I thought that warning was total bullshit, and I commented in that thread about it (I guess in violation of the rules, sorry).
I took your response as a humorous way to say, “Of course JP Morgan lived better than you! He’s was rich. I don’t care if it was 100 years ago.”
How a mod took that to be something off-topic, or snarky, or whatever in the hell he said it was, is beyond me.
I could have written this post nearly word for word. I sent Colibri a PM to say I disagreed with my warning, paid my fine, took the points on my posting license, and moved on. I’ll continue to post as I’ve always done, and figure I am due for a second warning in 2021. It certainly wasn’t worth getting the Teeming Millions involved debating whether or not it was deserved. It’s not like there would be agreement anyway.
Technically, what she received was neither a warning nor a scolding but a ***warming, ***which I believe is similar to a spanking:
Oh, you had to go and open that can of worms now, didn’t you? 
Really? Then why didn’t it happen in the JPMorgan thread, to several people who questions SoP’s warning?
I would have taken that view as well. Except, well, here’s the stats:
First 12 years, 120 Days of Dope Membership:
Posts: 11,434
Official Warnings: 0
**Moderator “notes”: **1? 2? 3? Let’s assume 3 just for the hell of it.
Net: 1 moderator :mad: per 3,845 posts and 4.10 years 
Last 16 days of Dope Membership before this thread:
Posts: 101
Official Warnings: 2
Moderator “notes”: 2
Net Moderator :mad:: 1 per 25 posts and 4 days 
:dubious::rolleyes::(:mad: <----the five stages of Moderation Grief
Per post percentage increase in moderation of Stoid: 15,014% :eek:
Per day percentage increase in moderation of Stoid: 37,381% :eek:
As you might imagine, I felt the time had come to pitch a bit of a fit about it. :mad:
And you have just confirmed my view about the actual purpose served in requiring an ATMB thread when one wishes to respond to the moderation.
(One of the reasons I love the Dope - irrational moderation notwithstanding - is because it leads me to find and discover a ridiculously wide array of new things. Todays great new find: percentage calculators! :D)
I think you deserve a warning for all those emoticons.
This is actually the point I will concede to some extent. I basically live by the “post not the poster” creed automatically and in fact my actual wording, taken absolutely, spoke of the poster directly, not the post exactly.
However, for the reasons that have already been stated, I don’t accept that this was sufficient: my intention was not insult or criticism of the poster (of whom I know exactly nothing), but of that specific post, which I found to be scolding. Rather than say “I found this post to be scolding” or “you are scolding me in this post”, neither of which flow very well, I chose “Quite the scold, aren’t you?” which I felt did flow nicely. And since I did not at that time have the slightest notion that such a statement would be found insulting, I didn’t hesitate to choose the construction I found most pleasing and continued with the post.
Now, of course, being forced to ponder it in depth, I realize that I could have inserted the verb “to be” and avoided this entirely: “You’re being quite the scold here, aren’t you?” which still doesn’t flow as nicely, but spells out what I think is clear anyway: I’m referring to the poster’s tone in that specific post.
Of course, depending on the real reason Colibri felt the need to be so reactionary and his commitment to acting on it, he might still have found my framing of it objectionable in that I would be calling clairobscur a scold, no matter how plainly I was referencing his specific post.
And since we are not able to visit the parallel universe in which this might have been the outcome, we shall never know for sure…
Hey man, I warned ya right at the top. After that, yer on yer own.
