Ivory Tower Denizen, Is There a Reason for a Warning Rather than an Explanation?

Can you please explain why, if you thought a post was incomplete, that you assumed trolling, rather than asking for an explanation?

It seemed rather abrupt, and AHunter3 understood me. If you didn’t, perhaps you could ask either me, or him, or otherwise engage in the discussion rather than assuming the worst right off the bat.

Regards,
Shodan

What makes you think she thought it was incomplete?

I did not think it was incomplete. I think you said exactly what you meant to say and that you were doing it for the purposes of trolling that thread.

AHunter3 took a nuanced position despite your attempt to derail the thread. If you actually were looking for nuanced debate and discussion that’s what you would have lead with, not dropping an inflammatory one-liner.

I agree that that post should have been moderated. The post was totally dickish and insulting, didn’t add a thing to the discussion and could have derailed the whole thread.

If you didn’t think it was incomplete, why did you say it needed to be fleshed out and explained?

You said that if I had explained, it wouldn’t have been trolling. Why did you assume, in the absence of what you considered adequate explanation, what the explanation was?

Regards,
Shodan

To clarify, the point of my comment was: If your intent wasn’t to troll you would have taken a different tack. Since you chose to drop an inflammatory one-liner with no context or explanation it was clear that your intent was to rile people up. That was to indicate that the topic of self identification is not de facto trolling, but they way you did it was.

So, to answer your question posed in the OP again- I did not think your post was incomplete, so awaiting an explanation was not warranted.

The answer to that is exactly in the portion that you quoted. Can you really not see that? Incomplete would imply that you intentionally didn’t finish. You intentionally posted a short and insulting sentence rather than any kind of argument or discussion points.

How can you be so certain what intent one has?

By assuming that other posters on this board are rational, and thus behaving in a manner consistent with their intent.

Seems subjective to me. However, for you and the other mods intent is an objective fact? Why don’t you ask what Shodan’s intent is? Anyone can assume and offer a plausible rationale for anyone’s writing. That doesn’t mean that it is in any way accurate. For one, people have different axioms so even if people were purely rational, which is a bad assumption, differing behaviors and conclusions can result.

It’s impossible to see that post in any other way than as insulting the entire nature of the trans decision. Shodan is an experienced poster, well versed in the lines drawn on controversial topics. A nuanced post could have been framed in a million ways. This was a slur. A warning was well deserved. I know that every warning now has to have an ATMB thread, but c’mon.

It is hard for me to see the comment as anything other than a drive by sniping. If you had wanted to flesh out any actual point, you would have. The fact you didn’t, means you didn’t want to.

I just find it an interesting ability to unerringly discern intent. Contrary to Chronos’s assertion I don’t think intent is blindingly obvious because I don’t think the average participant on a message board acts consistently rationally. If they did rules against trolling would be extraneous as who would troll and more importantly who would there be to troll?

Shodan may or may not have been sarcastic but since when is a one line, possibly sarcastic post de facto trolling? Is it a function of the poster or the point of view? In many threads on a political or societal topic nowadays and you’ll find sentences, completely lacking nuance, that can be taken by some reader as offensive.

I think you make the mistake in assuming we’re determining the actual intent of the human being who uses **Shodan **as his username. That is ultimately impossible, though we can make educated guesses. The “intent” in these types of conversations is the intent of the message combined with context.

Sarcasm (as opposed to other verbal irony) is an attack. The raw language isn’t an attack, but rather a false statement. But the intent of the statement is an attack. Without any other context to mitigate this, the “intent” of the entire post is an attack.

Usually Shodan is careful to avoid using his trademark sarcasm in these very touchy situations. He keeps the attack focused on something relatively innocuous. But he didn’t this time. He played with Fire and got burned.

Still, there is indeed another context that is relevant: the context of what Shodan has posted in the past. Shodan is an intentionally provocative poster. He has admitted to enjoying “tweaking” people. He has also made his opinions on these matters clear, and it aligns with the message communicated with his post. He believes pretty much all the anti-LGBT concept.

Given that context, he doesn’t have the benefit of the doubt that some poster who is always careful to avoid offending and has made it clear they are very much pro-LGBT. That person might be assumed to have made a mistake in their wording. Shodan did not.

I’ll also note there is no apology in anything he has said. No apology communicates you don’t regret the consequences of what you said. People who don’t intend to offend will apologize if people are offended. I don’t keep saying that over and over for no reason.

It’s a common issue I see online: people all upset at how they are treated for what they say, but they never apologize for what they say. One follows directly from the other.

Who’s this we?

Surely, each person upon reading something is interpreting it personally and not part of a collective.

Assume for a moment Shodan’s post was sarcastic. Read through posts on any contentious political or social issue and I’m sure sarcasm or at the very least non-nuanced and unflattering statements will be found. These are very rarely acted upon. Why the bias? If apparent sarcasm is trolling why the selective enforcement?

I also disagree with the need to apologize. Not every proclamation of “I’m offended!” Is worthy of any consideration. Sure, some inadvertent offense is worth consideration but much is not. Society would be better off if a common response to “I’m offended!” Is silence or a “So, what?”

But I digress.

Anyways, I know the mods have a hard job. I’m not trying to make it harder. However, I like to see consistent and impartial moderation and this doesn’t seem to fit those criteria.

This, ah… kinda… preassumes that what they said was wrong and that they should have to apologise for it.

And that their feelings are invalid because you and they disagree.

Them having been wrong can’t apply in 100% of cases. Nor is there the faintest reason to combine:

upset at having been ill-treated

with *

should apologise for having the views that led them to be ill-treated*.
Your statement is false.

Of course it’s subjective. That’s why we have mods.

I almost never agree with Shodan, so apparently today is going to be a weird one. But to me in the context of that thread I think a warning is way too strong. I am not even sure it deserved a comment. If the Dope has to get along without sarcasm that will be a sad day for sure, and I defy anyone to know for sure if that remark was trolling or sarcasm.

If the OP had been some asshattery like “is gender identity a real thing, or is it just an excuse for perverts to get into the girls’ restroom?” then I think Shodan’s comment would barely have registered. But this was clearly a thread for people actually interested in the issue of gender identity - I don’t know about trolling, but even just viewed as sarcasm it seemed like threadshitting.

I agree that an immediate warning seemed harsh. But we’re not talking about a newbie who doesn’t know the rules.

That’s some college-level post-deconstructionism you’re dropping on us here, octopus–lemme drink some coffee first!

I was telling one of my students recently about a real-world magical tradition through which practitioners could use rare substances in combination with carefully-constructed wands to complete a ritual whereby they could place thoughts in the heads of other practitioners removed not only by thousands of miles, but also by years. That tradition, I told him, is called “writing.”

Presumably when Shodan “writes,” he’s operating within this tradition. Sure, he may be lying–the practice has a dark side to it–but normally we assume fellow practitioners aren’t using the Shadowed Arts. As such, we can be confident, if not certain, about his intent, because this magical tradition is a powerful one: he has used it to communicate his intent successfully.

It may come as no surprise that I have little patience with “how can you be certain about his intent?” arguments :). I similarly dislike snarky one-liners dropped in threads as a way for the poster to feel like they’ve won the debate, and am happy to see them moderated.