While bullshit, Marley’s original mod note’s only instruction was that I “restrain myself” from being “rude”. I complied with that and Marley did not dispute that I violated that.
Marley then claimed that I was somehow “[disputing his] moderating.” (It was okay for Bricker to challenge me about whether or not Marley’s factual claims were accurate, however. Of course) However, at no point had I actually done as Marley claimed and challenged his moderation, only pointed out that his claims about my statements were false. I couldn’t have possibly been more clear when responded that I was not, in fact, disputing his moderation nut that I was, however, challenging a factual claim he had made, whereby he claimed that I had not discussed something that I had discussed a half dozen times in the thread and had only discussed something even though I had a half dozen citations where I had discussed several other things as well.
Marley then, refusing to admit that he was wrong about a factual matter, decided to abuse his authority and issue a Warning for my “ignoring his instructions”, although that never actually happened either, and bullshitting that “any claims [he] made about the posts were made only in the context of moderating them” and that even though he had made counterfactual claims about what I had and had not said, that pointing out the errors in his “reading comprehension.” was somehow violating his moderator instructions… or something.
Rather obviously, Marley just got pissy because it was shown that he hadn’t actually read the thread all that closely, or somehow had managed to miss/misunderstand a half dozen very clear posts and he therefore claimed that their content did not exist. Being proven wrong on that point was somehow disputing his moderation. Even though his moderation, at no point, consisted of an instruction that I could not post my own words if someone alleged I had not said them.
I understand that Marley doesn’t like being proven to be quite so blatantly wrong (who does?), but the correct course of action is to admit error while keeping the actual moderator instruction to avoid ‘rudeness’. Instead, he chose to issue a Warning for the dreadful sin of proving a mod wrong on a factual claim made in GD, even while agreeing not to dispute the actual moderator instructions which were given.
I think the mods are very patient with you when you resort to these kinds of tactics. We rarely even comment on them (you’re often giving no worse than you’re getting). Like I told you, your sarcasm and rudeness were out of place in this thread and they were detracting from the discussion. You and NotreDame05 were talking past each other and not disagreeing materially about anything, but you appeared to be deeply offended that he said your reasoning on the Commerce Clause issue was incomplete. Your reaction was far out of line with the offense. I do not believe your words were distorted or abused or that anyone flagrantly misrepresented your arguments.
Here’s why you were warned:
I asked you to stop disputing my intervention in the thread, you continued to do so. There’s no exception for disputing the factual basis of the warning instead of the decision.
We can safely ignore your quotes from the thread as you already admitted to me, explicitly, that I did not violate any rules. They also have nothing to do with the content of this thread, which is that disputing a factual claim you made is somehow discussing moderation.
Yet again, this is fictional.
Quote anywhere, at all, where I said in the thread that I refused to reduce my snarkiness. Anywhere. One single post. Can you do it?
Of course not, and you know it.
Yet again, cite anywhere, at all, where you told me not to discuss whether or not someone’s description of my comments was accurate. Anywhere. One single post. Can you do it?
Of course not, and you know it.
What happened in reality is that after Bricker brought up your factual claim about the content of his post, and how you were supporting his claim about the factual contents of half a dozen of mine (along with the implication that I must be wrong since you had now chimed in on the factual matter at hand), I responded. You were fine with Bricker claiming I was wrong, of course.
But when I responded, with cites, to show how the factual claim was wrong, all of a sudden your “moderating instructions” were being violated.
The basis of the warning is that you are abusing your authority since you were proven wrong on a factual matter, and then claimed that I was somehow discussing your moderation to point out what I had actually said when Bricker challenged me. You were fine with that, though, of course. It’s just me refuting his claim that was the problem.
You told me not to be rude. I never once disputed that instruction in the thread, not once. You did not, however, instruct me not to cite my actual words if someone claimed I had not said them. Claiming that was the ‘factual basis’ of your Warning is an absurdity designed to cover your ass since you were annoyed and decided to Warn me instead of simply admitting that you’d made a factual error. You could have even maintained your injunction against snark while admitting that I had, in fact, discussed the precedent of warning labels a full half dozen times in the thread before you claimed it was accurate that I had only “intended” to discuss that precedent but in fact had not.
Are you really, honestly and truly, claiming that if you state that I did not say something, and I provide six separate citations showing that I did, that not only were you not wrong in the first place, but that I’m no longer allowed to cite my own words?
