Excellent linkage there, Shodan.
I’m not sure what you think those links prove, or how they negate what I said. I don’t care if the poster doing it has “Moderator” behind his name, I still think accusations of dishonesty or lying tend to derail debates. Such accusations amount to personal attacks (in my way of thinking, at least) and as such tend to generate anger rather than reasoned response.
This post is interesting in light of your links, which refer to posters ignoring legitimate criticisms and cherry picking responses to claim some form of victory.
I see you’ve ignored my reply entirely and spoke’s key questions, being:
I was going to add some more, but I would actually like a direct answer to these questions.
The ONLY reason epithet liar was prohibited was because he’s a conservative poster.
Every single day tons of liberal posters post far more controversial items with nary an eyebrow raised. This is what happens when we have no balance in the moderation staff. It’s a witchhunt. epithet liar was specifically targeted and shut down in accordance with the obvious double-standard.
I demand epithet liar be reinstated immediately or you will suffer consequences to be named at a later date.
You forgot the smiley.
Was it really necessary?
Want to check on how many times a search on the name epithet liar was made? 
Ha! You may have banned him, but his legacy lives on. His message will be heard!
tomndeb’s decision to ban this man will long be remembered. That act of partisan calumny must be undone.
Surely even those of you who disagreed with epithet liar must concede his powerful presence and forceful words. This is the time for all subscribers to unite.
Reinstate epithet liar!
Reinstate epithet liar!
This is probably part of the problem.
You say that I have not responded to the questions. To my mind, I have.
“Why is either necessary?” To which I responded ‘I don’t know if they are necessary, but it happens’. (And not from me, which is the point of my cites.)
“Why is there such a perceived need to make the debate personal?” My links demonstrate that at least one moderator does indeed make debates personal, with exactly the accusations you (and spoke-) object to.
IOW, it happens with tomndebb, semi-alternately with him complaining about making debates personal.
If you are asking “why don’t you just ignore the sniping, personal attacks, and accusations of dishonesty coming from the Usual Suspects and one of the moderators?”
Why should I? Why should anyone?
I am not looking for loopholes, in response to another question (I actually answered last night, but the hamsters ate it). I am looking for consistency.
Now “liar” is verboten. Fine with me. But I would like a clarification as to whether “you are lying” is also verboten. Or is it OK, unless I do it, but OK if done by someone else?
One of the posts I linked to is from a thread where I was told that calling someone’s post “a steaming pile” was forbidden but calling my post “bullshit” was OK. That same thread is where I was told that I was not breaking any rules, but my attacking the post and not the poster was going to get me a warning if I persisted in doing so. :rolleyes:
That’s what I need to know. Is it OK to say “you are being dishonest” but not “you are lying”? Is this a consistent rule, or something they can pull out of their ass when someone expresses an inconvenient opinion?
Gotta go be on the radio.
Regards,
Shodan
You have convinced me!
Give epithet liar member status or give him death!
Don’t forget, death is ok!
Why stop at half-measures?
Give him both!
Of course, you have compeletely distorted the events in that thread and have now mischaracterized my statements at the time. Claiming that I singled out you (or singled out anyone on any particular “side” of an issue is false). That thread was treated quite even-handledly, but you then came back to cry about something, (probably your usual unsubstantiated whine that favoritism is being shown), and I pointed out that the only reason your name would have been on anyone’s radar after the Moderation action was that you were standing up yelling, “Me! Me! It’s Me that you are oppressing!”
It is also a directly false claim that any posters–including you–were told that “steaming pile” was forbidden. When I had told everyone to calm down and you had come back to cry bitter tears over your persecution, I noted that there was a lot of personal antagonism being expressed that I was urging stop and that you should not claim to have expressed no such antagonism considering your use of the phrase and words “steaming pile” and “idiots.”
To quote myself from your link:
So:
Thread starts to wander off the rails as posters get too personal.
I tell everryone to knock it off.
You post a disingenuous question pretending that the topic of my Moderation is different than what I have clearly posted. The thread had already gone personal before my intervention and your Eddie Haskell imitation had no point other than to pretend that you had a grievance of some sort.
I call you on your game.
You come back months later to claim that I am using the word “dishonest” as a personal attack.
It was not a racist user name. Period. It was* my* username, it is my nick name, my husband calls me that, my friends call me that and my freakin’ South African *cab driver * calls me that. I have stayed clear the hell out of your way since the whole thing went down, when Tuba Diva asked me so very nicely to choose another name in our *private * emails to eachother. But if you insist on implying that my choice of name had some kind of racism behind it, then we gonna sho nuff get in eachother’s way, for real. My advice is to let that whole issue drop.