Alternative explanations, (and I do not think I have been involved in any of the Notes or Warnings or even the threads that prompted them, so I do not presume to speak for the actual thoughts of the staff):
[ol]
[li] You have always been a bit of an abrasive/borderline disruptive poster and some factor in your life unknown to the staff has made you just enough more abrasive to catch attention for remarks that were borderline or over the line regarding the rules.[/li]
[li] You have always been a bit of an abrasive/borderline disruptive poster and you have decided that you could get away with a bit more, recently, just enough more abrasive to catch attention for remarks that were borderline or over the line regarding the rules.[/li]
[li] You have always been a bit of an abrasive/borderline disruptive poster and the staff has gotten tired of receiving Reports that they then have to evaluate whether it is worth reprimanding you and have chosen to send a clear message that you need to back off.[/li][/ol]
All of the above are nothing more than conjecture, but they are quite plausible given your style of posting. Looking at the current incident, for example, regardless whether “scold” is sufficiently insulting to deserve a Warning, your response to clairobscur was pretty much over the top. He offered a clear explanation for your confusion and you decided to get all snarky on him. It is your choice of behavior, of course, but it lends itself to support any of my conjectured scenarios.
Now, you are perfectly free to decline to identify yourself as an “abrasive/borderline disruptive” poster, but that sort of profile analysis is more legitimately carried out by others, not oneself. Based on responses that I have seen, I assure you that a number of the TM do view you in that manner.
Not The Moderator
Shit just got real 
Boyo boy! This place has gone to hell.
I’m shifting the conversation away from “Warnable” to “Best practices”. I didn’t perceive clairobscur as scolding at all. Rather I think clairobscur was trying to drive home the point that there was a fundamental misconception involved. But let’s set that aside for argument.
My general practice is to ignore the difficult aspects of posts and to focus on the substance. Be magnanimous. That’s one option. In a more extreme case, I might opt for, “I feel I am being scolded”. I guess in between circumstances are a little tricky: “Your post is scolding me” might work but only if you wanted to pause for humor. “Joiks! That was harsh”, is another alternative.
Most cases are simpler: there are many ways of characterizing a post as insufficiently cogent or overly inflammatory, instead of insulting personal alternatives.
This was my first thought as soon as I saw the warning.
[sup]Not that I know anything about the actual mod motivations.[/sup]
Given my oft-mentioned and very genuine passion for the truth, it would be unseemly for me to deny the plain fact that many of the TM have the lowest of low opinions of me. My profile acknowledges it: “Beloved by many, despised by probably the same number.” And it carries into the real world; I have a polarizing personality, no doubt about it, and some people find me deeply irritating, that’s undeniable.
But it’s not because I’m insulting. It’s not because I junior-mod. It’s not because I derail threads with hijacks. It’s not because I’m offensive. It’s not because I’m deceptive (all issues which were raised in the four mod actions). It’s not because I’m forever skating thisclose to breaking SDMB rules and just barely avoid doing so.
It’s because I can be arrogant, self-righteous, implacable, condescending (although this is something I really work on and unfortunately somehow the harder I try not to be the more I am perceived to be. A lifelong struggle I doubt I will ever win.) and just generally infuriating in the way I argue when I am convinced I’m right. (I do not always believe I am right, however, far from it, and I have no burning need to be right about everything all the time, especially since I’m not and no one is or can be, so I do not always present the “I’m right” face that many find so objectionable. ) Judging from the drive-bys randomly inserted into many threads I’m participating in, some people even find me irritating because of my use of color and emphasis in my fonts, but that’s probably more of a stick to try and poke me with than a genuine source of the irritation itself.
As a result of this, Stoid-hating posters have availed themselves of the Pit-tool many times, generating some extraordinarily nasty threads over the past decade, threads in which people have demonstrated a stunning array of brutal ways to express their contempt for me. (I stopped reading such threads a few years ago, but the titles have been sufficiently vivid to safely assume the contents haven’t improved). That’s what it’s there for, to give irritated posters a place to freely spew all the invective they are inclined to towards posters that they find annoying, hopefully alleviating some of their frustration. (Lest anyone who doesn’t already have an opinion of me one way or another decide from this alone that I must only be worth such invective, there’s also been other, fonder words said about me, my favorite being this.)
