In another thread in About This Message Board, Marley said:
As per his request, I am posting this in a separate thread. With respect, I disagree with your interpretation. I don’t believe he quoted the comment as a clear signal he was trolling. He quoted a private message accusing him of such.
If I were to be accused of being here only to snark, troll and annoy, I might, for instance, take offense at that, and post as my sig the comment, “I am here only to snark, troll and annoy.” Such a sig wouldn’t be because that’s my actual purpose, but instead to mock that claim. It would be intended as ironic. That’s what I think Seven had as his intent in his sig.
And you would be entitled to your opinion just as everyone else is.
The difference is you are a mod and you can use your perceptions as a basis for suspension/banning whilst the rest of us lowly users can only bitch about things in the hopes that they MIGHT change.
But Xploder, just for the sake of argument (and as you know, I took Seven’s side in this dispute), let’s just suppose you were the moderator and Marley were the plain old user. Then it would be YOU who could use your perception to dah-dah-dah. I think the case that you have to make, in order to sound like you’re doing something besides whining, is to show that your perceptions are somehow superior to Marley’s. Otherwise, just the fact that he is a mod and you aren’t means nothing with respect to the validity of the suspension.
I don’t think he’s saying that his perceptions are superior to Marley’s. He’s saying that Marley’s aren’t necessarily superior to his just because of being a mod. When the vast majority of people’s perceptions differ from those of the small group of mods, odds are pretty damn decent the mods’ perceptions are wrong.
My perception, and that of many, many others is that the content of that sig wasn’t the problem–it was it being attributed to Tuba. If he’d left it unattributed, or if it was attributable to any one of us worthless peons, Seven would still be able to post here. The problem is that he was poking their sacred cow and exposing her being…herself. That was his huge sin here–not whining about you, not violating copyright by quoting the pm as a mod previously claimed was the problem, not because that quote is an admission of him trolling.
So is the sig you use correct about you? Are you truly ‘wrong but eloquent’? I doubt you truly believe that, but you are asking us to believe that Seven meant his. I think most sigs are meant to be taken as ironic and/or funny. Reviewing my record here you will see I am not a rabble rouser, nor actually even post that often. But if I had received an PM from a Mod or Admin that stated what **Seven **received, I could certainly see putting that as my sig. And meaning it like I think Seven intended it.
My opinion. You are wrong, but eloquent. Wait…seems that is your opinion too. Glad we can agree on this!
Sure. I understand that. Most of us tend to think our perceptions are at least equal in validity to those of others. But the sense that I got from Xploder’s post was the arbitrary nature of the thing: in other words, you can do this just because you’re a mod and I’m not. Well, yeah. That’s kinda the natue of the thing. I can’t prove this, of course, but I suspect that if Xploder were a mod, he would himself encounter similar complaints about some of his decisions. And so, all I was saying is that the argument he made realy doesn’t hold water because arbitrary cuts both ways.
That is a possibility, but not a certainty. I’m sure you know that rhetorical appeals (in this case, appeal to popular opinion) are logical fallacies, and really can’t be used to make a case. Sometimes, a lone man stands in front of a tank, representing the power of a whole state. And it can be the case that he is right and millions of Communist Party members are wrong. Not to belittle your point in any way, because I do agree with the gist of it (and especially since I shared everyone’s opinion, at least with respect to problems concerning me.) I’m just saying that appeal to popularity isn’t effective enough, as an argument, to be convincing to someone holding an opposing point of view.
You could very well be right (and frankly, I suspect that you are). The only problem is that, barring some outside interference, like law enforcement or legal representation of some kind, there is nothing to move her. It is like I said in my (admittedly long) post earlier.
Her position is secured by a tightly bonded loyalty to and from Ed, and as such she, much like some of us might be in her place, feels a certain matronly … let’s call it privilege, that she can be as snippy and mean-spirited as she wishes, either for cause or for no cause at all. That is what is not going to change unless there is some catastrophic event, like an epiphany in which Tuba gives her heart to Jesus or something.
