Reviewing a mod note

About This Message Board
1

See this note. Full thread is here.

The upshot:

Bricker posted about a school board and said (words to the effect of) “I think this was the right decision.”

Several people noted that Bricker didn’t really advance a rationale for this, as one might expect in a forum titled “Great Debates.” Included in this number was tomndebb.

Quoting tomndebb, I agreed, stating (and I post in full as it is the gravamen of the mod note):

Bricker then ultimately elaborated on his position, and he and I and others have been addressing the merits of the issue.

Some time later, a mod note from tomndebb:

First, a factual clarification. I actually wasn’t attempting humor. I do think that OP’s to the effect of “Something happened. I agree [or disagree] with that” should be closed. “Here’s something you might want to debate” seems a little like a waste of time. But electrons are free, so I get why nobody falls over themselves to do so.

I also don’t think proposing the rule is especially snide.

But I am genuinely perplexed. First, I don’t think it’s “threadshitting” to observe that the OP hasn’t raised an issue for debate and that would-be opponents should refrain from being the first mover. Let the OP make his prima facie case, and if he can’t, well, you’ve won the debate.

Secondly, I don’t think I said anything all that different from what many people, including tomndebb, were saying. I wasn’t saying “Close the thread, because I don’t like the TV show this is about.” I was saying “Close the thread, because there doesn’t seem to be a debate topic.” If I posted a thread to the effect of “The SSA is closing its offices on Wednesday afternoons due to budget constraints. I think that is a smart approach.” in GD without more, I guarantee you a mod would ask “What’s the debate?” and if I didn’t articulate a colorable controversey, the thread would be closed (or moved to MPSIMS).

Does tomndebb “occupy the field” such that when he raises the issue of a lack of rationale in the OP, nobody else gets to concur with him? Is that not rather insane?

What is troubling is that I think most people would agree that this mod note is based on very vague, outer-boundaries understanding of what “threadshitting” is. I don’t suggest that mods must operate within bright line rules and are afforded discretion, but if discretion means anything, it must mean that there are potential rulings that exceed their discretion. I think the cited post, particularly in the context of my continued participation in the thread after Bricker was bidden to articulate his position, falls beyond even a deferential discretionary assessment.

I understand a note is not a “Warning,” but I don’t understand what I am being warned against.

I ask that the note be withdrawn. (I would cheekily say it should be “withdrawn as improvidently issued,” but who the hell knows what the reaction to that would be — precisely why I find the mod note so troubling.)

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Not threadshitting: “Hey, you haven’t substantiated your own position yet. You should do that first, and I’ll be happy to respond.”

Threadshitting: “Hey, the OP hasn’t substantiated his position yet. Threads like this should be locked, am I right folks?”

3

So, the crucial difference is saying the thread should be closed until someone is prepared to advance a position? How is that “threadshitting”? (Which I’ve always understood as a post where the poster announces why he/she thinks any discussion of the subject, even if there is a robust debate/discussion between the pro- and anti- side, is just plain dumb.)

The textbook example would be if I opened a thread “Which is the better song: “Call Me Maybe” or “Good Time”?” [SPOILER ALERT: Call Me Maybe] and somebody did a drive-by “Only retarded tweeny-boppers listen to CRJ anyway.”

That’s not what occurred here. In particular, it seems hard to make the case for “threadshitting” (this is an awful, undignified term, and I wish we had an alternative. Henceforth, I shall use “disruptively gratuitious objections” or “DGO[ing]” — I am open to further alternatives) when the alleged perpetrator (me) has remained active and topical throughout the life of the thread.

In any event, I am unconvinced that there is such a substantial difference between your two hypothetical posts that they should be subjected to differential moderator treatment.

4

Threadshitting? I don’t think so.

Jr. Modding? Probably

5

You say potato, I say poh-tah-toe.

6

Because I am such a good lawyer, I already anticipated that this would be the next stop on the justification choo-choo.

(1) I wasn’t warned for JM. Obviously, the JM quality of the post was not so palpable that it occurred to the mod to warn me for it.

(2) Calling for a thread to be closed is not JM. We allow OPs to do it all the time. Similarly, nobody bats an eye when they observe “This is probably going to end up in the Pit…” I’ve never heard this speculation as to what a mod will or should do ever characterized as JM. Likewise, when an OP says, “These are the terms of the debate” and other posters say, “Well, I’m going to make the arguments I want to make. You can’t impose these restrictions,” nobody contends that is JM.

(3) Nobody is confused as to whether I can close a thread. Moreover, I phrased subjunctively (“I would close”), thus alerting any potential JMee that I had no power to bring about the action. In fact, I wasn’t advocating that any non-mod poster do anything differently at all (this is the essence of JM).

(4) The clear intendment of my remarks were the insufficiency of the OP’s argument. JM is problematic when it directs or threatens moderator intervention against a poster. (“If you don’t stop saying that, you’re going to get warned.”) What we want to avoid with the restriction on JM is having posters browbeat other posters with threatened moderator action. Closing a thread is not a disciplinary action against an OP.

Where a poster is not so threatened, the harm of JM is extremely reduced. (For instance, as noted above, when a poster predicts where a thread will end up. Or when they tell someone to get a blog. Or that they can’t impose rules about who’s allowed to debate or what they may raise.)

7

Until very recently, I never would’ve imagined that attorneys had so much free time.

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By the power vested in me by the St(r)ate of the Dope, I hereby expunge the Mod Note in question from your permanent record.

That’ll be a $50 court cost, cash only.

(And if it’s the accusation of “threadshitting” that you object to, for another $50 I can have **TnD **go in and change it to the much more dignified “junior-modding” for you.) :stuck_out_tongue:

9

I work for the government.

10

That explains a lot.

11

Given that the thread had progressed, Bricker had returned, and you had continued participating in conversation with him, I’m not sure what the point of that note was.

12

My irresistable DGO: Isn’t there (or shouldn’t there be) a board rule against using words like “gravamen”?