So this does not legitimize the sudden burst of Stoidmodding. Especially in light of the Right Hand of The Master himself making it point to announce that being disliked is not a rules violation, with all-caps no less:
[QUOTE=C K Dexter Haven
Right Hand of the Master]
[ul]
[li]Being wrong is NOT against board rules.[/li][li]Being stubborn is NOT against board rules.[/li][li]Being wrong AND being stubborn about it is not against board rules.[/li][li]Being disliked by many posters is not against board rules.[/li][li]Holding off-the-wall or out-of-the-box opinions is not against board rules.[/li][/ul]
Deliberately insulting other posters, on a repeated basis, IS against board rules.
And if one feels that they MUST be deliberately insulting to other posters, we offer a forum where that is allowed. I don’t see that it’s any great hardship: if you feel that you can’t carry on discussion without name-calling, go to the Pit.
We allow a huge range of latitude here, but we require civil behavior (outside the Pit.) The goal on our boards is to allow discussion on almost any topic, exchange of ideas, and flow of information – in a reasonably polite environment.
[/QUOTE]
So if the mods have gotten it into their heads that reasons need to be manufactured to smack me down because people find me irritating, they are misusing their powers, not to mention wasting their time, since smacking me for things I didn’t actually do at all or for things that I just-barely-mighta-sorta-kinda-maybe-if - viewed-in-exactly-the-right-light-could be technically accused of doing a teensy-weensy-bit but which don’t actually have anything at all to do with the genuine reasons that I get on some people’s nerves, nothing useful is being accomplished. (Unless of course the ultimate goal is to simply be rid of me altogether, in which case made-up excuses will do to create a “paper trail” of sorts to justify it down the line when the ban comes.)
I obey the rules. I do not insult people, in or out of the Pit. When I am involved in discussions that become heated and intense, I take special care to review my posts and eradicate the slightest suggestion that I am criticizing *a person *instead of the arguments they are making. I do that for me first and foremost, for several reasons, some more laudable than others, but I’ll cop to the least attractive reason, unattractive because it is the reason that matters very much to the side of me that likes being right: resorting to personal attacks is an instant lose, game over. All credibility disintegrates; it’s hanging up a sign that says “I got nuthin” and my obsessive truth/reality fetish takes over: if I have to resort to personal attacks to cover the fact that I’m actually wrong, then the truth is being sacrificed. Since my number one concern is the truth, there’s zero satisfaction in creating an illusion of rightness through misdirection.
And I also take care because I know my style can grate, and if I’m going to be grating I’m going to damn well do so in as well-behaved a manner as humanly possible. Which, perversely, can actually add to how irritating I can be, or so I’ve been told a number of times by a number of people, so I accept that it’s true.
Can’t win for losing sometimes. 
Me too. So I applaud Tom for having the balls to be (sort of) honest about it.
I am having a very hard time seeing why calling a poster “abrasive and disruptive” is ok, while calling a poster a “scold” isn’t. I don’t think clairobscur was being a scold at all in the thread, but I don’t see why Stoid merited a warning for it. A note, maybe, but a warning seems harsh.
Also, warning Jack Batty for his post in the JP Morgan thread is absurd. I used to roll my eyes at the people who constantly complained about the modding on this board, but now I wonder if they don’t have a point.
Couldn’t tell ya. I never saw that thread. Nor am I a mod. However, I’ve seen mods caution posters that “continued protests of warnings in this thread may lead to further warnings. Take it to ATMB” repeatedly. It may not be SOP, but they do it frequently enough that I thought “WTF?” when it was claimed to be “unusual”.
What Larry Borgia said…
You just “insulted” Stoid if we hold true to the warning. You commented on her as a poster, not her posts.
Frankly, both should be allowed, but at least reduce the warning to a note. As for worries about warnings, I think we used to have a 3 strikes-yer-out rule. Because of that former policy, I can see a longtime poster being concerned.
Stoid, I got a warning from a near universally loved mod (Ellen Cherry) for telling someone she’s a piece of work.
You’ll live.