How about just adopting the General Questions rule of no joke responses until the OP has been answered? Going forward, that could alleviate a lot of the tension and bridge burning that’s taken place in this thread.
Elbows- you’re not coming off so well in your beef with **Marley **(since you mentioned you don’t see if anyone else agrees with him in post 118).
Marley didn’t close the thread, he didn’t respond to that thread as the moderator in charge, thus your comments about that specific thread in general don’t really have anything to do with him. Another example would be- if you have a complaint about a GD topic, and an MPSIMs mod comes in and goofs around, there’s nothing wrong with that- it’s not his issue to deal with. And the Mods have certainly had a history of snark just as we as posters have when we answer questions or just reply to topics in general (See GQ for plenty of examples of posters just snarking or making jokes rather than immediately replying to the OP’s Questions). So the way you are trying to go after Marley here really doesn’t paint you in a good light.
Your issues with **Twickster **, though slightly overly sensitive IMHO, are valid issues, but to try to use those same arguments against Marley and call him out when it’s not even his fight to begin with is really silly, and lowers your original issues to begin with. It really does make it look like you’ve got your panties or knickers or whatever in a bunch when now it seems you’re just basically trying to attack any Mod that doesn’t comply with your lengthy list of issues. You’re losing focus and diluting your argument right now.
Perhaps you should dial it back, and simply compose a simple direct complaint in a separate thread or something against Twickster, rather than splash around and whine about the whole SDMB in general, because just saying that the entire moderation staff is at fault and that we as posters are being disrespected continually, and the general “oh woe is me! My honor has been impugned!”… well it’s not really conducive to your arguments, and the longer it continues in this thread, it just feels like you’ve got nothing else to say, and you’re just repeating yourself. You’re certainly not getting the answers you want here, so perhaps you should dial it back, concentrate your arguments, and present them to the actual person(s) who you feel have slighted you in another thread, because at this point your issue is a hijack of the OP, and I think that’s partly why you’ve getting lost in the noise, because this thread wasn’t going to be about you, but you’re making it about you.
For what it’s worth, I do feel, yeah, maybe the Twickster line was a bit odd, but I just chalked it up to general snark and that just comes with the turf around these boards. But you could have a valid argument, it’s just at this point, the message is getting lost in the general “respect for all” issue. Focus either on twickster and you, or focus your arguments on the issue of Respect between the Dopers and Moderators (good luck with *that *one), but arguing for both of them right now, isn’t going well for you on either front.
Hope that helps, and offers you an outside perspective.
*Whoops, just change Marley’s name to Czarcasm up there in my Post.
And I like Munch’s idea as it seems like a nice compromise, as much as I love snarky replies.
Perhaps you’re right ToeJam. They seem like valid questions to me, worthy of pursuing answers to. Your post has made a very good point, though. By simply repeating myself, y’know, in the hope of getting answers, I may well be appearing to be more upset than I am. I am frustrated that with, what?, a dozen or so mods on the board, rather than respond they are just ignoring my questions.
But you’re no doubt right, this is a pointless pursuit on my part. No answers are going to be forthcoming, very likely. And, I should just let it go.
Then again, perhaps silly Sunday has simply bled into an entire silly week. Some of what’s gone on here is actually quite funny, if you look at it right.
I mean, it’s pretty funny that the OP makes polite inquiry, in correct forum and gets greeted with derision, and combative hostility. Now check out post #89. The poster they felt may have appeared to be trying to ‘game the system’ (again, BigT, just an example, not about you, no offense intended!), gets nothing but politeness and smilies, sweetness and light. I mean that’s pretty funny when you think about it.
In the ironically humorous department we have this:
That’s a pretty ironic post/poster name combo, right there, in my opinion.
But what is really very funny, when you think about it, is that these;
[/QUOTE]
…should prove to be the questions that finally, ‘stump the dope’. Come on, you have to admit that’s pretty hilarious.
elbows said:
Your original post was not “Please reopen the thread so others can respond.” Your original post was “How is that okay?”
Essentially, you asked why did that thread get closed at that time and circumstance.
Twickster (the mod who closed the thread) answered your question: it was closed because the conversation seemed to be dead ended and the OP requested closure.