Edited to cut down the quoted part and to delete some slang terms.
I think whether “You are being dishonest” is equivalent to “You are a liar” is equivalent to “You are lying” is a valid question. To my mind they are all synonymous, and all unacceptable.
Whether** tomndebb** can make such as statement is another question, IMO, because there is a question what is appropriate for a Moderator as opposed to a Member. Personally, I see the power to do so is integral to being a Moderator.
OTOH Moderators should clearly indentify when they are acting as Moderators as opposed to members, and **tomndebb ** hasn’t done that consistently. And I also see potential problems in Mods posting general interest comments in a thread and suddenly switching hats in mid-stream, and accusing/threatening other posters. It certainly might have the appearance if not the actuality of impropriety.
Perhaps the Mods might discuss the concept of recusing themselves from acting as Moderators in threads where they are posting related to the general point of the OP.
Or, Shodan, do you just want the same powers as a Moderator? BTW, what do YOU think a Mod’s role should be if not to call posters out on inappropriate behavior?
Me, my people & The Board Admin think different.
And some of my best friends are [del]gay[/del]American. So what? If your cabbie is KhoiSan, I might care a smidgeon. The fact that you let everyone call you Hottentot just saddens me. If you have a kid, are you going to call him Piccaninny? Maybe Sambo? D’you mind if I follow you around the Board calling you “Mammy”? :dubious:
:rolleyes: (And her public postings to the Board, don’t forget those).
I haven’t care one way or another, actually. Seen you around since, didn’t have bad associations with your old username. You seem to be fitting in quite well. Clearly still sore about the namechange, I see now. Aah, well, bite me.
Read for content, girlfriend: “racist username” does not have to mean “racist intent in choosing username”. Of course, if you keep insisting there was nothing wrong with Venus Hottentot, well, you’d be a bitch, a racially insensitive cow, and yeah, “sho’ nuff” you’d be on my shitlist. Bad enough you can’t get any pride in your own fucking culture, still insisting there’s nothing wrong with appropriating and denigrating ours, after you’ve been told better, sure makes you a “class act”, like the man said.
Then you’d be better served by telling your Board Boyfriend Liberal to stop bringing it up all over the place, too. And “Your advice”? Or what? Gonna Pit me? Not gonna be my BFF? Here, see this violin in my two fingers? :rolleyes:
Relevant article on a local news-site. Hey,** Nzinga**, is this you? If not, maybe you should sue - it’s your nickname, after all.
This is my favorite part of your post -
Followed in the very next paragraph with
IOW, you started the post by encouraging everyone to rachet back on doing something that you immediately proceeded to do.
And your notion that you did not ban the use of the term “steaming pile” is your usual semantic nonsense. You stated clearly that if I continued to object to your arbitrary imposition of rules on me that you were failing to abide by yourself, you would warn me. You don’t have to put on the Mod hat to be clearer than that.
That’s why the clarification of whether “you are lying” is necessary, and also (probably) why you have refrained from making the clarification. You are trying to leave yourself an out, where it will be OK for you to say “you are being dishonest” (but not anyone else) just as it is not OK for me to call a post “a steaming pile” but OK for you to call my post “bullshit”.
Of course, if it isn’t that, it will be some other meaningless semantic crapola. Same as with this -
So now I guess you are claiming that “you are being deliberately dishonest” is OK and is not a personal attack.
No, I want consistency in the way Moderators use their powers. If the purpose of some de facto rule is to foster debate, then violations of that rule should not be allowed. But if tomndebb wants to be taken seriously in his claims that certain forms of debate are harmful to that debate, then he ought not to engage in those forms.
It is probably no more than fair to point out that tomndebb does this to other posters besides myself (see the links). So his attempt to characterize this as a one-time dispute between him and me is not accurate.
See above. If behavior is inappropriate, then Mods shouldn’t do it either.
But your point about the gray area between Mod status and poster status is a good one. ISTM that when tomndebb says, in essence, ‘quit complaining or I’ll warn you’, he is acting as a Moderator, but (in this case) trying to enforce rules that aren’t clear. “Rachet back the hostility and quit attacking posts so strongly” is not a clear rule, and when it is coupled with “your post is dishonest bullshit”, it loses meaning almost altogether.
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan, my experience with you is that the more you try to make someone else look dishonest, the funnier it gets.
Daniel
And that quote right there says it all. I see you now, my brother. I’ll stay out of your way and off your shit list. Let’s not get hijack this thread any further.