As I said in the thread, whatever my faults and failings, one thing I don’t do is make it a habit to insult people anywhere on this board, so on the rare occasion where something I say MIGHT be construed as a direct and intended insult, my reputation should lead to erring on the side of giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Secondly, since when as something as mild (and true) as “quite the scold, aren’t you?” qualified as an insult at all, much less an insult so plain and egregious as to warrant an instant official warning? Again, as I said in the thread, it’s simply a slightly more interesting way of noting that I am being scolded.
Calling someone a scold in a particular situation in which they are scolding someone is not an insult. While scolding may not be the most attractive of actions, bathing the scolder in an ethereal light of fabulosity, neither is it widely agreed to be low-down, unacceptable and unpleasant behavior that one should be ashamed of, making it an obvious choice to use as an insult. “You are scolding me!” is not an insult. So saying “You’re a scold” is not an insult. (Unlike, for instance, calling someone who is lying a liar*,which is insulting either way.)
If it were, I wouldn’t have said it. Because I don’t hurl insults at people.
If, after discussion and debate, there is a consensus that it is in fact a genuine insult, then I will have learned something new I didn’t know before I posted that, something that I wouldn’t have posted with that information.
It was a total overreaction on Colibri’s part, and a shocking one at that, considering that recently when treis had already told someone to fuck off (!!) in GQ, something that is against the rules in the PIT for god’s sake, and after being (properly!) warned, tried to tell someone else to fuck off in the same thread in a roundabout way, all Colibri did was tell him he was lucky not to get a second warning and closed the thread. Pretty easygoing… but I get nailed for telling someone he’s a scold for scolding me?
I protest.
*which is a topic unto itself, since one lie does not a liar make in my view, but like I said, a different topic
Speaking as someone who was also warned recently for reasons I know not why, I have to say … who cares? Chrissakes, it’s not like you’ve been thrown in the Gulag.
For my warning – for derailing a discussion (in a post that was pretty much on a par with everything I’ve ever posted here) – my take was, “Eh, I don’t get it, so I guess I’ll just keep posting the way I’ve always posted and let the chips fall where they may.”
I mean if you’re not a habitual offender, what difference does a warning make in the first palce? Are you concerned with your permanent record or something?
I don’t even need to read all that thread to know that saying “Quite the scold, aren’t you” is in no way a bloody insult. When it was growing up that sentence dreamed of perhaps being a bit snarky, but it isn’t even in the same ball park as an actual “insult”.
What a stupid warning, made all the worse by the legions of posters populating GD who regularly use far more loaded phrases to insult their “opponents” and never receive more than a raised eyebrow.
Whether or not you make a habit of insulting people has little to do with whether you have insulted someone in a particular case.
This does not follow. The general rule here is that you may criticize the post, but not the poster. If you had said “You are scolding me,” that would have been criticizing the post. Instead you called clairobscur a scold, thus directly insulting him personally.
Calling someone a “scold” is clearly an insult:
Many more examples can be found indicating that “scold” is insulting, and that “scolding” is obnoxious behavior.
In any case, calling what clairobscur said “being a scold” was a severe overreaction. This is what he actually said:
Saying that he guessed that “you missed the point” isn’t scolding by any definition.
I will grant that “scold” isn’t the worst insult in the book. But it is an insult. And there were a couple of aggravating factors.
You have been around for 12 years and 11,000+ posts. You should know that insults aren’t permitted in GQ. Yet you did so anyway.
The insult was unprovoked. clairobscur’s post can’t reasonably be construed as an attack or scolding.
You did this time. Don’t do it again, and you won’t have a problem.
Your arguments are not relevant. The warning stands.
Golly, Colibri - don’t you think you’re being a little hard on the Beaver?
Seriously, could moderation around here maybe dial things back to declaring that insults milder than those found on 1950s television are permitted? I’d be so bold as to ask that terms like “square” and “hippie” be allowed as well, but I don’t want to ask for too much. I’m having a hard time thinking of a lamer warning this board has seen before, but I don’t think anything’s going to beat this. Pathetic.
Because the difference between “You’re quite the scold,” and “Your post is quite scolding.” is very large and clearly requires different moderator responses. I dunno about you guys but my posts are not running around typing themselves and attacking my posts is attacking me as far as I’m concerned.
That being said, I really enjoy the idea of officially protesting a warning. What would an unofficial protest look like and what makes an official one the better way to go?
Colibri was within his rights to give that warning, technically, as “scold” is a very mild insult, and as such not permitted in the forum.
However, there’s no rule saying he has to exercise that right, and a mod note would have been much more appropriate for such a mild insult. I don’t think much is served by giving a warning for such a minor first offence, apart from to irritate people.
