The jokers violated no rules other than the ones in tomndebb’s mind. A mod has no right to impose “humor-control” on a thread that hasn’t become onscene or hateful. I propose tomndebb be sentenced to 3 years of modding MPSIMS as punishment for this blatant power-grab and stick-up-assedness.
I’m not sure I would have bothered with a mod note there, but it’s also true that posts 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 were jokes about even sven and Cameroon instead of answers to the OP’s questions. It was rather obnoxious and the thread got back on track after the mod note. And yes, we do have the right to do tell people to stop hijacking a thread, whether it’s with jokes or other behavior.
tomndebb may be a poopyhead, but the jokes were getting a bit silly.
Really, I just came in here to call him a poopyhead. Poopyhead!
Guess we don’t have much to learn from them.
I had typed that exact response when I first saw the thread, but since no one else had posted yet, I figured I’d hold back.
But I agree with the moderation. No one got a warning, and the joke had played itself out. Since it was a joke about an active poster, it probably made sense to chill on that. Maybe if folks were joking about someone not a member of this MB it might have been different.
You did notice the threads was in Great Debates rather than in IMHO or MPSIMS, didn’t you? As Marley says, moderators have the right to to give instructions to keep threads on track an to prevent hijacks. A couple of jokes might have been humorous, but after that people were just being copycats. tomndebb had the authority to tell people to stop with the jokes in order to get back to addressing the OP. If that thread had been in General Questions, I probably would have done the same thing. As a participant in the thread, I found the continuing jokes pretty annoying.
I support tomndebb’s action in that thread. The even sven comments were taking over the thread, to the exclusion of any other discussion. In Great Debates.
Yea, seems like good modding to me. Ended a hijack. We have MPSIMS if people want to start a thread where everyone posts the same joke over and over again.
I think that even sven should be banned because of that thread.
I have no opinion either way, but I love the word poopyhead, and so I quote my favourite poopoohead song on Youtube.
I think what happened was that tomndebb misunderstood the humor.
He thought it was mean-spirited and anti-even sven. Maybe one or two posters were playing that angle, but they were missing the joke, too.
The joke was one of those ‘rio’ jokes that we like here on the dope. (by we, I mean, some of us, for the love of god, don’t send me your hatemail). I kind of like that kind of humor, where at first, a couple posters say something at the same time, or miss that it was mentioned, and then people start adding on…just riffing.
Colibri doesn’t seem to get it either. Those who are saying, “the first couple were ok” don’t seem to get it. The first couple mentions aren’t jokes. It doesn’t get jokey until everyone starts adding on. Didn’t seem all that intrusive to the thread to me. I think if it were just a matter of, “oh, this is getting a tad annoying with this repetitive joke thing” tomndebb wouldn’t have used all caps, like ‘ENOUGH, MUTHAFUCKAS!’. I think he got all hype like that because he misunderstood the joke and thought everyone was picking on even sven.
You’re probably right, but one problem is that there are more than a few people on this board who seem to take great delight in making snide comments to or about even sven whenever the opportunity presents itself. I don’t know if any of those people posted in the thread in question, but sven is one person who seems to attract a disproportionate share of asshole-type behavior on these boards.
I’m noticing a pattern with your posts: I frequently LOL (not to be confused with quarry related activities)
The thread doesn’t even belong in GD. He could have easily kicked it over to MPSIMS, but nooooooo. Mr. Buzzkill had to stomp in with Mod Boots on. Still a poopy-head, he is.
:rolleyes:
Note that I did not say that the comments were humorless or even failed humor. (I certainly did not leap to a conclusion that they were mean-spirited. It is a Great Debates thread that was running off the rails because of the off-topic comments. Nothing worse; nothing more.
Actually, since there was some whining over the use of “Tweeeeeeet!” to indicate that I wanted the attention of all posters, “ENOUGH!” is how I generally open general calls to modify behavior.
It indicates nothing more than that I want a particular behavior to stop without any judgment of the behavior. It might be outside the rules; it might have just gone on too long or threatened a hijack. The “ENOUGH!” is nothing more than a call to order.
Ok. I thought you misunderstood what was going on, that’s all. I was trying to let you know that if you were thinking it was a pile on even sven thing, you were probably mistaken about that. I cannot for the life of me figure out why you had to go and use that rolleye smiley. I hate that smiley more than you will ever know, tomndebb.
I think you’re just very easily amused. 
Sure I get it. But jokes that depend on pure inanity are better suited to MPSIMS than to GD. I wouldn’t have objected to that kind of joke if the thread was in some other forum. But in GD it was a hijack that was interfering with the subject of the thread.
You weren’t even participating in the thread. Your opinion on this is hardly relevant.
It might have gone in GQ, or in the Game Room, or possibly even in IMHO, but it wasn’t a MPSIMS thread, nor should it have turned into one.
Threads have been shut down in MPSIMS for being too P when it’s basically just that. A closing I don’t support in that case.
In what world is “What’s so bad about Cameroon?” GD territory? Time to stop smoking your running socks, dude.
This, I cannot deny.
Understood.
I hope my opinion matters as a reader of threads that I don’t post to. I rarely post in GD, but I read it often.