You felt that didn’t answer the intent of your OP, why is it appropriate to close a thread at the OP’s request right after the OP posts a lenthy comment to several posters that they don’t get what he is saying? In other words, you felt the OP was gaming the system to get the last word, and the mod was complying rather than catching it.
Again, you did not request reopening the thread. You just wondered why it was acceptable. You proposed that some people may have wished to respond, and you chastised the mod for being “prescient”, but you did not request reopening the thread. You seem more interested in chastising the mod than in getting the thread opened or getting an answer to the question of the appearance of BigT “gaming the system”.
And that’s likely why Twickster felt a little snark was in order when responding to you. Your tone comes off as more about chewing out mods rather than clarifying anything or actually reopening the thread so others can respond.
I don’t agree snark was called for. I don’t agree with snark during actual moderator function (either mod actions/comments or responding to questions). But I can see why Twickster felt a bit attacked.
Well, I’m not sure how much of an insult it really was. It was a gratuitous remark about your posting, and perhaps an erroneous characterization of your posting as a whole. But when it was made in this thread it was after you had chastised Twickster for being prescient and chastised other mods for participating in the thread without answering your original question even though they were not involved in the original incident so likely didn’t know the details in order to answer the question. They were probably waiting on Twickster to respond, since she was the one who closed the thread in the first place.
I’m not sure how strong of an accusation it was intended to be. Nevertheless, you interpreted it to be an accusation that you are a regular complainer or such, and so Twickster should have addressed your concern with either a real apology, or a clarification of her own intent. Or both.
Because mods are also regular posters, and allowed to post on this board in a non-mod capacity? Because the question seemed to be about a specific incident that those mods did not witness or participate in, and so they wanted the involved mod to respond first?
A few comments on the matters raised in this thread. No doubt some of this repeats remarks made by others:
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We don’t have a fixed policy on thread closure, and don’t really want to establish one. In general we try to use common sense, as Gfactor’s post above indicates. From time to time we have closed ATMB threads at the request of the OP when a policy or or procedural issue has been raised and addressed. That’s what was done here. The thread in question was unusual for ATMB in that a debate had developed between BigT and other posters; in retrospect, since BigT had just posted a long message, it might have been wiser to let the thread remain open a while so others could respond. The fact remains that ATMB is for discussion about board issues between posters and staff, not for extended colloquies between posters. Anyone who has unfinished business with BigT is welcome to open a thread in the Pit.
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SDMB staff isn’t allowed to insult or abuse people but otherwise they’re given fairly wide latitude in dealing with posters. I’ve never told staff they’re not permitted to be sarcastic or stern and wouldn’t dream of doing so. I do occasionally point out that when you’re dealing with somebody who gets exercised over minor matters it’s best as a tactical matter not to give them an excuse to get worked up. Clearly that would have been the smarter course in the present case. That said, if you come in with a lot of attitude, don’t be surprised if you get some attitude back.
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If you have some issue you feel I need to respond to personally, either post a thread in ATMB or e-mail me. (I’m not good about responding to SDMB private messages and don’t advise going that route.) Please don’t post requests in unrelated threads in hopes I may stumble across them.
Thanks for your input Irishman, I hear what you’re saying and agree with a lot of it.
But my OP was, in fact, asking why someone was able to get a thread closed moments after a final post that quoted 7 other posters. I was, pretty clearly, questioning how that was fair to the cited posters.
**
Twickster’s** response did not address any of that. And saying, “no one was saying anything new”, does somewhat imply the prescience to know if any of the 7 cited posters would have said ‘anything new’.
I’m not sure when exactly that became the criteria for posting here. I can’t speak for you, of course, but I see a hundred threads, on this board, where people are reiterating things, and they don’t get closed. Ditto, ‘it was four pages long’. I see many threads, much longer, that don’t get shut. They are reasons, to be sure. But they don’t seem to address the issue raised in the OP. And don’t seem to be used when closing other threads, at the OP’s request.
I’m happy to see we agree on this.