If a mod states “don’t be rude and also you didn’t ever state that Manhattan is in New York state” and a poster replies “here is the post where I said that Manhattan is in NY”… then the proper response from a mod is not “oh, I was wrong, but yeah, don’t be rude to other posters”, but “Respect mah authoritay, I Warning you now!”
From what I understand, the legitimacy of your questions isn’t in dispute at hand–it’s that you posted the comments in the wrong forum. ISTM that (in general) there are are at least three classes of posts that are note-able or warning-able based on location: personal insults outside the pit, political pot-shots in GQ, and discussions of mod actions outside ATMB. Note that the intent of the post isn’t necessarily relevant–the insult may be justified, the pot-shot may be funny, and the grieved mod action may be warranted. But that’s beside the point; the tangential (or even somewhta relevant) questioning or commentary, per SDMB Mod Rules/Policy, must be severed from the thread and put in ATMB. This, of course, is only my interpretation of the situation.
To further complicate it, there seem to be three issues at play. First, whether or not you were being rude, second, whether or not Bricker’s summary of your posts were accurate, and three, whether your further discussion were arguing with Mod instructions/actions.
ISTM that the gist of the Marley’s statements focused on alleged rudeness and arguing the point; the accuracy of Bricker’s statement appeared tangential. That is, disputing *that *doesn’t seem to rise to the level of arguing with mod instructions. Marley: Had another poster independently chimed in with a different viewpoint or disputed Bricker’s assessment, would they have gotten a warning as well?
Ah, you are absolutely correct and I was wrong. I’d forgotten about that, but that still wasn’t what I got the Warning for. But by the time he had issued his injunction to not discuss moderation, I had dropped it and was instead talking about Bricker’s (renewed) claim that I had not actually discussed precedent, but merely intended to.
That certain seems reasonable, especially since he didn’t say, at any point, that I had to agree that Bricker’s claims about what I had and had not said were correct, nor that if I didn’t agree I must allow Bricker to reiterate his point without challenge. And, yet again, Bricker was allowed to argue that Marley was supporting his claims about my posts, but disagreeing with that was somehow a violation and a discussion of moderation.
Probably. Bricker’s post didn’t really take a pro or con stance on my moderating, but I wanted to keep the thread focused on the actual topic, not the moderation, and I wanted the conversation to continue with a minimum of vituperation - or at least an acceptable level of it.
Oops; perhaps my mistake. I was referring to chiming in with a different viewpoint or disputing Bricker’s post #41, which came pre-moderation:
His post seemed to (congenially) point out the arguing past each other problem, and in doing so he gave his honest, subjective interpretation of FinnAgain’s post–that his intended meaning differed from the plain language of his posts (eek, I’m trying to avoid delving in to the merits of the actual dispute, so here I hope I didn’t just mis-interpret Bricker’s post).
I assume that before your moderation, had someone chimed in and said something like “no, Bricker, Finn clearly intended to say X,” that would have been fine. After your mod note, if someone wrote something similar, e.g. “I don’t Bricker’s summary of the situation (post #41) was accurate, because of Y,” would that gotten a warning for arguing a mod ruling, continuing a hijack, something else, or nominally acceptable?
I would not have given a note or a warning for that. I said that Bricker provided a sensible recap of the dispute as part of my effort to smooth over that tangential argument, but Bricker isn’t a mod, so arguing against that post would not have counted as arguing with the ruling.
And yet I argued against about that post, after Bricker claimed it was validated by your factual claims about it. That was okay. He can say that you support him so he’s right, but I can’t point to the facts and show why he’s wrong. Because that’s discussing your moderation. Even though, of course, you still can’t cite where you gave moderation instructions to not discuss Bricker’s claims. Or why it’s okay for Bricker to say that he’s right as evinced by your support, but I can’t say that he’s wrong in spite of your support. Great set of standards there, Marley, and obviously not because you chose to issue a Warning for a fictional offense rather than simply admit you were wrong.
Your mod instructions had nothing to do with having to accept that Bricker was correct, with not disagreeing if Bricker reiterated that he was correct, or with Bricker being allowed to state he was correct and using your factual claims as support but nobody being able to disagree.
Yet again, cite it if you contend you ever said otherwise.
You were annoyed at being proven wrong, so you fabricated a reason to hand out a Warning. You still haven’t even admitted that a full half dozen references to the precedent of putting warning labels on cigarettes does, in fact, mean that I didn’t just ‘intend to’ discuss the precedent of warning labels, but I’d done so. And someone Bricker claiming that you supported his claim about the facts was okay, but my disputing that is discussing moderation.
