If I broke a rule, then yes, I absolutely apologize.
I was merely trying to connect the dots - it was pointed out that this OP might have started because **Stoid **is perceived as abrasive. When this was pointed out, she clarified that she understands that she is perceived to have an abrasive manner and seeks to moderate it IRL - but does NOT try to moderate it here.
So my reply was: “okay, if that’s the situation, why be surprised that folks are inclined to see you that way? Why start this type of thread - why not just accept it, since you seem to understand you come across that way?”
As I’ve tried to explain, because of the nature of what is being called termed abrasive. One person’s abrasive is another person’s stimulating.
There’s lots of abrasive posting going on all over the board that doesn’t break the rules. People can be abrasive - or obnoxious, aggravating, irritating, annoying and otherwise piss different people off in all kinds of different ways, both intentionally and not. That’s life, and it’s definitely life on a message board.
I try very hard not to have expectations that involve predicting how others will behave, since people are wacky and unpredictable. So as much as I can, I make my choices and do what I do for self-contained reasons that don’t rely on others behaving in a certain way. Other people’s actions and behavior fall under the “hope” category.
As it happens, both my expectations and a few of my hopes have been satisfied, with a side order of stuff I’d just as soon do without, but life rarely serves us a perfect meal - so long as some of it is tasty and nutritious, I’m good.
:rolleyes: So you don’t pay attention, but you know the reason for the rule isn’t the plainly stated reason, but some other nefarious purpose to control the board? Right.
Complaints about moderation go in ATMB. And complaints about moderation that occur in the thread in question tend to be heated, and don’t go away after one explanation, but tend to turn into three page discussions. It is the epitome of a thread hijack.
I agree.
Because an “Oops, sorry” isn’t going to turn into a giant thread hijack to dredge up every past questionable moderation or every moderation inconsistency and become a giant “The Moderators are EVIL” conversation.
It serves the purpose of transparency, and it demonstrates what behavior is not allowed. If those comments were privately moderated, then there would be new people coming in, seeing certain behavior like insults, and thinking it’s acceptable. And then when given warnings for it, would protest that the threads are full of insults, how were they to know, blah blah blah.
Just because something happens “all the time” (i.e. frequently), doesn’t mean it happens every time.
Then acknowledge the truth - you called a poster a name (scold) in GQ, and you were moderated for it.
“Abrasive and disruptive” are adjectives, while “a scold” is used as a noun. One is descriptive of behavior, the other is labeling the person.
Calling someone a scold is not an insult when that person is being a scold. The end. Now for the color commentary:
If the mod circle believes that Stoid is generally an antagonistic poster who creates a negative atmosphere everywhere she goes, and they’d prefer she stop gracing the SDMB with her presence, then they should 1) apprise her of that directly and 2) create a board rule against being an antagonistic poster who creates a negative atmosphere everywhere they go. They shouldn’t moderate inconsistently to get rid of her–if that can happen to one person, it can happen to anybody. Either a rule was broken, or it wasn’t. Choosing to apply consequences differently between one poster and another, just because you don’t like them, is discriminatory and, frankly, a fucking scary abuse of power. Goalpost-moving tactic like these tend to unsettle the rest of the board, with good reason, and lower faith in the modding staff. Don’t do that to yourselves.
Stoid doesn’t bend or break any rules. She just has a generally unlikeable posting style. That posting style has not changed at all. And posting in a generally unlikeable manner is not an actionable offense. That’s why she almost never received any warnings, and why she’s still a member after all these years.
Confidential to Stoid: I know I received, along with 4 other people, a very-public, inconsistently-applied, and totally unjustified warning from another moderator within the last few months. It happens. Don’t expect a retraction. I’ve never seen a moderator warning rescinded, no matter how well-presented the defense (although I grant it’s not impossible, it’s improbable to the point of irrelevancy).
As an aside: The Dio fiasco is not really comparable to this situation. Dio frequently bent and broke board rules by insulting posters and hijacking threads. He actually appeared to get a lot of leniency (mod notes instead of warnings), because he contributed a lot to the board over the years.
Calling someone a liar is an insult even when the person is being a liar. It may be a fine parsing, but it is a consistent one.
If the mods are trying to run Stoid off, well then it certainly would be goofy for them to tell her “We want to run you off.” But I don’t think that’s the case.
But if the mods want to affect Stoid’s posting for the better, then giving her explicit instructions on the things that need improving should be done. And it would behoove them to be things they hold everyone to, right?
