The warning was rescinded while I was composing my last post.
Good on ya, JC!
Aside from the fact that truth and accuracy matter, why on earth do you see a need to bowdlerize the referent? Why do you think noting that SA referred to a third party’s pejorative comment about a fourth party carries any implication whatsoever to SA’s own reputation? If I mention something critical Hitler once said about Churchill and comment on it, should I worry that you will think I’m a Nazi, because that makes about as much sense as what you’re saying. (And, yes, I do feel it’s about time this was Godwinned.)
Here’s why:
You think I’m wrong. I think you’re wrong. It bothers me not a whit to agree to disagree.
Thanks all for the interesting discussion. I just popped back in to brag that I’ve now won my first and only case at the Straight Dope Court of Appeals, so if anyone needs any representation for the Straight Dope Supreme Court, I’m happy to oblige.
It’s fine with me if this thread stays open, but I’ll probably not come back to it much.
LHoD, I assume my check is in the mail. 
This entire thing was ridiculous given the clear rule allowing the change, the by-the-book adherence to the rule, and the common sense of the change. But frankly, I would avoid the bracketed insertions for two reasons:
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They don’t come with the handy links you get if you multi-quote, and
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Apparently a lot of dopers don’t understand how brackets work. I would use them in all other contexts.
Yeah, this was a surprise. LHoD’s quote adhered to not just the SDMB rules, but also every style guide I can remember reading. I would have thought there was no way to be confused by that post.
That same opportunity for mischief exists with or without the brackets, so it’s a silly point to make, and I abhor your recommendation that’s it’s not a “best practice” instead of owning up to the fact you completely misinterpreted the statement and/or the rule.
Amplifying the best practice discussion:
Multiquote would have worked in this case. The downside though is that excessive quoting leads to posts taking up multiple screens on a desktop. At that point you lose most of your readers. More generally, tit for tat discussions tend to become embroiled in sub-points while the broader issues receive less emphasis. So there are advantages to more concise editing methods.
I concede that brackets produce scope for mischief. So that’s a disadvantage. I think it’s generally good to curb quote box nonsense when it is nonsensical. I’ll note though that brackets are routinely used, as outlined in the TOS and various style guides.
ETA: I disagree with Red Barchetta and opine that best practices should be discussed more in ATMB, not less.
What I found a bit funny is that I was reminded of this only because the rule that’s been quoted here once or twice, seen here, specifically says “Be aware that for legal reasons, the Moderators do not edit posts, except to rectify coding errors or remove unacceptable links - changes that do not require editorial judgment on our part.” I didn’t pay close enough attention to see if this came up in the other thread, I just thought it was interesting that, even though someone mentioned there’s no rule against mods editing their own post (it’s just that we can’t, or something like that), there is, in fact, a rule against it, it even calls out mods, specifically.
If this is how you feel (especially WRT #1), then I think the mods/Ed really need to think about making the ‘no changing quotes’ rule even more strict. At the very least to not adding text, but maybe even to an all or none thing. If people were so confused by this, then, IMO, it’s a lost cause. Just quote the whole thing and be done with it, that should end all of this.
The opportunity for malicious quote modification exists with our without the brackets. Proposing it’s not a “best practice” does nothing to change this and it came across as more of an excuse for Chance’s ignorance
The brackets method would be a best practice with a more sophisticated audience. It appears we do not have one of those.
I’d argue this forum has one of the more sophisticated audiences; it’s only a few that act in active opposition of that imo.
Bracket-used should be handled from a moderation-perspective just as anything else; its use shouldn’t be discouraged when it serves an important function
Oh, please. People can disagree with you without being less sophisticated than you are.
The problem wasn’t the brackets per se, it was the contents of the brackets.
While the use of the brackets might have been technically correct, no competent newspaper or book editor would ever have permitted their use in that way.
I wonder if the issue is that the consensus here is that, of course, everyone knows Trump is “an egotistical, self-aggrandizing narcissist” and LHoD was simply inserting a fact into the brackets. Had the text in question been disparaging towards Obama, I think some here would have taken a different view of the practice.
