It’s meta man. This thread wouldn’t exist if people could accept that the threads here are due the same gravitas as youtube comments and tweets.
A poster posts the same link (with quotation; it was not ONLY a link) in three different threads without any comment, and in AT LEAST two of those cases (arguably all three, although i’ll concede that one was borderline), the quote provided was directly relevant to the topic under discussion.
Why ask him not to do it?
Is the internet running out of electrons?
Did those posts somehow detract from the discussions, or derail the threads in questions?
Did the presence of those quotes in three separate threads prove confusing for people who, miraculously, jumped straight from one to the next?
Did those people think, “Oh my God! It’s the same quote! I’ve gone down the rabbit hole”?
Are those threads reaching the maximum possible page length allowed before they have to be omitted from the board’s incredibly slow and unreliable search function?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Which is exactly what JC himself did.
Anyone else see some irony here?
Jonathan Chance, you posted this exact same thing* in two different threads …
*okay, *one *word changed.
I noticed that too. IMHO, if you want to admonish someone for bad behavior, you shouldn’t do it by doing the exact same thing. It comes across as flaunting the rules and appearing to be above them, instead of the humor that was probably the actual intent.
Well, I thought it was funny. But YMMV.
Look, I mod-noted BG as a means of guiding him away from something that was pointed out to me (it was reported) and that I thought was detrimental to actual discussion. Upon investigation, I discovered he’d done it three times with that post and twice with another post all within just a few hours. I did not go further back than that. If it’s a habit of his then I was previously unaware of it.
I still think it’s very bad form to just post links, whether with quote or not. Far better to say something about how YOU perceive that quote and what you think it means in the larger context. That’s just good debating.
This is a longstanding habit of his, and it pleases me immensely that the mods are discouraging him from it.
No, they really don’t. Certainly the guy who actually got noted doesn’t seem to want to know.
Its a mod note, not a ban and not even a warning. That somebody would start an ATMB thread using the tone in the OP over somebody else’s simple mod note is strange to me.
Guys, guys. THAT’S the meta component that makes the example funny.
Truth to tell, I can recall doing something similar on an essay I turned in when I was in grade school (which I graduated from in 1970, FTR). The teacher did not find it particularly amusing, FWIW.
It’s not like JC makes a habit of this kind of thing. I thought the brace of mod notes was appropriate AND entertaining, in the thread where I saw it.
In general, you are correct, however it should be noted that not every forum (and certainly not every post) is intended for debate.
Moderator posts are not an avenue for colorful prose or originalism. Content offered by posters is not remotely close to moderator instructions. I would expect moderator instructions to be similar if not verbatim to previous iterations of the same instruction. It’s a form letter.
Well, i did say inquiring minds, suggesting that not everyone would have the same level of interest. Only you are qualified to determine whether or not that applies in your case.
But there’s the rub: the only thing i can do is start a new thread if i want to comment on it.
Under other circumstances, i would have been happy to place a short post in one of the threads in question, simply noting that i thought the moderator was being overly officious. It might have looked something like this:
But, of course, i can’t do that, because there is a blanket rule on the boards against addressing moderator decisions anywhere but ATMB. That means that any concerns about moderation, no matter how minor, either have to be let go altogether, or they have to go through the rigmarole of having their own thread. There is no middle ground.
Of course, your next response will probably be that they should be let go. That’s just how you are with respect to this particular subject. That’s very clear from your constant appearance in ATMB threads about moderation. I just happen to disagree. You tell me that you don’t think this is a big enough issue to warrant a thread; well, if you don’t think the issue is important, there are thousands of other threads you could be contributing to right now on this message board. Don’t let the door hit you, etc., etc.
Pretty simple, really.
Yeah, it was almost as witty and original as “The moderator clears his throat.” A laff-riot! I wasn’t aware that there was an attempted-humor exemption from board rules.
Look, i agree that this isn’t a huge deal. I just believe that the philosophy of moderation should be a sort of Hippocratic one: first do no harm, or at least do as little harm as possible. If the offense is minor enough that your moderator intervention is likely to be even more distracting and pointless than the offense itself, you should probably exercise some discretion.
Also, leaving aside for a moment the issue of whether BrainGlutton’s posts were relevant, the moderator could easily have effected his intent, without making multiple identical posts and breaking up the flow of those threads, by sending the offending poster a Private Message. It would have saved time; it would have made the point without disturbing the threads; and it would have prevented the moderator from breaking the very rule he was enforcing.
Just MHO.
I tend to be opposed to moderation by PM.
I don’t see the basis for any controversy. BG broke a rule, was mod noted for it, attempted to dismiss the mod note out of hand, and it got turned into a Warning.
Spamming multiple forums with the same post is lazy posting, which I expect is the basis for the rule against it. Telling the mods you have contempt for their instructions is bad if we want a messageboard that is any better than YouTube comments. Therefore, there is a rule against it.
I don’t see anything silly about any of it.
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, I was using my only appearance in ATMB so far this year to inform you of my opinion that you are being very silly by moaning about such a trivial non-issue, and especially by loading the complaint with such worthy terms as “Dumb”, “Ridiculous” and “Silly”.
But hey, as long as you are having fun.
A rule, btw, which is rarely enforced.
I hadn’t realized it had become a warning and wanted to say a big ol’ thank you to all the mods involved.
I’m sick of seeing hundreds of spam posts that amount to nothing more than “See here: link (because I’m too lazy to argue on my own)”. If I want to subscribe to a news aggregator, I will.
If it was up to me, all “See here: link” posts would be banned.
It only became a warning because of how (not necessarily where) BG protested it. Not because of the action itself.
Curses!
For thread-starting, and as a method of engaging in actual debate, i agree with you. And i also think that the particular poster in question here has a tendency to start too many threads with substance-free OPs. But there are quite a few threads where links and (relevant) quotes can be perfectly appropriate, especially in threads like the SRIOTD thread.
Maybe, but do you think that’s an argument for breaking it? Should i, in future, criticize moderator actions in the threads in question, rather than coming to ATMB? I’ve seen plenty of people chastised, and some warned, for questioning moderator actions outside of ATMB.
Also, the post you linked to is in the Pit, where the moderators tend to use a lighter touch anyway, and where the moderators themselves generally seem more capable of not stepping on their johnsons on a regular basis with officious and unnecessary interventions.