My memory could be faulty, but I seem to recall words from Ed to the effect of saying that he’d rather lose the whole bunch of us than bend his own will. (And I believe that that rather bizarre declaration is what initially prompted the spin-off boards.) So, we aren’t going to see TubaDiva become polite and considerate just because a thousand users demand that she do so.
And honestly, she CAN be those things; she just often chooses not to. I’ve corresponded with her (both before and after insulting her on other boards) and her attitude has been pretty friendly. But of course, we don’t have the whole context of the back and forth with respect to the PM question. Maybe Seven called her a disgruntled old cow or a worthless human being or something like that, and she responded in kind — as most of us might have. Hell, I don’t know. Most of y’all are a lot smarter than I. So I could be just plain all wet.
According to twickster. I hope she’s at least half right.
I’m not contending all signatures are sincere commentary. I’m saying that given the situation where Seven complained about more or less everything on the board and acted surprised he was not allowed to open up a discussion of the snarkpit, and chose to respond to TubaDiva’s private message by posting a portion of it as a signature rather than disputing what she said, I think it ended up being an accurate assessment of what Seven was doing.
Thanks. I do apologize for the TLDR manner in which I write, but it has been ingrained in me for too long to change. I realize that I write like Ayn Rand on Quaaludes, but that’s just my style. I don’t think I could change it even if I tried.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t have started the thread or anything. I’m just acknowledging upfront that it’s a judgment call based on his other behavior as opposed to something clearly defined by a rule like “no personal insults.” It’s being a jerk as far as I’m concerned, and while it’s possible to come up with other ways to read the sig - aren’t there always? - I don’t think they apply in this situation.
Would disputing what she had said made a difference, though? It seems to me that her mind was already made up when she PMed him with the accusations.
I think that’s what’s troubling me most about the entire thing…that you’d assume that a poster who’s been here for 9 years, because he or she is recently posting things critical of recent board administration, is here as a troll. There seems to be, lately, very much a “with us or against us” sort of mentality, with the idea that the snarkpit and the splinter boards are in deliberate opposition to this one, and that the people who participate in those are suspect in their actions here. Splinter boards aren’t, of course, a new phenomenon. In the past, boards like Fathom and the Unaboard existed, and just like these current boards, some of the members of those were banned or former members here, and just like these current boards, on those boards this board was sometimes discussed and criticism sometimes made, but it seems like the attitude about those boards were different than these boards now.
Along with this, there seems to be an increased hardening against criticism of moderators and board administration…I’m not talking here, per se, about the rules saying that you’re not supposed to be vulgar to the mods or anything like that. What I’m talking about is maybe harder to quantify. It’s more that in the past, moderators and administrators were seen as posters plus…they were members of the community,like any other poster, just ones with the power to close threads and ban. Remember, in the past, moderators would almost compete to see how often they would be pitted…I think manhattan and David B ran pretty neck in neck when it came to most pitted moderator. If they minded, they hid it well, and they could give out the insults and banter as easily as they could take them.
More recently, though, it seems like like things have gotten more formalized. The kind of community that we’ve had in the past is gone. Posters have always had to obey the moderators and administrators, of course, but lately there seems to be the attitude of “obey or else” that was, at least, less blatant in the past. It’s hard to describe how things have changed…it just seems like there’s a different Weltanschauung than in the past.
I don’t think this is a fair summary of the situation. Everybody’s allowed to criticize the board administration, the contention is that since March, Seven has posted virtually nothing here except criticism of administration and criticism of Liberal. (Here’s a postshot at OpalCat, if that counts as variety. Due to my own carelessness or an oversight, I did not notice or mention that he was warned for this as well.) You can tell me that Seven has a long record of being a good citizen here, but, same as with anyone else, the mods are likely to act on it when that stops being the case for several months.
