Whoa, maybe my snark-o-meter is broken. It barely registered here. Not saying it wasn’t a little snide, but. . .
Here’s how I saw it. An analogy:
bbs2k: :asks dad: Are we getting a pony for Christmas?
QED (bbs2k’s older brother): (to bbs2k) You think dad is going to tell us that now? And if he does do it on Christmas, you don’t think he’ll tell us?
zuma: (to dad) But if you decide to get us a pony at Christmas, let us know in July so we don’t have to behave between July and Christmas, OK?
End of play.
Essentially, no corporation is going to tell you about a pricing policy change before it happens because then people will change their behavior which is exactly what the corporation doesn’t want to have happen, and why they’d wait to announce it. So asking the corporation to announce their pricing plans early seems a little pointless. And when they do announce it, it will probably be loud and clear. . . and immediate. I guess there could be exceptions, but it would seem illogical to me.
It seems to me that QED was just pointing out that fact, albeit a little snidely.
Dex, the problem, as I see it, is that the real mods are by and large quite good at explaining the actual rules and customs of the board, and doing so in an appropriate tone. I would imagine that there is some behind the scenes work taking place to keep this so. Ordinary members sometime get snarky or worse when they junior mod, but that is largely out of your control, and as you note, not a board rule violation.
SDSAB members, like it or not, reflect on the board administration because by virtue of their title they are cloaked with additional status. And similarly, many see them as junior members of the administration. This is no problem if their actions reflect credit upon the administration and they do not presume to opine on board administrative actions beyond their station. For the most part, this is what happens.
But then there’s Q.E.D. All too often he is not careful to make clear that he is merely speaking as an ordinary poster when he is speaking on board administrative matters, but presumes to speak as though he has some real authority. When a regular member does this, it is a venial sin, but when someone clothed with authority by the administration (limited though that may be), the sin becomes much more serious (requiring cautions like you have previously posted, cautions which should not be necessary if he had stated his limited authority himself). The problem multiplies when he speaks in an unnecessarily snarky manner.
I don’t suggest that an SDSAB member violates the rules when he answers questions about board administration without a disclaimer, but I think that the actual administration should act (behind the scenes) to make sure that SDSAB members don’t themselves cause unnecessary confusion about their status, particularly when doing so in a snarky manner.
I can go along with the negative ambiguity of the SDSAB title, and maybe Q.E.D. acted like a dick a few times.
On the whole though, I find Q.E.D. 's contributions to this site to be invaluable. Any rational person would put him in the positive column rather than the negative one.
There are several others here that deserve/and/or need a pitting. Focus on them, not the people that actually help once in a while.
As far as Q.E.D. being a Googler, he gives concise answers quickly, and he’s seldom corrected. That seems to me to be a source of accurate information. If he were proven wrong more often, one could build a case that he’s not as smart as he says he is. That has yet to happen though.
There are numerous posters here that need an admonishing much more than Q.E.D. .
Oust the real dicks first, then target the productive resources that don’t play nice.
I see that Q.E.D.'s title has changed to “Straight Dope Science Advisory Board” (it used to be SDSAB, didn’t it? Or am I mis-remembering?) I don’t think that will fix the problem of people seeing authority where there is none, if that’s what prompted the change (I’m one of those people - I’ve always assumed that the SDSAB members were part of the ruling class). It still looks awfully official.
And change the rule from “don’t be a jerk” to “don’t be a jerk, unless you’re way smart”.
I do believe that he is as smart as he thinks he is- I have no problem with his answers. The problem is that he can hardly give an answer without being a smug prick about it, and never gets called on it. I too, have wondered who he is blowing around here to get away with what he does.
Well, assuming you’re speaking on behalf of the poster I was questioning, you’ll need to amend “[n]obody violates the “don’t be a jerk” rule more frequently, and with fewer consequences, than Q.E.D.” to “[n]obody violates the “don’t be a jerk” rule more frequently in GQ, and with fewer consequences, than Q.E.D.” Its still an entirely unwarranted statement, for which no evidence has yet been offered in this thread, but it would at least be an opinion expressed on the basis of experience.