And I wouldn’t want to stop mods from being regular posters, or from cracking jokes, just so we’re clear. But there are many forums where that can happen and not be disruptive. It was very clearly disruptive here, and contributed nothing to the thread.
I heartily agree with this;
Of the first 10 posts, in this thread, for example, 5,6,7,8 + 10, all jokes. How that’s supposed to be helpful, when someone is having a issued they’d like resolved, I truly do not understand.
I’m slowly coming to the realization that, for all the talk, ATMB isn’t really about answering any questions we may have about the moderation of the board, at all.
Having just read about ‘thread management’, I get the impression that part of the problem I’m having, getting answers to my questions, may stem from classifying any questions raised, (even if caused by activity in the thread itself), after the OP are, apparently side issues that may require their own thread. I can’t say I understand, but that may explain why I’m not being offered any answers to, what seem to me at least, pretty valid questions.
I haven’t decided whether or not, I have it in me, to start another thread in ATMB, quite honestly.
I feel as though I have been subjected to a fair bit of hostility (and even been insulted), simply because I dared to question a mod’s authority. Politely mind you, and in the right forum. But I’m not sure I’m ready to make that same mistake again.
The amount of hostility I have experienced here, from the mods, honestly leads me to believe that, both this thread, and any other I may wish to start, will most assuredly be held against me.
Thanks for your response Ed.
I’m clear on your first point, though confused why "
this is wisdom, when it’s said by you, but cause for rebuff when a poster says as much?
As for your second point I’m uncertain whether you are trying to call Twickster’s unfounded accusation against me not an insult, or, that I brought ‘attitude’, so I should suck it up. Could you clarify what you’re saying here? Or are you trying to say that I am ‘somebody who gets exercised over minor matters’? Because I didn’t get exercised until I got frustrated and insulted, to be honest. And I felt I made every effort to be polite.
As for your third point, I believe, if you check your email, you’ll see that I did exactly as you are prescribing - without result, hence my, admittedly, very opportunistic approaching of you in another thread. Sorry, but I just saw your name and thought I’d ask.
Can I ask you the other questions I had posed, here and now, or not? Either way, thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it.
elbows, honestly, what do you expect me to tell you? You raised a question that no one but you took seriously. That’s why you got facetious replies. Rather than let it go you persisted, finally eliciting the exasperated but nonetheless mild remark that you are now interpreting as an unfounded accusation and an insult. Rather than have this drag on indefinitely let me apologize on behalf of Creative Loafing Media, Inc., for any offense we may have given you.
See above. Surely there are other things more deserving of your attention than this trivial matter.
I see nothing in e-mail. Did you send it to edzotti at aol dot com?
Which other questions are we talking about? I think I have addressed the concerns of significance.
elbows said:
But my OP was, in fact, asking why someone was able to get a thread closed moments after a final post that quoted 7 other posters. I was, pretty clearly, questioning how that was fair to the cited posters.
Isn’t fairness a bit subjective? Would it have been fair to have several posters telling BigT “you just don’t get it” and then close the thread, so BigT doesn’t get a chance to respond? When is it fair? Sure, BigT requested the closure, and he could have just as easily said “You just don’t get it, I give up, and won’t read this thread any more”, and then the other posters could have continued to berate him and got their say in. Who would that have served? The people who wanted to say something to BigT’s back?
I agree with the principle that getting the last word then closing the thread seems a bit cheap.
No, it is a statement of fact - for the past page or so no one had said anything new. BigT was not changing his position. No one seemed to be getting anything out of BigT that changed their minds. That doesn’t mean that the next set of posts somehow wouldn’t have had a spark of originality that made someone think differently, but the odds were low.
Twickster replied with why she closed the thread when she did. She did not feel that any additional comments would help anyone change their minds. And if I understand her correctly,she felt the OP’s question was finished, and all that was left was arguing over feelings, there was nothing to be gained by letting people keep prodding. “Fairness” didn’t enter into it, because no one was listening to each other anyway. Letting people reply back with, “No, you don’t get it” or whatever wouldn’t have changed anything. Ergo, to Twickster there was no difference to closing it then or in 1 hour or in 25 hours, and the OP requested it end, so she ended it. Apparently she still feels that way, given her response in post 101.
