Why will this one be closed?
Do you really still not get that this could not have happened between two posters because the entire question was about the propriety of her giving herself a mod note?
Really? If WHAT had happened between two posters? If poster A insults poster B and poster A gets a note from mod M saying don’t do that again? Right, that wouldn’t have registered because that’s the right thing to do — and no, that’s not what happened here. If poster A insults poster B and then poster A makes a snarky remark like “oopsie woopsie, I better not do that again, what a naughty little poster I am!” and that’s all the response it gets, and you’re suggesting that wouldn’t register? Well I think you ought to recalibrate your meter because it’s a bit off.
Yes, asking a moderator who is involved in a potentially rule-breaking situation to take it to the mod loop and have someone else take a look at it is the right thing to do. That’s a far cry from “sure, I guess, why not.” of a couple hours ago. It’s too bad you couldn’t have applied a little thought and come to this conclusion about two days ago.
Well, Hallelujah and praise be to Og!
It only took you 3 threads and 300+ posts to actually address the issue. Kudos to you, though; that’s still probably better than average.
The solution you suggest here is exactly the sort of thing, i believe, that just about everybody would be happy with. It’s just a shame you couldn’t have dropped that little gem in a few days ago and saved yourself all the angst of having to deal with assholes like me who make unreasonable requests for a bit of consistency and transparency in the way this place is run.
And please, give your “moderators are people too..” schtick a rest, will ya. Too err is human, and some moderators thus prove their humanity to us on a depressingly regular basis.
I thought insults weren’t allowed in ATMB 
Maybe it just took a few days for them to hash it out among themselves and respond. It would be pointless to jump in with offhand comments until a unified response was agreed upon.
I like to think that when issues like this come up they drop everything and hold a retreat at Ed Zotti’s cabin by the lake. There, surrounded by the calm of nature they sit around the campfire, hold hands and sing Kumbaya, drink copious amounts of tequila and mescal and as the sun comes try to reach an agreement on how to proceed in the light of a new day. After all this is life and death stuff. It shouldn’t be handled with a knee-jerk reaction.
No, but it would be pretty pointy to post something, anything, to let the posters here know that some kind of response was forthcoming.
That sounds good, until you realize that the final “decision” was not only the common sense one but the one dozens of others suggested as well since the first thread.
This is my complaint - it is not redundant. A mod note is almost nothing. It is an instruction, but doesn’t go in the “official record”, and so is not counted in the evaluation of board privileges, etc. But, what is significant is who is delivering the rebuke. Someone offering a self-rebuke for an error is inherently questionable, as it is unclear if the person is judging that situation on its own merits, or giving themself a pass for bad behavior. That is the point of another mod or admin stepping in - to assure the rest of the board that the moderators of this site are being held to the same standards, that there is oversight, that nobody is above the rules. When a moderator self-moderates, it does not demonstrate that, it suggests moderators are being given free rein.
Giving Twickster a separate Mod Note would not be redundant, would not give any more weight to a “punishment” that is essentially nothing, and would go a long way to emphasizing that we all must follow the rules.
Thank you for replying. It’s too bad it took this long to get anyone to address the actual issue, instead of ignoring in and playing “head in the sand” for three threads.
If this had happened between two posters, a poster would have given himself a Mod note? A real mod wouldn’t have stepped in with a Mod note?
I’m not questioning the right of moderators to be regular posters, or to make mistakes. I am questioning the appearance of a lack of oversight of moderators as posters being fair, treating a moderator who was posting as a regular poster the same way any other regular poster is treated.
I am also questioning the policy of “least said, soonest mended”. I do not feel that is true, as this situation clearly demonstrates. Actually saying something is critical. Saying nothing does notmend anything. It just festers.
I’m surprised no one has considered (at least out loud) the other possibility. The one that I just assumed was the case. I just assumed that Twix figured she’ll call someone else a twat, wait a few minutes then warn/note herself for it. Ha ha, it’ll all be a big funny joke and everyone will have a laugh over it and we’ll all forget about it.
I honestly don’t think she ‘accidentally’ called another user a twat and then realized what she did and put on her mod hat to warn herself. I truly think she knew exactly what she was doing and knew she could get away with it.
Let me ask the mods. I have no warnings against me. Can I use that to my advantage and get a free pass to lob a couple of twats at people in GQ? I mean, whenever someone fights a warning one of the things the mods always say is something along the lines of “You don’t have any warnings or notes against you, your privileges aren’t under discussion, if you don’t do this again anytime soon, it’s not going to be an issue, don’t worry about it” So does that mean I can call someone a troll in IMHO once a year or so?
I think that’s what Twix did. I think she knew full well she wouldn’t get in trouble for it. I think she tends to underestimate how the rest of the dopers feel about her though. I bet she’d reconsider the statement if she realized that it would spawn three threads.
It seems to me you are reading a lot into this. Is it possible? Sure. But what do you have to go on to support that surmise, other than your own distaste for Twickster?