For my two cents, and with genuine respect to Billdo and others, this is much ado about nothing. If people cannot point to multiple examples of rudeness within a short period then it is probably more a case of confirmation bias than anything else. This is the Pit; you all should put up or shut up.
Well, sometimes they do know the answer, as quite a few of our former Moderators and Administrators are Straight Dope Science Advisory Board members.
As staffers retire from working on the board we grant them Straight Dope Science Advisory Board status. Some of them write Staff Reports. Some simply advise as needed. We appreciate all of them.
But no, Straight Dope Science Advisory Board members are not currently Administrators or Moderators and serve in no management capacity on the Straight Dope Message Board.
With all due respect, don’t you perhaps think that your latter observation is a pretty fair indicator that your former is likely colored by some preconceived notions on your part?
I suppose the source of my (pre?)conceived notions about you would be all the times I’ve seen you be a jerk. It’s not like I came onto the board with a prejudice against you- it’s your own behavior that has led me to my opinion.
I do respect you, you know everything and I don’t begrudge you that, but I do think that you could just be a bit nicer, especially seeing as how you’re so ubiquitous. A grating personality is just that much harder to take when it’s everywhere all the time (and knows everything). Would observing that some think that sometimes you can be a jerk, especially considering you admitted it yourself, and that maybe you could be a bit gentler, really be such a bad thing?
We’ve all seen many a pompous ass ousted from this place, many of them were booted for sensible reasons.
I fail to see any reason to boot Q.E.D.. If booting him isn’t the issue, and if character reform is, then I submit that this is a very mild “pitting” and is subject to taste and the thickness of one’s skin.
I would second this. I have disagreed with Q.E.D. a time or three. Sometimes he has been right, sometimes I have been. However, he has never been anything but a gentleman about it.
So cite up or shut up.
I know I’m asking for it, since I have at least as much reputation for prickly behavior as QED does. But I don’t have a badge under my name that implies, to most people, that I have special standing as a Doper representative. For what it’s worth (not much, I know) I long ago lost any shred of respect for QED as a poster here. He’s so often more interested in being *first *with an answer than he is in being correct. And his nasty little barbs, in wildly inappropriate places, are more characteristic of his posting style than anything he’s ever done to earn his badge. I certainly don’t vote for his banning, but I *do *vote for his being held to a HIGHER standard, sporting the SDSAB badge as he does, than the lower standard he so cavalierly lays claim to. As an ordinary member of this community, he falls well below my radar. (But *well *below; he has negative credibility.) But as a representative of this board and what it purports to stand for, he’s a shocking embarrassment.
I think we could apply this to just about anyone, myself included, I suspect. Because there will always be a post that someone will take issue with. And it’s great as a suggestion, but it’s pretty hard to only call it on one person, without applying the same rule to lots of others, er. . .without naming any names. cough^cough
As others have said, **Q.E.D. ** is one of the least pitworthy folks at the SDMB. In the years that I’ve been hanging around here, Q.E.D. has always been very helpful and courteous (and it goes without saying extremely knowledgeable).
Maybe Q.E.D.'s answer appearing snippy is due to the nature of the “About This Message Board” forum. The majority of the questions are pretty limited in scope and many questions have been previously asked and answered. On top of that, the SDMB will pretty much run things the way they want to and I don’t think that posting anything there is going to have a major paradigm shift in message board policy, procedure, etc.
No, it appeared snippy because it WAS snippy. Unfortunately, we’re so accustomed to rudeness on the internet, that a person can be unjustifiably rude and not be considered a jerk. In real life, this behavior would be met with a whispered “what a fucking jerk that guy is”, on the internet, he’s being “snarky”.
As for questions being asked and answered multiple times, QED isn’t the forum’s moderator. He’s not an admin who will be called upon to give official answers over and over again. He doesn’t even have to read the goddamn thing, much less type out a snarky, non-responsive answer.
