Once it hit GD, the whole issue of ordaining women was pretty much abandoned, replaced by an ongoing discussion of whether or not the RCC was, in fact, evil.
Read the thread. How many posts take a position on whether the church should or will ordain women vs how many posts simply mention women’s ordination as a comparison to perceived evils of the church vs how many posts ignore the issue of women’s ordination, completely, to argue the issue of whether the church is evil?
Had I added to the title, “Let’s bash the RCC” I could see the claims of bias, and had I changed the title, completely, to “Let’s bash the RCC” I would have been way out of line. Instead, I made a note in a fashion that clearly indicated Mod intervention, that the discussion was following a different line.
The topic is in Great Debates; the assumption is that there will be both pro and con voices for the matter of whether the RCC is evil. Stating one position to be argued is pretty much standard for GD titles. (If there were no pro or no con voices, then I could move it to IMHO.)
You misunderstand this thread’s title, I think. You didn’t edit with bias, you edited a biased title.
That said, to the OP, it’s pretty obvious the problem was the original title was too vague, not too biased, and there certainly is precedent for editing vague titles.
That you can’t see claims of bias is a bit beside the point when everyone else can. “Let’s bash the RCC” would perhaps been more obvious but adding “RCC’s delicta graviora/crimes against church law revisions” would have been unlikely to be seen as biased. Also, any one with a bit of time here would know “RCC=evil” would end up in the discussion.
What’s your point?
The topic was not whether or not the RCC intended to ordain women. The discussion regarding specific church law only made it into about a half dozen posts. I changed the title just after post #55 had been submitted. The topic of discussion for the previous 40 posts had been whether or not the RCC was evil. Nothing I did changed or steered the discussion.
What’s your point? I’m not accusing you of steering the direction, I don’t think anyone is, I’m pointing out what a non-biased title edit would have looked like.
There was no bias in the title I used.
I guess it’s everyone else’s problem. The only person in this thread that’s on your side is there because he wishes a return to “more snark and heavy-hitting”.
The title was not edited to say “topic is whether RC=evil” but rather to day “topic is RC=evil.” Seems biased to me.
Reporting a mod in his own forum. You really think that would mean anything? That’s what ATMB is for.
And, anyways, the problem is that Tom, a Catholic, renamed the title into a strawman position, right? Nobody actually thinks that Tom would believe “RC=evil”, right? The bias would be in making people think how silly that sounds. And it would backfire immensely, based on what I know about the people here. If it were really saying RC=evil, it would be a pitting.
And Smeghead: There’s absolutely no way this board could have ever been heavy hitting. How can it be when I can’t even make fun of you for having such a stupid opinion? And how the hell is “RC=evil” even remotely snarky or heavy hitting?
I’m not sure that bias is exactly the right word to describe what happened here, but i do think the edit was ill-advised.
There are plenty of threads that veer off into tangential discussions of the topic, and that don’t have their titles altered or “clarified.” Anyone entering that thread could have worked out for themselves the main tone of the discussion, and decided whether or not to participate.
Really, really bad form, tom. It would have been fine as a post in the thread but not as a title edit.