It’s kind of funny. Bricker said that your position regarding my moderating was that everyone involved - himself, NotreDame05, and me - was wrong, and that you were right. That was your position. Your response to that was to say that I ignored the facts (post #63), then you recapped the entire thread, saying I was jumping on a bandwagon in opposition to you (post #64). You had already told me in post #61 that I was wrong about everything, that you were only defending yourself from people making spurious accusations, that I should recuse myself from the thread, and that I was only pretending to find your post rude.
I asked you to stop arguing about my moderation because I wasn’t participating in the thread otherwise and I did not want to draw any more attention away from the topic. Rather than start an ATMB thread, you decided it would be a good idea to say you weren’t arguing about the moderating, you were arguing about my errors. Any errors you believe I made were obviously posted in the course of moderating the thread, and you had already questioned that moderation.
The bottom line is this, FinnAgain: when you get into an argument, you tend to be very confrontational and sarcastic. In this case you were out of line and were making accusations (about people misrepresenting you and playing games) that were unfounded. Many of the comments I quoted in post #2 of this thread contributed nothing to the argument except hostility. For that reason, I asked you to stop making those comments. Rather than do that, you said I had it all wrong. You’re welcome to that opinion, but you know very well that Great Debates is not the place to hash that out. I asked you to handle that debate in the proper forum, and you insisted on arguing further in GD. Your posts were out of line for that thread, you were improperly arguing about moderation in GD when those arguments belong in ATMB, and then you ignored my reminder of the same. So you got a warning for ignoring moderator instructions. A lot of words have been expended on this, but it’s very, very simple.
Marley, it seems that the main point of what you are saying is skating by him. I hope you don’t mind if I simplify.
When a mod says “Don’t do X” and you do X, then you get a Warning. Marley told you not to continue to discuss his moderation in the wrong forum. You did. You got a Warning.
If you don’t want a Warning, then don’t do what a mod tells you not to do. It doesn’t matter how great your argument is.
Big T: What’s “skating by you” is that I was not commenting on Marley’s moderation. I was commenting on a factual claim he had made. This is really, really simple. Marley said I should stop discussing his moderation, when I wasn’t doing so. hard to stop something you’re not doing in the first place.
It was okay for Bricker to discuss his “moderation”, though. Of course.
Except neither Bricker nor I were discussing Marley’s moderation, but whether or not Marley’s factual claim (about which no moderator instructions were issued) that Bricker’s post 41 was accurate was more important than the fact that the actual posts in the thread showed it was not.
I had already complied with Marley’s instructions not to discuss his moderation. What he warned me for was for proving him wrong on something that he still refuses to admit his error on, and which was not part of any moderation instructions in the thread, anywhere. If you contend otherwise, please cite exactly where Marley says that Bricker’s claims about my posts are correct and that I can not dispute them. Go for it.
Geee gorh wilickers Marley, you’re right! The implication sure wasn’t “I’m right and Marley and NotreDame agree with me” but just a disinterested statement.
Rather obviously, you’re fine with Bricker reiterating his claim that his description of my posts was correct, but for me to disagree is somehow discussing moderation. Funny how that works.
Which is the truth, and you still haven’t managed to address how you’ve supported the claim that I merely intended but did not actually discuss something I talked about in no fewer than half a dozen posts. Of course, it still had nothing to do with your actual moderation, which was not that I had to agree or at least refrain from disagreeing with Bricker’s claims as to what I had and had not said.
Coincidentally, you still can’t cite any bit of moderation saying that I had to accept Bricker’s description or couldn’t dispute it. But somehow I was discussing moderation by discussing Bricker’s description of my position. Even explicitly saying that I wasn’t discussing moderation but only the facts of what I had or had not said, is somehow discussing moderation.
Because you still won’t admit that something that was discussed in half a dozen different posts existed and rather than admit a factual error, you decided to abuse your mod powers.
Never happened. And yet again, if you don’t understand a thread, you should not be moderating it. Honestly, I don’t think this is a controversial point. Saying that something is a bandwagon fallacy is not the same as saying that someone is “jumping on a bandwagon”. You should understand the difference if you’re going to moderate a forum like GD. That’s not asking too much.
Also never happened.
