By now, if GW were to walk on water, I’d be pretty sure it was because he can’t swim.
There was no ‘betrayal of confidence’, Lib. I intervened in the thread in an attempt to forestall further brouhaha. I never dreamed that you would actually report it, given the circumstances. (Couldn’t make this stuff up, folks.)
Veb
This thread has been Clothahumped by the** Clothahumper**.
A month long vacation in August is symbolic of his fraternité with the French. Nothing more.
Five weeks without Bush in the Oval Office is better than nothing.
Saying Bush lied to the American people is like saying Clinton cheated on his wife - it’s a non-partisan acknowlegement of the facts. Bush deserves a bad reputation because he’s earned it.
But Veb, whether Lib should have reported it or not seems to me to be somewhat beside the point. Nor is it especially relevant whether or not the Mods agree with Liberal’s interpretation.
I’ve reported a few posts in my time here, and i’ve always been under the assumption that the identity of someone reporting a post would be kept in confidence by the Moderators. If Liberal’s accusation had merit, then it could have been acted upon without giving away his identity. And if it did not—which was obviously your determination—then it could have merely been ignored, or Lib could have been informed in an email.
It seems to me that the only possible reason for making a public announcement of Lib’s accusation is to stir up further animosity between him and other people in this thread. If we do the right thing and take our concerns of trolling to the Moderators rather than making open accusation, it’s a little disconcerting to know that we might be “outed” for our trouble. And, as Lib suggested, what’s the point in banning open accusations of trolling if the Mods are simply going to air the private accusations in public anyway?
Uh, mhendo, I think you’re misunderstanding Veb.
I think the timeline was something like this:
[ol]
[li]Binarydrone posts.[/li][li]TVeblen posts.[/li][li]Liberal reports Binarydrone’s post.[/li][/ol]
Where (3) happened very shortly after (2).
The reason for refuting Lib’s accusation was to make clear to posters that we do not ‘out’ who reports posts. Clear now?
Go back and read Veb’s actual intervention. There is no mention of “Lib’s accusation.” There was an acknowledgement that Binarydrone had made his point, with a clear implication that he should not do it any more, and a further note to Lib not to pursue the issue (since Binarydrone had already been addressed).
The only reference to Lib making a report is Lib later noting that he had made a report. This thread has made it into the Moderator discussion arena and Veb noted, there, that she had already intervened in this thread before she got any Report e-mails.
So, no one on the staff has noted that anyone has reported a thread or post. We will continue to not refer to Reported posts. If posters want to stand up and shout “I reported this one!” we are stuck with having that information appear on the board, but it is unfair to accuse us of impropriety when we have not engaged in improper actions.
Now, it is possible that Lib reported the thread prior to Veb’s action and drew a conclusion. (That would be an employment of the Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy for those who are keeping score.) I will note, however, that the Report system is not an instantaneous operation. Sometimes we get reports right away, sometimes we do not. (I got a report of the latest “Rees for council” spam over six hours after I had already hidden the thread. The person reporting it had to have done so in the three minutes between when it was poted and when I removed it, yet the notification did not show up for a quarter of a day.) When a Report does show up in a timely fashion, we are still at the mercy of actually seeing and opening the e-mail.
It is also possible that Veb did see and act on the Report. She has said this is not what happened and I see no reason to call her a liar. If you will re-read her intervention, however, you will note that her reference to Binarydrone is for past action and her reference to Liberal is for future action, so even if, for some odd reason, she chose to lie to other staff members regarding the sequence of events, what she posted on the board made no reference to any Report.
We are not revealing Reporting posters and we will continue to not reveal Reporting posters.
Well, you didn’t out and out ‘out’ Lib, but did you not imply it rather heavily? Your very first post in this thread contained this:
With no previous posts to refer to, my inference is that Lib had reported a post.
Wah!
Fact of the matter is that Liberal is both a flaming jackass and a screeching drama queen. Even the people that side with him tend not to argue with that.
Of course, somehow you’ve managed to bring up Clinton in only the 77th reply to the OP.
Liberal isn’t the only one that needs a new schtick.
-Joe
It could well be that you’re right.
But i still wonder why Veb’s post contained the line, “Don’t whine to us about this being ‘trolling’, Liberal.” At the very least, it smacks of rather childish behaviour for a Mod to make such a pre-emptive statement when acting in her capacity as a Moderator.
Why not just say to Binarydrone, “OK, you’ve made your point, let’s leave it at that,” rather than engaging in petty “So there!” behavior towards another poster?
It would indeed. However, I made no accusation whatsoever about trolling in this thread (or any other). Since I said nothing public about trolling, why tell me not to say what I didn’t say? It seems to me that “Don’t whine to us about this being ‘trolling’, Liberal,” either came out of the clear blue nothing, or else it came from my report, which consisted of one word: “Trolling”. I reported the post at 11:16 Eastern, as soon as I saw it. Veb’s announcement didn’t come until 1:44, almost 2-1/2 hours later. That’s a lot of post and a lot of hoc.
Well, there is a bit of related history from when he got a mod sort of ruling that using his old user name was sort of mocking him. He was pretty much waving that ruling about as a banner for a bit, till the last die-hards quit using his old name. I’d not be surprised if Veb was hoping to cut that off at the pass this time.
But why put trolling in quotes as though it indeed were something I said, TYM? And why would Veb mind that her rulings are cited once or twice for the purpose of pointing out the behavior that she specifically said must stop? Aren’t people constantly pointing out rulings, like no troll accusations, no false quotations, and so forth? What’s wrong with pointing out the ruling about no false usernames? I assume it doesn’t apply only to me.
Well, I would appreciate your explaining how things unfolded from your point of view. As I see it:
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I reported the post.
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My report contained a single word: trolling.
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You posted 2-1/2 hours later.
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Your response quoted exactly the post I reported.
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You put the word I used in quote marks in your response.
Can you understand how this all might seem a bit too serindipitous?
That I can’t answer.
I assume so as well. In this case, Liberal, it’s not what you did, it’s how you did it. I remember the name thing because a) I agreed with you that people should call you by your new name, and b) the style in which you informed people of that ruling grated on my last nerve.
Aah. “In this case” should be “In that case”. Sorry, that was too confusing not to correct.
Well, I’m sorry about that. I hadn’t been aware of a style. You and I have gotten along well since we mended our fences, and I appreciate that. Frankly, I thought that the “style” of mutilating my username was itself rather nerve grating.
At this point, I think it should be cleared up whether retributory posts are indeed trolling, as Skipmagic said, or just “sauce for the goose” as Veb said in her post to Binary. His ruling was the reason I reported the post to begin with.