As Ed just said, these decisions are case by case. When the thread is in ATMB, but the topic is no longer about board management and instead is about the OP, the context no longer really belongs in ATMB. The OP was tired of responding to the thread and requested closure. Closing threads at OP request is accepted, though not always done because of other situational concerns. When a topic is not bothering anyone, then letting it wander on without end without adding anything new doesn’t detract from the board, so there’s no real incentive to kill it. But when the topic is bothering some, then there is an incentive to end it. As far as the “four pages long”, again that is a context specific measurement. Four pages of on topic debate or discussion is one thing, four pages of “BigT, take a break, how could you possibly be that upset by a message board? :dubious:” in the forum supposed to be discussing how the board is run is out of place.
Would I have handled it differently? Probably. But I’m not a moderator (run away! 
).
I can appreciate frustration when you want a real question addressed and instead everyone else seems interested in throwing unrelated jokes around.
Thank you for the thoughtful response Irishman. I appreciate the effort and I think I can understand Twickster’s position, a bit better, as a result.
Of course, I agree with this, completely;
And I greatly appreciate someone else acknowledging that the frustration of joking mods when you’re after an answer. I was beginning to think it was just me.
To be perfectly honest with you, the only reason I have been unwilling to drop this and have kept pursuing it, was that I was, well and truly, baffled by the response. And I still am largely.
I was never angry or upset. I was incredulous. The sillier it got, (jokes, derision, hostility, frustration, and an insult), the more incredulous I was. I still am a little.
What would have been so terrible about reopening it for a few hours, in case the cited posters wished to respond? Who would be hurt? How would it negatively impact anyone? I’m pretty sure it can be accomplished with a keystroke or two. It would take no more than a few seconds to do.
Instead it took over 100 posts of drama, dismissive, hostile and combative mod posts. They joked with each other, and ignored reasonable questions, without so much as, “I’m sorry I can’t speak to that.” All to end up in much the same place.
I often read on the board, “take it ATMB”. And when I read ATMB I often wish people were less hostile to the mods. To the furtherance of their point, in my opinion. I went out of my way to insure I was polite and reasonable, convinced it would make all the difference in the nature of the discussion. As I have said, in ten years I have rarely taken issue with the moderation of the board, and sincerely believed, all the complaints were merely oversensitive posters, or ill chosen wording, etc, etc.
Of course now my fear is that all those posters, who I’ve heard complain about being picked on, by mods with a grudge, maybe some of those complaints are valid too! If so I’m pretty sure I just pissed them all off from the top down, seeking an answer to a couple of pretty straightforward questions!
It was a pretty simple issue, presented civilly, in the right forum. I’d have bet my retirement fund that it would have been dealt with quickly and with civility and common sense. I think we can all agree that’s not what happened here. And honestly, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d have never believed it. I think, throughout this thread I have been in a little denial that my beloved messageboard, of ten years, is really this way.
So, though you may not see it my way, I sincerely appreciate that you took the time to respond sincerely and respectfully. You’re a class act.
I never really realized you had a sense of Humor under all that authoritarian chain mail, Ed. Maybe you’re not so bad after all, Zotti. 
It seems like you are saying that the “being potty trained” remark is a bad thing and “panties in a twist…again” isn’t. That was my very question: why? It’s bad if we say it about you but not bad if you say it about us? Why is that? I don’t think we should be rude to you. I don’t think you should be rude to us either.
No, he’s saying that nobody gave a warning for “being potty trained”, so why should they give a warning for “getting panties in a twist”?
Especially since there have been any number of posts around here (not this thread, but many others) where anyone who manages to see the moderator’s point of view is accused of butt-kissing, and the flipside anyone who registers complaint against anything is labeled “butthurt”. Comments of the level “getting panties in a twist” have been thrown around before. The accusation was that posters were getting held to a higher standard than moderators. The potty training comparison is evidence this is not so.
The panties remark was characterized by Ed as “exasperated but nonetheless mild remark that you are now interpreting as an unfounded accusation and an insult.” The potty training remark was characterized by Czarcasm as “horribly condescending and/or insulting.” This is not a double standard???