Regardless of how mild the insult was, a warning ought to be issued for the tortured logic in “I never insult people, so when I did insult someone it obviously couldn’t have been an insult!”
I think I’ve developed informally my own system for judging Moderators as “excellent,” “poor,” “Saddam/Pol Pot gawdawful” etc., based on a strict count of their “mod notes” ratio to their “warnings.” I haven’t done a strict count, mind you, but I generally think of the good mods as ones who rarely issue warnings but frequently note that [whatever] is poor form, and politely request the poster to refrain from doing [whatever] again. I find that genial notes are about as effective as harsh, pompous, picky, pontificial, officious, obnoxious, mod warnings, and result in far fewer ATMB threads complaining about them. I also think **Gfactor **is leading my “mod notes/warnings” ratio, unofficially. When you’ve gotten a warning from G (as I have, on occasion) you’ve earned it. Some other mods, I’m usually “Man, another temper tantrum so soon? Thought he’d worked the bile out of his system with that last one!”
Hardly tortured at all: when a crime is committed, don’t the police look first to those who have a history of being criminal? Past behavior is an excellent indicator of future behavior and gives information about the behavior itself. Since this was the mildest of insults at best, and I don’t insult people, is it really likely I meant to be insulting with it?
And intention very much matters, because offense may be taken at all sorts of things by the sensitive, and is: are we going to start deciding who ***intends ***offense by who takes offense? Who intends to insult by those who are insulted? Because that is the scariest of slippery slopes…oh god I get hives even thinking about it.
I did not intend to insult, I intended to point out that clairobscur was * in fact *scolding me, by the definition that I was thinking of, vs. the one Colibri chose:
Clairobscur was criticizing me and finding fault with my understanding - which actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I found insulting because I specifically noted in my OP that I understood and appreciated the way immersion language study works “I’m studying via Rosetta, which doesn’t translate, (something I think is actually fantastic generally, makes perfect sense no wonder it’s so successful)” and his response wasn’t earthshaking, but it came across to me as a mildly sneering criticism of my understanding of the method and a “tsk tsk” for even asking.
So if anyone is going to argue that it doesn’t matter whether I intended to be insulting or not by saying that if clairobscur (or Colibri on his behalf!) felt insulted, then I was insulting and need to be warned for it, then I guess claiobscur will need to be warned too, because of **my **feelings, whatever his intention. (This would be that nightmare slippery slope. )
Colibri made a choice to focus on the most negative definitions and assign intention to me that did not exist, the intention to insult:
Incorrect, as just shown.
I DO know. Which is why I DO NOT hurl insults in GQ (or elsewhere- my personal insult rules are WAY stricter than any rules around here) Your statement here implies that I knew I was being insulting, and I intended to be insulting in direct violation of the rules, otherwise it cannot justly be called an aggravating factor.
If I did not know (I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT) and I did not intend (I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT) then that cannot be cited as an aggravating factor justifying the warning.
“unprovoked” implies that I intended to be insulting.
And as for construction - incorrect. I think of scold and scolding in a different way than you apparently do, a completely legitimate and valid way and if I didn’t perceive clairobscur’s words as scolding, what other reason would I have had for saying it? Are you telling me you gave me a warning because you disagree with my perception?
I know you can’t possibly be, or I’m afraid my head will have to explode.
So what’s the rule here? I didn’t mean to insult, but of course insult can occur without intent. So does intention matter or not? If it doesn’t matter, who gets to decide? What’s the yardstick going to be? How will it be possible to be consistent? Does anyone even care about that?
I repeat: **I PROTEST. **
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I was sure this was going to be about the warning Stoid got a week ago in her Michael Jackson thread. The ironic thing is that she got warned for scolding someone.
What often seems lost in the melee is the relation between the poster who was allegedly “insulted” and the alleged “insultor” – if that can be known at all in the first place.
Consider, f’rinstance, that recent protest in which Ambivalid called someone an " asshole " in (what he claimed was) a light-hearted way.
Now, if anyone should call me an “asshole” or similar, I might or might not feel insulted. Gotta consider the source! If, say, the caller was, say, a Republican, I might take it as a compliment
An insult as mild as that shouldn’t have got a warning. A moderator note would have been more appropriate. Stoid should have been told “don’t do this again.” Only if Stoid made further remarks of the kind should a warning be issued.
How about downgrading “official warning” to “don’t do this again”
As for threatening to issue a second warning just simply because Stoid’s protest was in the wrong forum, words fail me.
" in (what he claimed was) a light-hearted way.