I didn’t call him a moron. I said his comment was moronic, which it was. As a mod I’m allowed to tell people when they need to stop doing something. I don’t think I abused that ability here since I only spoke about what he said, and only did that after he was making a scene after a very simple instruction.
Really? You’ll let me decide for myself? Well thanks a lot. :rolleyes:
Actually, you’re right and I was way off (read: wrong).
I apologize to you for the excessive snark.
No problem.
So Marley, I get that you’ve ah, been busy this evening…but do you have any thoughts on my post?
Sorry, I missed that post. Here’s what I think: like I said earlier, I understand the issue you’re raising about potential conflicts. There were a lot of little cracks and things in that thread. I did not moderate every single one. I tried to be evenhanded in dealing with people who were getting close to the line or going over it. I gave a note to silenus for his crack about Don123 and a second general note to everybody about the insults. ivan astikov also only got a mod note initially. In the end I closed the thread down because there was nothing except insults and near-insults. I could’ve done that a lot sooner.
Maybe this is a distinction that only exists in my mind, but I think my moderating of Don123’s posts is a separate issue from dealing with insults. I was trying to make him aware of our copyright policy and (despite his protests near the end of the thread) I didn’t restrict his arguments. So I don’t think there’s much of an issue there.
…
OK, here’s where I have to take issue. I was warned in a thread once and the person I was supposedly insulting had insulted “the other side” in the debate and the moderator said, after review, that the person was merely referring to all his opponents and thus not to me or anyone specific and would not be warned. IMHO the situation was very strongly analogous to this one, and yet here Marley23 says “You don’t need to name the individuals. You made it clear you were talking about people who disagreed with you - apparently all of them.”
I can produce the PM exchange if desired, but I hesitate to publicize a PM from a moderator, as it may have been intended in confidence.
But IMHO it’s definitely inconsistent moderation (albeit different moderators were involved) and worse yet, in both cases the moderator weighed in against the side he had been arguing with – in my case the mod had taken a position in the thread and then weighed in against me and forgave my opponent for an insult specifically because it was “about people who disagreed with you - apparently all of them” and not me specifically.
Worst of all, my own infraction was a generalization – I had intended to mean the collective “you,” referring to the other side, but it was interpreted as the specific you, meaning the one person. I admit that’s totally subjective – but the subjectivity ran in one direction only, if you see what I mean.
The poster moderated in this case, ivan astikov, is (was?) generally frustrating and definitely crossed the line during his career here – but I’m not sure this specific thread was ban-worthy, and the pattern of applying essentially identical reasoning to say my opponent could say it (supporting that mod’s position!) and ivan astikov cannot say it (against the position of the mod in question) leaves only one feature consistent between the two cases – the mods’ favored positions won each round.
My only question about Ivan and the mods is, why did it take so long to ban him?
Well, it certainly had nothing to do with my having yesterday in the Ivan Banning Pool.
<slips Marley a twenty>
Our rules about group insults are essentially this: you can insult a group of people that includes SDMB posters, like Democrats or Republicans. You can’t insult groups of posters, i.e. saying that everybody taking a contrary position in a thread has his tongue in the ass of Barack Obama (or George W. Bush, etc.).
Your warning was issued and reversed by C K Dexter Haven and I think his opinion matches mine:
Does that help?
This wasn’t a very serious infraction, no, but it was par for the course with him and I think it was obvious he was picking a fight, since he said just yesterday that I was correct to give him a note for his comment and he kept going after I gave him a few chances to handle this in a less confrontational way. He also got two warnings on July 31, and if we hadn’t already been moving toward consensus on a banning he probably would have received another warning or two yesterday for insults to another poster by private message and some other posts.
I’m speaking for just myself here, but my take was that he’d crossed over into open trolling and it was time for him to go. His behavior never changed after any warnings, so the consensus was that there was no point in suspending him and hoping he improved. Lately I think he was just stirring up shit by taking a stand against whatever he perceived to be the consensus on the board. I don’t expect anybody to read all of his posts in this 17-page World Trade Center collapse thread, but by the time he was arguing the plane that hit the Pentagon might’ve been ditched in a river or Lake Erie because everyone in America was watching TV and no one would have notice - or the previously discussed Birther thread, where he showed up on page nine asking questions that had already been answered and posting nonsense. I posted in both those threads so I thought it would be inappropriate to comment on whether he was trolling at the time, but I think that’s what he was doing. Playing devil’s advocate is always fine, but attacking the consensus on every issue just to be a nuisance because the idea of a consensus offends you is trolling.
ivan also tried to get a Troll Hall of Fame thread going. It was disappeared after 18 replies but is still cached by Google.
That to me would have been a better thread to have banned him for. That’s pure trolling, and thus an instaban offense
I just don’t like the idea that he was treated differently. Suspensions nearly always come before bannings. The exceptions seem to be insta-ban offenses, like the one mentioned above.
I’m also not sure that a banning is really a punishment in the first place. It’s more a method of preserving the boards. Once you’ve actually been banned, you have no reason to follow the rules anymore, and that is why I suspect we have a lot of socks, ala the Pit thread on this subject (wherein I was too scared to make this remark, and be banned for discussing ATMB stuff in the Pit.)
We generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt, which is why we usually suspend them before a banning. However, in ivan’s case he removed all doubt by his responses to warnings. He made it very clear that he had no intention of cooperating with the staff, which I think helped lead to the consensus for banning rather than suspension.
Which is a difference I think I saw and a reason I’m more with Marley on this one. His remark was about the post and not the poster; the Obama line struck me as the opposite.
Ooops - read the rest of the thread and see that that was noted. Oh well, it isn’t a bad thing to have repeated.
I know its late and posting twice in a row is bad manners but - sometimes my polite button isn’t that great. Marley and I are not on the same side of a lot of issues. There was a thread he was heavily involved in started by Diogenic the Cynic <sic?> on ghosts; an effort to disprove them. Marley and I went close to a polite version of “nose to nose” on a few points; we questioned some of each other comments and were thinking critically about them. I came out of it with a greater respect for him (?) as a poster and I hope I made him think a little too. Another person tried using that thread for their own purpose beyond the scope of the OP and Marley had to switch to his mod hat and he did that well also there.
He (I hope he is a he and its not just my gender bias showing) did fine there and I believe fine here. Possibly among the best at being a participant and moderator at the same time. My hats off to him and my hopes he stays around a good long time and makes many posts.