I would think without other evidence to go on, they are going to take a person at their word that it was unplanned, including Twickster.
However, now that you’ve asked the question, there’s evidence to support your next incident as being planned. So you probably shouldn’t try it.
As for the broader generic case, yes, it is possible that a poster could get away with infrequent violation of the rules and get the occassional mod note without racking up any Warnings. It is also possible that someone might notice that pattern, and alert a Mod. It is also possible that one of the attempted “free pass” violations could get a Warning for no other reason than the Mod in question felt it deserved a real Warning and not just a Note, independent of any awareness of a pattern. And once you rack up a warning for that trend, the Mods would be more alert to looking for similar instances.
Ergo, it is a risky practice. Someone could probably get away with it for a while, at the risk of being a jerk.
I still don’t understand why some people want to try so hard to find a way to get away with being a jerk. “I found a loophole that lets me be a jerk and not get caught! Woohoo!”
I have occasionally felt strongly enough about something that I posted it even knowing I would very likely get a Warning for it. Which is one reason I don’t quite understand the vehemence of the reaction from some people around Warnings. If you don’t rack up a lot of them in a short period of time, they’re just not that big of a deal in any practical sense.
So yeah, I guess you could say I have taken advantage of a “free pass” here or there. As long as it doesn’t become a habit, er…why not?
I don’t.
. Since you’re asking for opinions of the mods in the rest of the post, I’m gonna assume it’ll be OK for me to venture my opinion on your surmise.
IMHO, you’re wrong in your assumption. I’ve never met twix in person, so this is just my reading of her mostly from emails in the mod loop.
She wouldn’t do this with any pre-meditation. It didn’t happen.
.
If you do this repeatedly, with an agenda, it’ll probably show up in our opinion of your motives in doing it. That would be bad for you. If you’re just a poster who gets carried away once a year, passionately, on a topic, we would probably warn you and let it pass.
Again, I disagree with your surmise. It didn’t go down that way.
And you know this for sure how, exactly?
I’ve been one of the more vocal critics of the mods in this particular instance, and i completely disagree with your interpretation here. There’s not a single piece of evidence to support it. We should, i think, focus on things that actually happen, and not on wild speculations like this.
Since everyone disagrees with me, I’m happy to let my speculation die. I wasn’t thinking that she did it while twiddling her evil handle bar moustache and saying “Ha, let’s see if I can get away with this” more along the lines of this. I just wanted to throw it out there as long as every one else was putting their two cents in. Besides, IIRC she clearly stated that she was speaking not as a mod and IMO the fact that she took the time to write that out tells me it wasn’t a spur or the moment thing. It’s not that she was banging away at the keyboard in frustration and TWAT just slipped out.
Regarding the random insults carefully spaced out. I’m not really sure where I was going with that. You look through my thousands of posts, I don’t think you’ll find any kind of pattern of me doing that nor do I plan to start, but I swear I was going somewhere with it when I was writing it a few hours ago.
Anyways to put in my opinion of what should have happened in the aftermath. If a poster had done it a mod would have reprimanded them however they felt was fair. Since a mod did it, I feel an admin should have reprimanded her or at the very least another mod.
Cops don’t write tickets to themselves, doctors don’t diagnose themselves, a judge wouldn’t preside over his own trial. Yeah, I know, it was one instance and it’s pretty rare for a mod to slip like that, but still, it looked silly and a lot of posters have a lot of strong feelings about Twix. She knows she has to tread carefully, she knows many of her decisions get called out in ATMB. We know a lot of her decisions get reversed because she had a headache or was in a bad mood. Maybe it’s time she starts taking a deep breath (or some Tylenol) and counting to ten before putting on her mod hat.
A bigger-picture problem here is that with her, it’s not one instance and it’s depressingly not rare (and becoming less so over time).
I’d say that the last couple of days make it apparent that she does not have to tread carefully. Posters may call her out, but I haven’t seen any indication that the other mods or admins give a crap about what she does, which is the only thing that really matters.
That said, I don’t agree with the idea she made the statement and then modded herself as some attempt to get a rise out of people (I know you dropped that, but I just wanted to make it clear that I don’t think she’s intentionally messing with people, she’s just a bad mod [I think I would be terrible mod, fwiw], and, occasionally, a bad poster).
Whether I agree or not, it still doesn’t help to speculate on this, especially after they hid their heads in the sand for 2 and a half threads. Speculation like that is why they don’t want to reply.
One of the reasons I think that allowing mods to be Pitted would be good is that then the admin could institute a policy of replying to all ATMB threads within a reasonable timeframe. That way the mods don’t have to come in and address every person that just has a rant to make about a mod decision or whatever (those would go in the Pit) but actual legit concerns would be addressed in a timely fashion. (And preferably a professional, mature, and respectful fashion, but I know I’m shooting for the moon here.)
Just a thought.