As for recusing yourself, of course you should have. Marley, if you aren’t able to understand the basics of a thread, obviously you should not be moderating it. You somehow missed a half dozen posts discussing the precedent of warning labels and agreed that I had not actually discussed them. You still maintain that you were correct. If you say you read the thread I will have to believe you, but if you read the thread and somehow missed six entire posts (in a 40-something post thread), then you sure as sunshine shouldn’t have been attempting to moderate it.
Of course, all that happened before your demand that I stop discussing your moderation, even though I wasn’t actually doing so.
*Yet again, cite anywhere at all where you said that I had to agree with Bricker’s statements or could not disagree with him. Explain why Bricker arguing that he was correct because of the bandwagon fallacy was acceptable but me pointing out that he was incorrect despite the bandwagon fallacy was somehow discussing your moderation? *
Which, lo and behold, was because I was arguing with your factual errors and not your moderating.
Found that cite yet for where you issued moderation instructions on how I had to agree with or at least refrain from disagreeing with Bricker’s claims about what I had or had not said?
It is indeed very, very simple. I had ceased to discuss your moderation at all, and you’re now reduced to claiming that what I actually did was to discuss things that “were obviously posted in the course of moderating the thread”, and somehow that means I was discussing your moderation. You do realize that everything a mod says, even with a mod hat on, is not moderating… right? If a mod says “You’re obviously angry, and don’t use personal insults” and someone else says “Honestly, i’m not angry”, they’re not discussing your moderation? The bit of moderation is the instructions, you know, the part where you give instructions on how someone should moderate their behavior? Not anything you happen to say in the proximity of that instruction.
You issued a moderator warning because you refused to admit you were wrong about a factual claim that you happened to make in the course of issuing actual moderation instructions. That’s what’s so simple. And that’s why you won’t retract your error there, or your error here and admit that pointing out what I’d actually said is not, in fact, discussing your moderation. Unless you’re going to claim that “Finn, pretend you didn’t really say what you said, on penalty of Warning!” was your instruction.
But if you’d like to address the subject, can you find Marley’s quote where he says that I’m not allowed to discuss Bricker’s claims about what I said, and how that was part of his moderation of the thread?
Or can you explain how Bricker can claim that his post 41 is accurate, as evinced by the support he’s gotten, but if I deny that it’s accurate despite the support it’s gotten, I’m discussing moderation but Bricker is not?
I doubt that you’d be unable to cogently explain it. If the position is defensible, someone should be able to give a cogent analysis, no? Just because Marley can’t doesn’t mean you can’t.
Marley claimed that an argument I made a half dozen times in the thread did not, in fact, exist. You never struck me as someone who’d make that kind of mistake. So come on, I’m not asking for a miracle here Miller, just an honest and intelligent explanation.
-Marley disingenuously claimed that Bricker was merely ‘stating my position’ when he invoked the bandwagon fallacy to suggest that my own words weren’t true and his claims about them were.
-Marley stated in his own words that Bricker was posting “regarding [his] moderating”, but he had no problem with it at all (since Bricker was using it was support for his factual claim). For some reason my responding to Bricker was over the line. Does that reason have to do with the fact that Bricker was claiming Marley was right and I proved him wrong? Even if it doesn’t, do you honestly believe that “Finn did not say X, Y, Z” is part of moderating instructions?
-Marley still cannot, however, show where he issued any moderating instructions, at all, as to how I had to accept that Bricker’s claims about my statements were true or how I could not disagree.
-Marley’s actual moderation instructions were that I should not be “rude” and that I should not accuse other posters of playing games and such. If a poster then reiterates false claims about my comments, and claims that Marley’s support proves he was right, is it “discussing moderation” to provide cites of my own words which Marley and the other poster claimed did not exist? If a poster does not, in fact, discuss moderation instructions but a factual claim that’s just been reiterated by another poster, how is that discussing moderation?
And, just for fun:
-More importantly, if a moderator reads a thread and claims that an argument which was made in a half dozen separate posts in a 41 post thread, does that or does not evince the fact that they are not comprehending it and should not be moderating it for content in the first place?
-If that mod also claims that someone has improperly stated that other posters have distorting their arguments, and points to a sample non-distortion being the claim that something which was discussed a half dozen times was never mentioned, does that point to his moderation in that thread being of an acceptable level?
I think Marley’s analysis is more than sufficiently cogent. If you still disagree with him, I very much doubt there’s anything I could say that would change your mind.