octopus
November 22, 2019, 6:57pm
19
Atamasama:
The thing is, the rules don’t say you must be civil, just “reasonably” civil. That’s obviously a subjective determination but moderating is by design and necessity a subjective thing. And it’s possible to be both subjective and fair; I like to think I’ve done that successfully at other boards I’ve moderated and in my time as a Wikipedia admin.
The way grudges and escalations are prevented is by a moderator stepping in if things are getting too far. That’s what is being asked for here.
This discussion seems very similar to this discussion.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=856568
Where Ed posted this:
We reviewed the posts Chimera finds objectionable at the time they were initially reported to us, and we’ve now done so again. We’ve also reviewed posts by the relevant parties in the Pit. We find no evidence of a campaign of harassment. Morgenstern, it’s fair to say, doesn’t think much of Chimera and has made this plain in a couple threads where the two were on opposite sides of an argument. This isn’t against our rules. Arguably if Morgenstern were to disparage Chimera repeatedly in threads having nothing to do with the original disagreement, that would constitute harassment, but that’s not what’s been happening here so far as we can tell. Please note:
Insults are allowed in the Pit. Some of the insults are funny; some are vicious. It’s always been that way. If you don’t want to be insulted, don’t post in the Pit.
Be aware that information you post about yourself on this board may be used against you. Doing so may be a dick move. It’s not against our rules.
Our mistake was in leaving this thread open after it had ceased to be a discussion of board rules and had degenerated into bickering. We’ve not going to make that mistake again. We’ll leave this thread open briefly in case anyone has a point to make about our rules, enforcement, etc. If you want to rehash an old argument, take it to the Pit.
and this
“Don’t be a jerk” is the guiding principle behind our rules. It’s not, in itself, an enforceable rule. Everyone has a different notion of what constitutes jerkishness. To avoid endless arguments, we’ve tried to come up with bright line rules that are clear to all. The rule invoked by Chimera was the one against harassment. To repeat, we find no evidence he was being harassed as we understand the term. The posts reported by Chimera were mostly dismissive remarks. No doubt he didn’t like being addressed in such terms; they weren’t harassment by any stretch.
Now obviously, this “don’t be a jerk” thing HAS been used several times as an enforceable rule. I’m not sure if the mods actually take notes on all these things, but there you have it from the horse’s mouth.
Now if things have changed I think it’d be fair to actually update the rules. It would also help that if they were actually consolidated into one place. This is like playing Magic the Gathering but with the rules scattered to the four winds.