Jonathan Chance's warning to Shodan

About This Message Board
1

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18927977#post18927977

This thread started with a question about the use of the word “falsehood” in GD.

Post #9, Shodan made a comment about TomnDeb’s style of moderation.

Post #10, JC replied "This is not the place for such, Shodan. You know that. "

Post #11, Shodan asked “Where do you suggest - the Pit, or GD?”

POst #14, JC handed out a warning. "I told you to stop. You didn’t. "
I think this warning was simply wrong.

First point. The thread and the post were made in ATMB. That IS the place for complaints about moderation. The statement that “This is not the place” is simply wrong.

Maybe JC saw it as a hijack. In that case, he should have said something like “start a new thread”

If he objected to the tone, (which * would*be reasonable) he should have said "dial back the hostility. " If *this *is his beef, then the words “this is not the place” are still wrong.

Second point. Shodan DID stop when told. He made no further comment about Tom’s moderation. His second post was a question where IS the place. And that’s a reasonable response to the instruction.

Third point. Isn’t JC out of his jurisdiction? JC is authorised to police Great Debates. I thought moderators were supposed to stick to their own areas, and not interfere with other mods’ territory. If JC spots misbehaviour in ATMB, should he not alert the ATMB mods, and leave them to deal with it? At least, that’s how I thought it works.

All I can think is, JC forgot where he was. Maybe he thought that he was in GD, and this mistake of fact led to an inappropriate warning. That’s the only reason I can think for saying “This is not the place.”

2

Shodan has a long history of harping on this particular issue about tom. If he has been asked previously to drop that subject, then I can see the warning. If not, then I agree the warning was not deserved.

Just for the record, I chuckled at that post that got the warning.

3

What subject? he was asking JC where he should consider posting his criticisms. Why he was warned for that is beyond me.

4

Harping about tom’s moderating style. I’m open to the possibility that Shodan has been asked in the past to stop hijacking ATMB threads to rip on tom. If that is the case, then I think the warning was deserved. If not, then I don’t think it was deserved.

5

But he wasn’t doing that in the post he got warned for.

6

If he had been admonished before, then there is no forum where he should continue. So, yeah, in that case he was still “doing it”.

7

I decided to start a thread on the mod loop about it several hours ago. The consensus is that Shodan walked up to the line but was not clearly over it.

For the record, I meant that specific thread was not the place to take a shot at Tom. Shodan has made a small scale hobby of making this complaint and I didn’t want to see the thread derailed. I was unclear. I won’t be in the future.

As you all - and Shodan does, too - know, ATMB is the place to register disagreements with moderator actions. But that doesn’t mean that every thread is the place to register all disagreements. Shodan should have taken it elsewhere and - again - I should have made that clearer.

The warning is rescinded.

8

Well played JC :slight_smile:

9

Except this has never been the case in the past. I lobbied for this sort of thing when I first got here, and was shut down completely. Sure, a hijack may be told to go to a new thread, but never just a singel comment.

While I appreciate you taking the time to reconsider decisions, it would be far better if you could see these things happening ahead of time, and head them off. My advice is to never assume that the person you are responding to knows what they did wrong. It doesn’t even read as plausible that Shodan understood what it was you were talking about–he thought you were saying “Don’t complain about the mods.”

When I saw his posts earlier, I fully read them posts as “JC doesn’t know what tomndebb thinks because tom is inconsistent in his moderation,” and “where am I supposed to comment on moderation if not ATMB?”–both just said in a rather snarky manner.

Though, I admit that it doesn’t help that I agree with his complaints with tom. I complained about it when I first got here. He does seem inconsistent–as if he moderates based on intuition rather than by any fixed set of rules. You do it too (see above) but your intuition isn’t as good.

10

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Shodan has a long history of harping on this particular issue about tom. If he has been asked previously to drop that subject, then I can see the warning
[/QUOTE]
FTR - no, I have not been asked to drop the subject. Jonathan Chance was the first in that thread to mention that he did not know what tomndebb’s rules were for GD. If mentioning it was a hijack, it wasn’t my hijack.

Thanks for this.

Regards,
Shodan

11

Every time a warning is rescinded, an angel gets its wings.

12

I was puzzled by JC’s comment as well. “This is not the place.”

Since the Great Pit Shift of '09, we have been told over and over again that the only place to comment on moderation by mods is in ATMB.

When JC said “This is not the place”, to a comment about a mod in a thread in ATMB, it sounded to me like he was telling Shodan to take it to one of the other forums.

Shodan’s request for clarification was appropriate: if not ATMB, where?

I’ve never heard “this is not the place” used to mean “you’re hi-jacking this thread” which is I guess what JC was trying to say? :confused:

In any event, the warning’s been rescinded. It’s a Christmas miracle! :smiley:

13

Yes, I see that. Agree then that the warning should have been dropped, and nice to see that it was.

14

Every time a warning is rescinded, a kitten masturbates.

15

Agreed!

16

Likewise.

17

Must have been a full-scale celestial jubilee when Marley23’s mass bannination was corrected.

18

I suspect I enjoyed that far more than any sane man should.

19

An unfortunate increase in blind kittens, though.

20

The blind mice will be relieved.