No. The bit I put in the quote was put in there specifically to show what SA was disagreeing with. The idea that it’s okay because it’s popular opinion is totally irrelevant.
So I was on a six hour road trip today. I’m happy that the warning was rescinded. But there’s more to say than that.
Any time there’s a miscommunication, it’s incumbent on speaker and audience to determine whether they’re at fault.
I’ve looked at what I’ve said. I’ve reread it several times. I’ve asked about alternative antecedents–to deafening silence. I’ve reread the rules around clarification. I’ve also read what other members of my audience have said, and a solid majority of my audience understood both exactly what I meant and why I structured the post the way I did.
After consideration, I stand by my communication.
Audience members, you need to ask yourselves: did you read the post as carefully as I wrote it? Is there any coherent meaning you can derive from it, other than the one I intended? Did you, upon your initial misreading, think to yourself, “Maybe I should read that again, make sure I understood it”? If not, the fault for this miscommunication is on your end.
Now most of you, who gives a crap? So you misread something I wrote. Shakespeare I’m not; your boss I’m not; you can misread me to your heart’s content. The loss, such as it is, is entirely yours.
But Jonathan Chance? You’re a special sort of reader. When you misread me, the consequences for the misreading fall on me.
I know this will open me to mockery, so usual suspects get your mocking hats on–but getting a warning is stressful for me. I watch my behavior here, I work to stay on the right side of things. This has been something gnawing at me today. It’s unpleasant to get a warning.
Which is normally a feature, not a bug. The board works best when warnings are unpleasant for them as receives them: that’s the best way to ensure that they change behavior.
But that means that, to the extent that warnings work, mods need to be careful about handing them out. This warning was posted ten minutes after my post. It scarcely comes across as a thoughtful, considered action: it comes across as a quick read first thing in the morning, given carelessly based on a shallow misreading of the situation.
Rescinding the warning was good judgment. Issuing it in the first place? Not only erroneous, but erroneous in a way that shows poor judgment.
There are times warnings need to be given out. There are times when it’s completely unambiguous: if in that thread I’d clearly called another poster an egotistical, arrogant narcissist, sure, warn me. But when it’s ambiguous–when the post doesn’t make entire sense to you on the first reading–there’s no rule against thinking about it first. Jonathan, you could ask me a question first, you have my PM. You could write a note, then upgrade it to a warning. You could finish your first cup of coffee first.
I guess what I’m saying is, when you mod, consider keeping your finger outside of the trigger guard.
Just to be clear, I was riffing off of Colibri’s post. The content of the brackets is not “totally irrelevant”. Brackets should be used to clarify, but not to editorialize. And while I’m 100% on your side that you had no intention of editorializing, you are blind if you can’t see that it might be construed that way by someone who didn’t take the not so easy task of tracing the quotes back to where they came from.
One doesn’t need to be “sophisticated” (not your words, those of another poster) to understand the difference between “Trump’s public persona” and “an egotistical, self-aggrandizing narcissist”.
One more vote to say (1) I understood LHoD’s post as written, (2) I cannot envision it being more clear if any of the suggested alternatives were used, but it could have been less clear, (3) this kind of clarification is specifically allowed by the rules, (4) suggestions that it invites abuse to any extent greater than an ability to post anything invites abuse are silly as transgressions of any kind – which this was not – remain open to moderation, (5) rescinding the warning was correct but not issuing the warning at all would have been better. In case anybody is tabulating.
Luckily, in all likelihood, LHOD probably isn’t a a newspaper or book editor. For all we new he’s just a dog on the internet.
So LHoD wrote something that you acknowledge was a completely accurate and correct statement of the referent of SA’s “that”, without editorializing; yet you dislike that, and somehow blame LHoD for the fact that apparently a careless reader might have presumed it to be inaccurate and editorialized.
…and your solution seems to be to advocate the substitution of something that really is inaccurate and editorialized - it’s a bowdlerized paraphrase, not the actual words of the referent. Because… well, I really have no idea why, it’s too bizarre for words.
Your views seems reminiscent of Stephen Colbert’s parody: evidently you value truthiness over truth.