There probably has been some of that and we’ve tried to prevent it. But the “great unpleasantness” wasn’t easy on the moderators either, as plenty of people said they were fleeing the board due to the rules changes, even if plenty of them didn’t flee or later came back. That said, the idea that Seven is being penalized for participating on other boards isn’t borne out by reality. Every other moderator on the newer splinter boards is a member in good standing here, although I don’t know if they are all active posters.
I’m not really sure about this. The mods here have long been criticized for being unresponsive to criticism.
We still joke about that, but times are different. For one thing, with the advent of pay to post, moderation was probably taken more seriously because mods were now dealing with paying customers.
See, Marley, here is another example. You have in this thread, and in others here, posters of LONG standing (99ers of one stripe or another), relatively solid contributors to the community, people who rarely draw the attention of, let alone the ire of, the staff, saying that:
a) THIS action was precipitous at best, wrong-headed stupidity at worst, and
b) This Board’s tone has changed and part of that change is a generalized antagonistic approach by staff to posters (possibly caused/exacerbated/unrelated to antagonistic behavior on the part of various posters), not to mention
c) Hi, Opal!!
It seems to me that the smart, not to mention self-introspective response to such posts is not to dismiss them, or assert that they are wrong, but to say something like, “You think so? Perhaps we could discuss this over beer and see why you believe this and what you think could/should be done about it?” That would indicate that you aren’t being simplistic in your viewpoint, but rather are worried that long-term posters whos opinions you value (not MINE, apparently, in your case, but eh, I know others on staff who do) see this trend and are worried about it.
You really should pay some heed to the fact that I am in the “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” camp, I think. After all, if I was to start a thread in MPSIMS or IMHO about what nickname would best suit me, were I to change mine, I think we could probably mail the resulting list into Roget’s as a pretty comprehensive listing of synonyms for “sycophant.” I’m one of the strongest staff supporters around these here parts. I find you often reviled for no good reason; I support some leniency in viewing what you do for the fact you are volunteers and the fact that we should trust someone’s judgment in picking you for these positions. When someone that predisposed to saying, “back off!” to the brickbat throwers is saying, “Hey, you may have a point here,” it should cause you to stop and wonder whose drumbeat you are stepping to?
I have not been dismissive of anybody in this thread, DSYoungEsq. My reply to the OP was brief and I see it probably did not read the way I meant it to, but I was trying to emphasize without blathering on that it was a judgment call, and we’re not so dumb or literal-minded that we take all signatures at face value. The reason we took Seven’s in the way we did was in the context of his other actions, not because we assume everyone means everything they say in the little line below their posts.
You’ve been saying this a bunch lately. While I understand you disagree with some of the things we’ve done recently, have you considered that it might be wearing a bit thin or appear a bit self-aggrandizing? I don’t know if Captain Amazing is in the “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” camp or not, but we’re discussing this issue just the same. Plenty of posters use this tactic but I don’t think it’s necessary.
Fine-then why did you decide to single Seven out? I can think of a half-dozen other posters (including me) who’s stats since Zottigate are similar to Seven’s. Look at my (I’m not going to point out the others) last 100 posts and my numbers are similar. How did you determine that Seven was a problem?
And everyone’s failing to take into account the very small number of threads he was in.
Yes, there was some negativity on his part. A lot–but it wasn’t being spewed everywhere-3 fights with Lib (2, really-there was some opening and closing of Lib Pit Threads so he posted in one, another opened and then the first was reopened), and four or five ATMB threads.
He wasn’t running around everywhere spewing on-shot snotty drive-bys, he was vigorously debating (or flaming, in the pit-which is the point of the pit) in a few threads. If he was making one-off snotty drive-bys in dozens of threads, yeah-you’d have a point. Digging your heels in in about 12 threads over 3 months? I’d think that would be fine.
I reject the premise of this question. Nobody made Seven start posting about the snark board, nobody made him quote TubaDiva in his signature. He singled himself out.
