@Saint_Cad just got warned for a sarcastic response to another poster. That other poster had made what struck me as a condescending attack on Saint_Cad. Message that is being sent is that if you go right up to the line, you don’t get a warning, but responding to condescending attack with sarcasm, you get a warning. Would have been better to tell both to cool down and stay on topic, in my opinion.
I got a report (several of them, actually) on @Saint_Cad 's post. I followed the report, and saw that it was, in fact, a personal attack. I didn’t get reports on anyone else’s posts in that thread. If there are other posts that you think were problematic, please flag them.
The “condescending attack” was simply the phrase “But do you understand”. It didn’t deserve the response, I didnt even register it as an insult.
What was personal about
I understand how it has been applied to the States thus l can have students look at state laws too through the lens of the Bill of Rights. Let me look in my book of Big Words for Stupid People.
in-cor-por-a-tion
Is that how you Big Brains™ say it?
Was it calling him “Big Brains™”?
Was it calling him out for his condescension? Or was it that his phrasing was weaselly enough that he is not called out for his tone and I can’t reply?
I’ll point out too that there are members that say a lot worst things to each other in threads and they get a “hey calm down.” note. Why did mine jump immediately into a warning? Consider this an official protest.
As for closing the thread ASL said his piece, I said mine, Little Nemo asked WTF?! I gave the background and we “took it to the Pit” so to speak on our own. The thread got back on track. Isn’t that what the mods want? If it moved out of FQ range, then why not move the thread. You mods do that all of the time.
- There is a history a lot of people don’t know about which certainly colored my view.
- Even if you disagree with me, look at what other posters will write to each other when they object to a post. Mine was nowhere close to that level yet they get a friendly reminder to be civil. I got a warning. It worst I should have gotten a “if you object to his tone, report it don’t reply” reminder.
I find it ironic that the same poster who “assigned” another one a “school assignment” is complaining about someone else being condescending.
Even if the part of the post you quoted shouldn’t have earned you a warning, the next line, IMO, does.
I’ll be honest, I thought I edited that out.
Who on here did I assign a school assignment to?
Mea culpa. I read it wrong. It read to me like you were telling Max he needed to do an assignment to participate in the thread.
I can see how some might interpret the “But do you understand” bit as being a bit condescending, but it’s not necessarily so. I took it more as just a way of saying “are we on the same page with this” rather than being intentionally condescending. It took a second read for me to see it as condescending.
Responding with “Let me look in my book of Big Words for Stupid People” and calling him “Big Brains” then goes right off the rails and is very firmly into personal attack territory. Even if you took the former as being condescending, this is a completely inappropriate response in FQ. If you want to make comments like that, you know where the Pit is. Do that in FQ and you can expect a warning.
That the thread got back on track after that is irrelevant. If extremely poor behavior managed to get the thread back on track, that doesn’t excuse the extremely poor behavior. “The end justifies the means” is not a valid excuse in FQ.
If you think someone is being condescending or insulting, the proper response is to flag the post. Taking the matter into your own hands and responding with your own poor behavior is an excellent way to bring your own posting privileges under review. The best you can hope for is that you both get a warning. Next time, flag it and let us moderators sort it out.
It looked like a personal attack out of nowhere to me. The only reason it didn’t completely derail the thread was because of the mature actions of other posters to pull it back on track. A warning seems fine to me.
If you think someone is being condescending (which to be clear, I’m still not seeing no matter what the history), there are plenty of ways to respond without being a jerk.
Asking a US history/gov teacher if he even understands something as basic as that did seem pretty condescending.
I totally understand and sympathise with the frustration there.
At the same time, the response was over the top for FQ for sure.
It depends on the forum and it depends on the thread. Losing your temper in a hot button thread in P&E or GD is par for the course. FQ is a much more civil and factual forum, and is moderated much more strictly for civility.
Protest all you want, but FQ has always been moderated for civility much more strictly than other forums. FQ just isn’t the type of forum where hot tempers are expected.
It appears part of the game here some posters have been skilled at. Egg someone on just enough, and relentlessly, to push them over the line and get the warning. Yes I do suspect that is the MO for some posters.
Was it really a “condescending attack”? An attack? Three words “ do you understand” in an otherwise to me a very dry discussion about teaching students aspects of the Constitution did not warrant the flippant freak out from the OP.
Like I’ve said, there is a history going to another thread. If you are not familiar with ASLv2.0’s blind-rage attack on me in that (admittedly Pit) thread then yes I agree, my reply seems like it comes out of nowhere. I’m not going to link to it but suffice it to say if you are familiar with it, ASLv2.0 is very hateful to me and hurls baseless accusations at me. The idea that he specifically would talk down to me as if I am ignorant in my own expertise (again relating to that Pit thread) makes perfect sense to me although maybe it make sense to no one else. That is why I replied the way I did.
I will also point out ASLv2.0 has not said he was not condescending in his post or hey, you misunderstood me or anything. Not that he has to but that is the culture here when there is a misunderstanding. Nope he went directly to that other thread to Pit me as hard as he could about the original topic. Not one word how I was wrong in my accusation about the Amendment post. The fact he didn’t Pit me as not understanding him and replying the way I did in the FQ thread to me indicates that I am correct. He was being condescending and he knows he got called on it. But of course he was smart enough to do it weaselly enough that the mods will say, “Nothing to see here.” about his post. Gratz to him on that. I guess he won.
Bringing in matters from another thread is a bad idea in general. Bringing in matters from a Pit thread is a very, very bad idea.
Sure, that was condescending in tone. But ISTM the straight reply would have been “oh please, but of course we’re covering incorporation” rather than escalation. I can get though how if there’s some other history not-in-that-thread it may boil over in a different one. But in that case we can always chose to not engage or I suppose could add to that “…and there are other things I want to say about your comments, but that’ll be over at the Pit”
You mean it the original thread or here? Only reason I did it there was to answer Little Nemo’s question. I did not bring it up in my reply to ASLv2.0 as in “Remember when …?”
You said that your reply appears to come out of nowhere if one is unaware of your history with @ASL_v2.0 in other threads. That implies that your reply stems at least partly from that history. That’s a problem.