Ah. So, being wrong (in your opinion) is the same as being abusive? Hands up, all those reading this who think the quote Squink provided represents a violation of any GD rules or is personally abusive in any way.
Let me see if I get what you’re trying to claim - the people who hold ideas other than yours are in fact offensive and abusive merely because they hold those ideas, and therefore any attempt they make at trying to defend those ideas gives you license to attack them personally. Is that about it?
You know, in re-reading your comments, Squink, I think the above was an unfair rejoinder. I do believe my knee was jerking just a tad. Feel free to disregard it. I do maintain, however, that the quote you posted does not violate GD rules in any way, although I will grant you that it was a bit inflammatory. Nowhere near the level coming back from some on the other side, mind you.
The idea sounds nice. My problem, as a Mod, is trying to figure out just where one is supposed to invoke this “week off.” The people about whom the complaints are being lodged are not violating actual board or forum rules: they are not posting personal attacks; they are not deliberately changing the quotes of other posters or inventing sources that do not exist, their “off topic” hijacks are not much different than similar posts by people who do not share their views.*
In fact, the only difference that I can see between the people who are being targeted at the moment and Brutus or duffer is that there happen to be more of them.
Finding new punishments is fine, but the problem is that there appears to be a desire to legislate new crimes. I do not object to that, in principle, but I have seen no actual actions pointed out to criminalize. All the suggestions have been directed towards how to punish the evil-doers, while no one has explained what crimes the evil-doers are being allowed to commit.
*(If one of them is interrupting a Cafe Society discussion to claim that Bush has destroyed movie making or responding to a GQ question with “Bush sux”, I do not see that as I watch GD–and I really did not see any of that among the people being lambasted, here, in the time I Modded in GQ).
M4M, the paragon of justice, will lay out his opinion:
Violation of GD rules? No.
Tightly wound? Yes.
Abusive? Sure. As in, Sam that argument of yours is beyond fruitcake. Personally abusive? Nope. Sam stays within letter of the law.
Ok, yuks aside, it’s my impression --and remember I haven’t been in GD much over the past year or so-- that Sam is reasonably civil or more in GD. IMHO.
Uh, no. It’s the “You’re a paranoid schizo” stuff (sorry, your argument is paranoid schizo stuff) that he’s taking issue with. Still, methinks, that’s well within the bounds of GD.
On preview: Seriously, doesn’t it reflect well upon Sam that he can retract a hastily written post? I for one have seen definitive effort by Sam to be civil, YMMV presumably.
More to the point, gang, what conservative on the board is more conscientious about substantiating his viewpoint than Sam?
I agree with this assessment. Now, how does this differ from the actions of those posters that others want to “rein in”? They may do more of the inflammatory stuff than others, but does anyone have an objective number of inflammatory posts that we can use to decide that a poster has crossed the line, even though no specific post is outside the rules?
I see Squink’s point somewhat differently. It is fine to have a different, even factually incorrect, opinion. It is fine to defend your opinion, even if it is wrong, assuming it is held in good faith. I think Squink is taking issue with the characterizations of the cognitive processes or motives of the person on the other side of the issue. Allowing bias to cloud your judgement is a result of poor analysis, which reflects upon the analyst. Being likened to a “tinfoil hatter” is also a rather negative characterization.
I agree that these are not pleasant debating techniques to be on the opposite side of. The reality, however, is that they are absolutely the norm for GD. I’ve done it, heck, tomndebb did it in post 215 of this very thread. Saying that having Bill Clinton in a non-“far left liberal” category would be the " consensus of every intelligent educated person in the U.S." Clothahump has already stated his opinion that Clinton is “a far left liberal” The clear implication is that Clothahump is not a member of the set of intelligent, educated people in the U.S.
This type of insult is absolutely the norm in GD. Unfortunate perhaps, but a clear and understandable result of the style of Cecil Adams. Cecil set the tone for the board. It is hard to cry foul when one is simply mimicing “The Perfect Master”. So, the beat goes on. Given the behavior of the boards iconical, if generally absentee, father-figure, I don’t see this changing any time soon.
Enjoy,
Steven
On Preview: Damnit, you guys take longer to resolve your differences next time.
I don’t understand why so many people here are afraid of dissent. I can understand displeasure at personal insults, but as long as they are not true, and are just matters of opinion or name-calling, what does it matter?
My main objection is to misinformation that may actually do harm to someone.
Sam, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’ve been abusive – not that I can recall and certainly not in the way that *manny could be insulting.
Jesus, I meant it as a general thing. You see a post that you consider trolling you report it. You don’t whine about it months or years later. It’s pointless and annoying.
I wasn’t thinking so much about punishment as Refereeing. As in, “All right, back to your corners, you hotheaded clowns!”. Something that isn’t a punishment. Hell, maybe you lock the entire thread to avoid singling anyone out. How about that? If, in your judgement, a debate has stopped being civil and is turning snarky and abusive, just call a time-out by locking the thread for a day, or a week, or whatever. That might help the board be more self-policing, as other members are surely to start getting pissed off when the clods step all over a thread and cause everyone to have to halt the discussion for a while.
I understand these are imperfect solutions, but I don’t have any perfect ones in my bag of tricks.
