Should biased Mods be allowed to legislate on a particular debate

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1

Should a SDMB Moderator be allowed to legislate on an active SDMB debate, when said Mod has made it very clear their comments indicate they are biased for one side of the debate?

In the Great Debate on “Pit Bulls”, SDMB Mod TomNDeb made it very clear, via numerous comments, that TomnDeb were pro pit bull - against legislation that is breed specific (BSL), despite 600 USA cities legislate pit bulls, as well as the US Army, US Marines, and US Air Force, not to mention dozens of entire provinces (Ontario) and entire nations.

Examine the very last page of the “Pit bull” debate:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=690547&page=20

My very last post infuriated “Lab Deciever” and “TomnDeb”

Here it is verbatim:

Cougar58:

Interesting to note, that this very debate just ended in Burnaby Canada.

The city heard from the pit bull lobby, and they heard from the residents.

The residents were the majority. The “Silent Majority”. The residents in Burnaby, after specifically reviewing the data from Calgary, as well as the USA, opted for public safety . Barnaby “Councillors said the “silent majority” supported harsher rules against pit bulls, which were responsible for at least 12 per cent of the 477 reported biting incidents in Burnaby since 2007. Repeatedly stating they didn’t want to be responsible if someone was attacked, the councillors passed the tougher rules based on U.S. research.”

Pit bulls must be muzzled off their owner’s property and, if their owners are away, kept in a locked enclosure.

"The bylaw defines a vicious dog as: “a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, an American Pit Bull Terrier and any dog generally recognized as a pit bull or pit bull terrier and includes a dog of mixed breed with predominant pit bull or pit bull terrier characteristics.”

The report also notes the number of incidents involving dogs biting humans and other animals has risen by 17 per cent, from 69 six years ago to 81 last year.

“The number of bite incidents involving pit bulls in Burnaby is concerning, and further compounded by this breed’s potential to inflict significant injuries,” the report states.

Staff recommended strengthening the bylaw after statistics showed that pit bulls were responsible for 24.7 per cent of dog bites where the breed could be identified, while 14.6 per cent were attributed to German shepherds. The amendments passed unanimously.

cite:

Here is LabDecievers reply (which TomnDeb view as a legit complaint):

Lab Deceiver:

“Can you please knock off the fucking anecdotes?”

Followed by TomnDeb’s amazingly biased and in complete disregard of the cited facts I listed in that very post:

TomnDeb:

"One more anecdote of people reacting to fears of Pit Bulls, (or dogs that might vaguely be associated with Pit Bulls) instead of actual facts establishing that the breed in question has even been accurately identified when complaints have been lodged against it.

Enough.

This is not a debate, but simply a campaign by you to demonize a breed of dogs.

The next time you want to carry on a months-long rant, open it in The BBQ Pit.

This thread is closed."

****** end of Snips *****

Lets examine what I stated (with a cite):

“…statistics showed that pit bulls were responsible for 24.7 per cent of dog bites where the breed could be identified…”

cite:

And TomNDebs reply, focusing a this amazing justification for closing the debate:

“One more anecdote of people reacting to fears of Pit Bulls, (or dogs that might vaguely be associated with Pit Bulls) instead of actual facts establishing that the breed in question has even been accurately identified when complaints have been lodged against it.”

WUT? WTF? What the triple F?

I just cited a link that showed specifically that pits were responsible for the majority (24%) of attacks WHERE THE BREED COULD BE IDENTIFIED"

And TomNDeb close the thread because I wasn’t “establishing that the breed in question has even been accurately identified when complaints have been lodged against it.”

HELLO?

Tom also says my post was anecdotal. Per definition, Anecdotal means:

not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research.

My post clearly reference the stats from a report in Barnaby, Canada:

“The number of bite incidents involving pit bulls in Burnaby is concerning, and further compounded by this breed’s potential to inflict significant injuries,” the report states.

My post had :

1.) Data from a statistical report in Barnaby, Canada
2.) A subgroup of data taken where the breed was in fact identified
3.) Legislation based on #1 and #2
4.) The legislation was not based on, As TomnDeb states:
“One more anecdote of people reacting to fears of Pit Bulls”

By the way, I was railroaded by others in that forum, for jumping to the conclusion that the last DBRF fatal, - a toddler mauled to death by a pit bull in Baker. Oregon, at the babysitters house (the third such pit fatal by babysitter in 6 days) - I was chastised for assuming it was the baby sitters pit bull, or that it was even a pit bull.
But since TomNDeb conveniently closed that debate, I can not update the obvious - what we all knew the facts would later show - it was the baby sitters pit bull, they have now named the baby sitter (Mary Lane).