But I don’t think that’s the case either. Stoid broke a rule, the rule about insulting people in GQ. Maybe it was unintentional, maybe it was a very mild insult, maybe it was interpreted more harshly than intended because someone read into it a definition of “scold” that is harsh. Whatever. It still violated the rules.
And while the mods are allowed and even encouraged to use Moderator Notes, especially for first offences, they are not required to do so. Warnings are acceptable and appropriate for violating rules.
According to the board rules, yes it is. The problem with addressing the poster rather than the post is it becomes open to interpretation. By your logic it would be OK to call someone an asshole providing they were being one.
Go back and reread clairobscur’s post. S/he wasn’t scolding or being a scold.
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Sorry, but this is a very silly post. When the op is about a poster’s posting behavior and responses to it, then comments about the nature of the poster’s posting behavior is not an insult - it is an integral part of responding to the op.
Stoid is quite confident that she is always correct and thus when she posts she is posting truth and she is passionate about “the truth” (as she believes it to be, and if she believes it, it is “the truth”). Stoid knows that the manner that she posts often comes off as abrasive and irritating to many, in short, that she comes off as a bit of a jerk to many a good deal of the time, and she believes that such is their problem, not hers.
Noting this is not insulting Stoid; it is merely stating that which she readily acknowledges herself. And it is at least possibly pertinent to why a rule was enforced with a warning rather than with a note: notes are designed to teach someone who wants to learn and Stoid is quite sure that she has nothing to learn, a note will therefore fail to motivate change, but warnings OTOH may get some attention.
I am not a mod and I am not Stoid, but it seems to me like the message is being given that Stoid should stop acting like a jerk quite so often, that the means of giving that message is one that they sense she will at least hear (and that her reaction here shows the accuracy of that belief, if such was their belief).
Yes she broke a rule. Yes it was a minor violation. Yes some would ignore that sort of minor violation much of the time or just make comment without a warning or PM a note about it. But you know how sometimes you can get out of a ticket if you are nice and the violation was minor and the cop is in a good mood, but if you are an ass and antagonistic to the cop they will also notice that your rear light is out and give you a ticket for that too? (I can tell a story about my wife talking herself into two tickets from having gotten out of one, if you’d like.) Yeah, this may be sort of like that.
Issue being taken- I’ve been pretty chilled about accepting the blanket characterizations of me as abrasive and disruptive, but let’s dial down to the truth: I don’t have a “generally unlikable” posting style… generally my posting style is fine. I don’t create antagonism “wherever I go”. Most of the posts I make in most of the threads I make them in are perfectly normal and unremarkable.
It’s just that sometimes a debate ensues. When it does, and I decide to defend my position, it has been known to become, shall we say, intense. And those threads tend to get a lot of traffic for awhile. But that is not really representative of my “general” posting, it just happens to be what gets the most notice, understandably so.
Not exactly, since there’s boatloads of things I have no clue about and acres more I think I know but I wouldn’t argue about because I only think I know, but I’m not sure at all.
But of course I don’t make it a point to debate those kinds of things: why would I take a stand about something I really havent’ made that much of an effort to be certain about?
But when I DO feel confident I’m right, I’m pretty relentless about defending it. That is not the same as thinking I’m always correct.
Also incorrect. Learning is everything to me. I have an unslakable thirst for knowledge of all kinds that I spend pretty much my entire waking life feeding. And when something is of particular interest and importance to me, I focus that hunger on that topic, taking in every bit of information I can find, and that is what leads to my confidence about those particular things. My certainty is not automatic, random or blind, it arises directly from the fact that I’ve made the effort to get the information.
Point taken: when Stoid posts she is very certain that what she posts is truth. She is then “relentless” in defending that belief.
Your second point is however undermined by that first one. “Certainty”, at least IMHO, is antithetical to a thirst for knowledge (other than religious revealed knowledge). Again, I speak only for myself, but you … sometimes … come off as someone who is uninterested in what is true and instead as one interested only in that which is consistent with what you already believe to be true, and deal with the rest oftentimes with some degree of snark. Maybe that doesn’t break rules, or at least not far enough to merit moderation most of the time, but it is no surprise that others sometimes avoid engaging with you as a result.
FWIW the smartest people I have ever had the pleasure to meet are certain of the least and know enough to understand how little they know. Which is, of course, an order of magnitude more than I know. (If only I was smart enough to not know as much as they don’t know! They have some high quality lack of knowledge they do.)