You’ll never be able to achieve a consensus as to what all is inflammatory. That changes from year to year, and from person to person. Sooner or later, each of us will end up getting really pissed about something that someone says, and that no one else gives a shit about. If you try using some number based on say, how many times ‘report this post’ gets clicked for each poster, you’ll end up with some version of mob rule, and get into arguments about whether the shrill liberals, or the whiney conservatives are stuffing the ballot boxes.
That seems like an unpleasant place to make the mods live.
The penitent posts as usual, but there is a 50% chance that his post appears to have been added to the mix, but isn’t really. Nobody can see it but the penitent. Or it is there. Maybe. He doesn’t know!
So he won’t say the same asshole thing again, 'cause everybody will be, like, “Yeah, we heard, Cognitive Dissonance, STFU! OK?”
After about a week of seeing how little difference it makes, he will probably seek professional help or join the Hairy Krishna.
I haven’t been hanging out in GD that much lately, so I don’t know what specific complaints anyone currently has. Certainly I don’t have any. But I can tell you that in the past, the actions of others have gone FAR past this. Often in the form of a third person gang pile-on, which are extremely frustrating. They go something like this:
Poster A: I believe that <blah blah whatever>
Poster B: That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
Poster C: You expected better of Poster A?
Poster B: Nah. Par for the course from people like him.
Poster D: Why do guys keep talking him? Might as well talk to a tree.
Poster B: A tree would be more interesting.
Poster E: <highfives Posters, B,C, and D> Good one!
Poster F: Well, now that Poster A’s ideas have been so thoroughly shot down, let’s talk about something else.
This kind of pile-on was very common, and should be against the rules even if any particular post is just skirting the line of the rules. It’s also a very effective way to shut down the debate, because if Poster A: tries to come back with a further point, the same pile-on will happen again, only this time people won’t BELIEVE that he’s still talking because five other people already refuted him.
Then there’s the casual derision, the calling of conservative posters “tighty righties” and other epithets, and similar shots back at the left, which may not be against the rules but certainly don’t predispose the other side towards civil debate. This stuff contributes to the coarsening of the conversation which makes it all the harder for either side to fight ignorance. And to be fair, my ‘tinfoil hat’ comment fits in this category as well.
And of course, with some posters it goes way beyond this. Collounsbury eventually got banned for it, but he was basically allowed to abuse other members for months before he finally got the axe.
Especially since the Righties have gotten markedly tighter. I don’t think I’ve agreed with a thing the Republicans have done during Bush’s second adminsitration. Feh.
Because they aren’t conservatives, they are reactionaries! Now, I know that terms seems as quaint as “dictatorship of the proletariat”, but think how it applies!
A conservative advises prudence when it comes to social and political change. A reactionary tries to nullify changes that have already taken place. It’s a fools errand to put the toothpaste back.
Further, I betcha Werewolf of London is the only Warren Zevon GeeDubya has ever heard of.
Actually, I have done exactly this on a couple of occasions–and been taken to task in the Pit and in e-mail for being too intrusive since no one was violating the rules.
(The complaints did not bother me or make me change my Modding style. I understood the objections to my “interference.” However, it does point up the problem I have with the complaints running through these three threads. Everyone is sure that they know that some other poster needs to be banned or admonished or cooled off or something. Yet, no one can propose a specific rule to enforce that would prevent all the terrible board-destroying actions that they perceive.)
I am going to break a personal rule regarding comments on posters to make this point one time: Reeder is constantly held up as an example of all the terrible things that the Mods “allow” that demonstrate their “liberal” bias. I submit that the only significant difference between Reeder and december is that Reeder has had the good sense to post more of his rants in the Pit while december consistently posted his rants in GD. In fact, Reeder was even ordered to keep his Bush rants in the Pit down to one on the opening screen at a time–an order with which he complied.
Now, I am not claiming that no one finds Reeder’s contributions excessive and irritatating. However, december was banned for specific actions–actions that Reeder has not been caught doing. So why is there a claim that Reeder is being favored, when december was allowed to pursue the exact same program without hindrance for years until he crossed over a particular set of rules that Reeder has not yet crossed?
OK. Now frame a rule that prevents pile-ons that can be enforced. Do we say that no poster can comment on the quality of another person’s post? (This would be a major artificially imposed change to board culture. It would also have eliminated milum in his first week, leading to more claims of “liberal” bias.) Do we declare that the nth poster that responds to the perceived errors of a particular post or poster have now constituted a “pile-on” so that everyone who feels a need to respond to any post has to count the extant responses and withhold comment if the limit has been reached? Are you proposing this rule for any particular Forum, or for all Fora, including the Pit?
I am not trying to dismiss your suggestion, but I want to be sure that any new rules are workable and do not invoke the law of unintended consequences. Like art and pornography, a lot of these situations fall into the “I know it when I see it” category–and no two people ever see these situations the same way. (Even the same person can see the same situation differently after a night’s sleep or from the perspective of a few weeks away from the heat of a thread.) Placing Mods in the position of having to “know” when the situation has changed from the general mêlée of a rough and tumble debate to a pile-on without clear rules is simply going to triple or quintuple the number of anti-Mod threads in the Pit. (Yeah, we’re tough and can take it, but that is not going to make the board a better place, either.)