You are really stretching.
Of course, I am not going to assert that the RCC is evil, but I was not the OP; the title change reflects the thread, not my views.
As to whether “RCC=evil” sounds silly–that was the exact position of multiple posters, in the thread. If you are asserting that they sounded silly, note that I have made no such assertion.
The change in direction was not an organic hijack, not a “veering,” it was the specific topic of the thread as soon as the the news article and its source was clarified.
Most posts were on the subject matter. MACE calling the church a club and constantly defending that position was a distraction.That did take a few posts off theme. But most discussed the subject matter and were not calling the church evil.
I completely disagree.
True, the way in which the OP interpreted the issue of ordaining women and used it as a jumping-off point for criticism of the Church might not have been to your liking, but the fact is that the Church’s position on the ordination of women was the reason for the thread. It seems to me that when two particular actions—sex abuse and the ordination of women—are placed at the same level in the Catholic moral hierarchy, it is not unreasonable to address them together, especially when they have both been the subject of considerable recent debate.
If there were any need at all for altering the thread title, it seems to me that a much more reasonable change might have been something like:
Catholics thinking of ordaining women? [Ordaining women and child abuse now equivalent sins in RCC law. Ed.]
or perhaps:
Catholics thinking of ordaining women? [Accusation of RCC getting its priorities wrong. Ed.]
Your “RCC=Evil” editorializing was way over the top.
I realize you’re unlikely to change your mind about the issue, and will no doubt continue to insist that your (very narrow) interpretation of the original title justified the change, but it just feels wrong and overbearing to me. And just another small addition to a long series of questionable judgment calls.
mhendo’s notes seem on target to me. Title editing is something that the mods should be doing very carefuly, and this seems to be at least getting a toe over the line, overstating the OP. Editing the title to make it clear that the church was being criticized for child abuse, does make sense to me. Bringing out the e-word to simplify those criticisms?
Not cool, Tomndebb
But the OP made no such assertion. Show me where Hari Seldon said the RCC is “evil” and I’ll cut you some slack, or is your policy to let highjackers rename the very thread they are highjacking? I can’t get on board with that.
Well, I’m certainly not seeing it that way. Before I knew this thread existed I thought your editing was way too biased. It shocked me a bit actually. And despite not sharing your views on several things, as a mod I do respect you. I’m surprised you are digging your heels in on this when you have been shown what a non-biased edit would look like.
I don’t see the need for an edit of the title to start with, and that edit was indeed biased. This action was not within the job description of moderators, as I understand them.
I as well was shocked that the title would be edited in that particular manner, to what, by, all purposes, seemed a sarcastic dismissal of the thread; it showed very poor form, I thought.
Oops.
I would be interested in hearing from other mods and admins on this issue.
Editing thread titles IS in fact something that mods do, when the title is unclear or misleading. I personally would probably have added a question mark [RCC=evil?] to imply there was some debate, but Tom felt there wasn’t debate actually going on: all the posts as of the editing time were agreeing with the equation.
Mods are often called upon to clarify a thread title, and we usually do it by adding a parenthetical (or square bracket) remark, and often post in the thread explaining.
But he didn’t do that. He says upthread, “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.” Tom’s opinion of where the thread headed off into is irrelevant. He edited the OP. And his characterization of where he thought it might go was improper. If his excuse made any sense at all, every time a thread was hijacked a mod would need to come in and re-“square bracket” the thread title. This was wrong and you know it. This is circling the wagons BS.
Yes, Tom is oversensitive when it comes to the church. He sees insult in places where it isn’t. If you actually read the thread, you’ll see that, despite what Tom says, not every post was claimiing “RCC=evil.”
Tom should have recused himself from modding the thread rather than adding what amounts to anonymous snark. Or lacking the will to do that, he should’ve moved it to the pit.
**Hari Seldon’s ** OP is to assert that the Catholic Church seems okay with pedophilia.
The OP’s title is clearly rhetorical. The topic is not really about the Catholic Church considering ordaining women - that is Hari’s dig at the juxtaposition of the topics.
Some editing of the title to the actual content of the thread is appropriate. The topic quickly veers and largely discusses the evilness of the RCC.
Maybe he should have used Skald’s wording from post 9:
Catholics thinking of ordaining women? [i.e. the Roman Catholic Church’s priorities are fucked up. Ed.]
Would that have been a less biased change? That’s probably a more accurate description of the content. It includes the “RCC = evil” posts, but also the ones discussing whether RCC not ordaining women is equivalent to RCC being sexist like the KKK is racist or not. And the ones about how serious Catholics actually take the RCC position on birth control and divorce and such. But it wouldn’t cover the posts discussing whether the RCC is just like a club or is something more influential/significant.
No, it wasn’t. His OP was to discuss the New York Times editorial. He clarified that in post 11 with the link to…
The New York Times.
Did you read the link? Here’s the first paragraph:
Dude, forget the link, the link isn’t what I’m citing. I’m citing Hari Seldon’s Fucking Post.
Bold, underline, and red added for fucking emphasis.
See, Hari just stated that the Catholic church seems to be okay with pedophilia.
Now maybe Hari was just being rhetorical, but he did make that assertion, if only for effect.
By the way, that Fucking New York Times article quote you provide characterizes the Church’s position on the pedophilia scandal as “defensive posturing and inept statements”. They don’t particularly think the RCC is doing much about pedophilia, either.
Okay, maybe I should have said “asserted” instead of “is to assert”.
Factually incorrect. Did you read the OP? It was simply a one-off dig at the church that he posted in MPSIMS.
Did you read Post #11? He was not “clarifying” a position or a debate, he simply noted a source for the information on which he riffed in the OP.
I had no problem with the debate (such as it was) or with the topic. Heck, lots of Catholics are upset about the odd juxtaposition of the two announcements.
I simply noted that as the thread wore on, there was no actual discussion of ordaining women while there was debate over whether the church was behaving in a bad way. With the limits on title sizes, I noted that the original title was no longer in play and noted the current discussion. I used “RCC=evil”, NOT claiming that that was the only position in the thread, but that no one had actually paid much attention to the ordination of women (the original title) and everyone was debating the quality of the RCC from posts 9 through 54.
From Post #9 onward, there are multiple posts talking about how the RCC is bad, and a handful of posts discussing the technical aspects of the announcement that triggered the the discussion, and a more lengthy discussion regarding whether the RCC should be considered to be in violation of some rule or another, with multiple posters taking the position that it was violating various rules of rightness because the position was bad or the church was bad and one poster taking a position, (on roughly U.S. Constitutional grounds), that the RCC could run their organization the way they wanted to. Given that no one was actually addressing the specific announcement from the Vatican and that the majority of the posts were asserting that the RCC was doing bad things, I still think that “RCC=evil” encapsulates the actual debate (such as it was) that was in progress at that point. (Recalling that the OP was simply a cheap shot against the church and that a title can take an affirmative position on a debate without asking a question.)
BTW, I would note that Dex’s exchange with squink is in error. I surely did see a debate; I simply noted that it had nothing to do with ordaining women (aside from its point as a charge of sexism).
That’s some good dancing skills you’ve got there, is all i can say.
The source of the problem was a poorly worded OP. It was difficult to know exactly what was being debated. Tom was trying to bring that into focus, but went about it in the wrong way perhaps.
If someone hadn’t read the news for a couple of days, she or he wouldn’t have any idea what this debate was specifically about or who “they” refer to.
No personal offense Hari, but you should be able to present your case with more clarity and a more suitable title to begin with.
(Bewildered Protestant)