Point taken, but still – look what passes for “coming down on” in that thread. Pretty weak stuff.
No offense, samclem. I’m sure you’re quite fierce when you’ve got your mod dander up.
True, though a little enforcement is better than none, and he hardly bitch-slapped anyone. I think even the people he questioned admitted that they thought they were in mpsims.
If Bud Dwyer taught us anything, it is don’t shoot your mouth off in public. Remember that.
But jsgoddess is right. Too many GQ threads have jokes and wags before a reasonable chance has been given to answer the question. I think the accepted and reasonable practice is to hold off on the jokes until the question has been answered and to wait on the wags at least a few hours.
Hopefully **samclem ** or another GQ mod will join this discussion and clarify expected and reasonable behavior in GQ.
Jim
(scumpup: Pow!)
As instigator of this whole little foofaraw, I have to say I don’t really hold it against samclem. Any of us can have our little pedantic snits, especially those of us in some position of control over others. Especially especially in GD or GQ.
Now the Type A-plus junior vice president who wore too much perfume, spoke in a piercing soprano whine, and once made me correct 8 mistakes in a letter at the rate of one mistake per draft…*her *name I curse to this day. May the fruit of your loins be slackers and sponges, Anne, just as I turned out to be.
Me neither. I was more curious than pissed off. The only reason this is in the Pit is that this is the appropriate forum for such issues.
But i still think some greater level of consistency, both within threads (like the one cited in my OP) and between threads (plenty of GQ threads have jokes that go unremarked) would be nice.
Presumably someone else would have to put it on for him.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do keep in mind that the mods often tell us that they do not read every thread, and often take action only on posts which people have reported to them.
While I might report a post I found to be in poor taste, I’d be unlikely to report a mostly harmless single joke post. And I generally deem threads with multiple mostly harmless joke posts lost causes, unworthy of being reported. Now, not everyone who reports posts does so in the same patterns I do, but those are some things to consider.
Sorry to not pick up on this until now.
I think you make a valid point. That thread was a last minute housecleaning job for my night. It had garnered no “report this post.”
To recreate my mindset–I skimmed the thread quickly, then went back(again, quickly) and tried to make a few posts to inject a bit of commentary on what happens to many GQ threads–they dissolve into IMHO/MPSIMS threads.
As others in this thread have said, my moderating style is kinda laid back–I tend to call flagrant fouls with the best of them, and you’ll know when I’m pissed. I make no bones about it. But I sometime inject comments, posted as a moderator, to try to give some guidance to posters in GQ. Perhaps I need to be more clear when I’m moderating.
Unless one notices me putting on my MOD HAT when I’m speaking, don’t sweat the small stuff. I might just be giving direction. No harm, no foul. Again, you’ll know when I’m giving a warning.
If any of this leaves further questions, I’ll try to check back and respond.
samclem, is there an official policy or a strong suggestion for posting wags and gags in GQ? There is no guideline in the stickies.
Hey, thanks for the clarification. It’s always appreciated.
Sam, I personally think you’re being overcritical … of yourself. I have moderated, elsewhere, and one of the most effective things a moderator can do is the sort of restrained get-the-thread-back-on-track posts that yours were. One of the fun things about GQ is that one can, usually, get a pretty accurate answer, a detailed discussion if the answer is not clearcut and universally accepted, and enjoy a little witty humor in the course of all this. When a thread turns into nothing-but-one-liners, it belongs in MPSIMS – but “How much is too much?” is of necessity a subjective question. And IMO the Mods. here do a pretty good job of making that subjective call at a level that matches, more or less, the corporate Doper taste level.
To make a Mod Hat post warning people off jokes removes one of the elements that makes GQ a pleasant place – that there is a level of witticism-per-post-number that is acceptable, and people tend usually not to exceed that. I personally would not take umbrage at being one of the people singled out for comment in a thread that exceeded that fair level… so long as it wasn’t a Mod Hat warning.
Moderators are supposed to keep things moderate; that’s why the name. Sometimes a gentle nudge is more effective than a jackboot kick. This was one of those times, and in my not so humble opinion Sam handled it just right.
I wouldn’t say there’s an “official policy.” However, in my opinion the best practice is pretty much what you describe. Unless you actually know what you are talking about, don’t leap into a GQ thread with the first thing that pops into your head, what you found with a quick Google, or some personal anecdote. We have lots of experts in obscure fields on this board; give them a chance to weigh in before making a guess in a field you know nothing about. As a guideline, unless you really have some significant knowledge to contribute, wait until the thread is about to fall off the first page. Then, if the question interests you, go ahead and post a guess. Bumping it may bring it to the attention of someone with better information.
Same with jokes. It’s best to wait until someone has actually had a go at answering the question (unless your joke is REALLY REALLY funny). And if you do post a joke, try to make it clever. Lame repetitions of SDMB catchphrases in my book don’t really count as jokes at all. If you have to add, “Somebody had to say it,” no, you really didn’t.
All this is in my personal opinion. Other moderators may have different standards.
Yeah, you can’t go too far in restricting the jokes, or you’ll end up missing the gem in this thread.
Thank you for the reply.
If you and the other mods can reach any sort of consensus, I think it might be worth adding some type of rough and loose guideline to the GQ stickies as I think many posters just don’t treat GQ different from the other fluffier forums.
At this point, I don’t think they have any real reason to refrain from the rapid wags and gags.
Jim
Heh. Yeah …
That is just too hilarious. 
I would have said “teeny little condoms.”
Thanks to samclem, and to the other mods who weighed in.
While i realize that the admonitions in the linked thread were mild, it is somewhat disconcerting to see the mods criticizing posters in one GQ thread for the type of comment that passes unremarked in another. I can barely count the number of times i’ve seen throwaway lines in GQ, and the ones in that thread seemed pretty harmless to me, especially since the question had already been answered.
I agree with Colibri’s caution against wild guesses in GQ, and i think it’s better if the real answers are left to people who know what they’re talking about, especially when the thread is still young. But an occasional quip or topical joke won’t be confused with a wild guess, and generally won’t disrupt the thread too much, IMO.
But, you have seen people make whoosh jokes as the 1st post, I think that shit should end. Additionally, some GQ threads end up with a dozen dumb jokes off one witty one before the question has been answered.