Here is her Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/mary.lane.359/photos

It clearly shows her pit bull in the photos, and note that Mary Lane belongs to several Pro Pit Bull groups:

Pit Bull Parolees (TV Show)
Pit Bull Boss (TV Show)
Oregon Pit Bull Fan club
as well as these Pro Pit Bull gems:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pitbulls-of-oregon/204110622982546?ref=profile

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-Bull-Kennels/164882184327?ref=profile

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First off, we’re not continuing this argument in here. ATMB is for discussion of the rules, not recapitulating the whole debate. Second, as someone who didn’t participate in the discussion, I agree with how tomndebb handled it. The thread had become pointless several pages earlier: you were posting walls of text and avoiding questions about what the text actually meant and the thread. We don’t need to offer you space to copy and post articles and screeds.

3

You’ve combined a question about moderator action–a legit use of this forum–with an attempt to continue arguing the closed thread–not, IMO, a great way to use this forum. Consider separating them out.

FWIW, your participation in that thread drove me out. Some of what you’re saying is, I think, worth discussing, but your rhetorical style makes me unwilling to be in the same thread. Take that as you will.

4

Then lets rephrase the question, and forget the example.

Simply put, should a clearly biased Mod be allowed to legislate a thread where said Mod shows a clear bias on the topic at hand?

Should a pro Ford Mod, be allowed to ban, warn, and/or terminate a Chevy vs Ford debate?

5

Speaking as a poster, if anyone in the debate was doing it like you were doing it…yes.
I think you should have been modded for your style/actions alone, I’m guessing the fact that someone is pro/con about the issue had nothing to do with it.

I don’t fall on either side of that debate and I would have modded you the same way if I had been mod of that forum.

6

This post has been Skittled by the Skittleist.

7

I don’t want to start a whole new thread to ask, but is **tomndeb **the mod Tom or Deb, or do they split time?

8

The mods are users, and that’s life around here. If this were a full-time paid gig perhaps it would be handled differently. As it is, the mods strive to be fair and you had tons of time to speak your piece. I doubt you’ll agree but it’s not like another three pages of cutting and pasting was going to change anyone’s mind.

It’s just Tom. It’s an old username they used to share. Deb doesn’t post here, and posters aren’t allowed to share names.

9

Yes.

Were there any other questions?

10

I’d say it depends on whether you are being modded for violating board rules or basically being modded because of the disagreement. It seems clear that it was because of violations to the board rules, so in that case, the answer is ‘yes’, since their actual position is irrelevant to the ruling. Or, to put it another way, you’d have been modded exactly the same way by a mod, following the rules specified for the board, who didn’t give a shit about the subject and/or had no position on the debate one way or the other.

11

I wasn’t aware of that thread and couldn’t give a steaming dog turd about pit bulls, but I’d love to see the OP and Stoid compete in another font-style-off.

12

Yep! This is a message board, not, I don’t know, something important. Mods enforce rules. If they do so badly, the user base will call them on it. The last thing we need around here is some other Byzantine layer of regulations determining who gets to say what to whom.

13

Do you want to break the internet?

14

Forget the internet- have pity on the mods!

15

That really would break the internets…

16

How do you feel about continuing it in the Pit?

17

Since all of the rules I can think of here revolve around HOW you post, not which side of a debate you post on, then yes. A mod’s view on a debate doesn’t change weither or not you are following the rules.

18

That is until Cecil perfects the new robotic Mods. The first, engineer_comp_geek, is still in beta testing.

19

The alternative to allowing biased mods to moderate in GD is to leave GD unmoderated. All moderators, being human (or at least approximately so) are guaranteed to be biased. They should of course try their best to prevent their biases from affecting their moderation, and if they fail in that should be called to task for it, but we still need them moderating.

20

Actually, I am on the fence regarding Pit Bulls.

However, there have been sufficient numbers of Pit Bull allegations where the breed was not accurately identified that I am still waiting for evidence that the numerous claims about “Pit Bull” attacks actually refer to specific breeds. That is what I repeatedly posted, rather than any defense of Pit Bulls. Similarly, listing the number of communities that have enacted breed specific legislation merely demonstrates the number of communities that have reacted to breed specific hype. Based on laws passed, we could conclude that crack cocaine is more dangerous than powder cocaine, black people need to be controlled by sundown laws, and atheists should be prohibited from serving elected office. That appeal to the number of communities engaged in breed specific laws was the primary focus of several of your posts, including the trigger post that got that thread closed.

Posting the number of Pit Bull attacks without any other controlling evidence remains anecdotal. It ignores the ratio of Pit Bulls to other dogs in the community; it ignores how many other breeds are mis-identified as Pit Bulls after an attack; it ignores similar factors that might make a serious argument.

In that thread, you repeatedly posted unsupported claims even when it was pointed out that they were not adequate arguments and you kept the thread going for far longer than it had any purpose to run. The longer it ran, the more likely that the same few posters hanging on in the thread would get sufficiently mad at each other to break the rules against insults.

It was nothing more than a protracted rant, but I was not going to foist it off onto The BBQ Pit after that many pages. When I closed the thread, I told you that the next time you needed to rant, you would be better off starting a thread in The BBQ Pit.

I stand by that assessment.