Are you seriously complaining that two people might have differing opinions?
That said, when in doubt, go with the word of the one in more power.
elbows, I think you have had three or four very reasonable grievances against Twickster in this thread. She had some nonsense reasons for closing the other thread. She made an accusation against you which was not true. She used an insult against you. Her response to complaints about her unfounded accusation and insult were bogus.
If referencing someone’s twisted panties is not an insult, then one should be free to reference one’s mother’s twisted panties. That’s a reasonable test. My women friends and I are more likely to use “fuck you” as a term of endearment because it’s a sign that even at our age we feel comfortable enough to relax with each other. But references to getting ones panties in a wad is to say that they are getting upset over nothing. And that is a put down.
Ed’s points are very reasonable as a whole. If Twickster’s remark wasn’t intended as an insult, then what in the world was she talking about? It seemed to come out of thin air.
Twickster may have felt “attacked.” I don’t know. But this is the appropriate forum for criticizing moderators. She has several other forums in which she can be more critical of dopers. She handles the ATMB as if she were holding her nose.
Are there no points at all on your graph of responses between “helpful comment” and “insult”?
Hey - **twickster **felt it was an insult enough to apologize for it. The fact that she has absolutely no idea *how *to apologize we’ll set aside for the moment…
To be fair, referencing any twisting of my undergarments, was not offensive to me. I’m not quite that thin skinned. I truly didn’t take exception to that part of the remark.
Inferring that my issue was just, ‘yet another’, opportunity to get wound up over ‘mod decisions’, was, and remains, grossly unfair, in my opinion. A quick review of my, ten year, history of posting here, reveals as much. How such an accusation can be seen as anything but an insult is somewhat beyond me, but, hey, everybody is different. That a mod casting such aspersions isn’t required to provide a cite, when requested, on a board, so very fond of the word ‘cite’ is, indeed mystifying. But apparently, that’s just how it is.
I still don’t understand, when I was so clearly pressing the other mods for answers, how none of them could be bothered to respond, “sorry, we can’t speak to that”. Apparently I was supposed to be born with that knowledge. 
The equivocating of why this is an insult, but this isn’t is, as ToeJam has pointed out, always going to be covered by ‘differences of opinion’. But I can certainly see why, to a casual observer, it appears that the mods can be hyper sensitive, to any remark, while posters are expected to have somewhat thicker skins. Again, apparently that’s just how it is.
I also don’t understand why Twickster didn’t just answer my inquiry with what, I now gather, is the truth about this thread closure. The discussion had now veered into areas wherein, it was, really, no longer about the message board, and would be better suited elsewhere. Instead I got the bullshit, ‘4 pages long, nothing new being said’, comeback. Leading me to be even more taken aback, frustrated and confused. And, we can all see where that led me.:o
Much of it still baffles me, I have to admit. I see mods move threads all the freaking time. Why not move it, agreeing to close it, as per the OP’s request, after some time period, that would have permitted any poster cited in BigT’s last post, an opportunity to respond. A quick review of this very thread reveals that mods and posters alike, somewhat agree that something wasn’t quite right about not giving others an opportunity to respond. Witness BigT actually getting chastised for appearing to game the system. Ed’s assertion that ‘only I’ felt it was a valid issue, notwithstanding.
And no one ever responded on who would have been hurt by opening it again for a few hours? Who would it have negatively impacted? I’m not seeing it. It takes, what?, a few seconds/keystrokes to do? How would it have harmed anything? I’m still not seeing what all the resistance was about, other than a mod not wanting their authority questioned. But, again, it seems, that’s just how it is.
And the kicker is, after all the irritation, and fanning of the flames, that mods cracking side jokes, while the OP remains unaddressed, has caused in this thread, it continues unabated in current ATMB threads. Perhaps, somedays, common sense is simply in very short supply.
When it comes right down to it, it seems there is nothing to win, in challenging the mods on any decision, and your reputation to lose, so why bother? :smack: It doesn’t speak highly of my intellect that it took me 10 years to see it.:smack::smack:
I certainly appreciate your support, Munch, Zoe and all you others, it means a great deal to me, truly. You’re all pretty cool, in my book!