I’d like to start by emphasizing that I’m not one of those who habitually complain about mod actions. On the contrary, I’ve always thought the mods and admins on this board to an excellent job, and as a result this is one of the more pleasant boards on the web. In fact, I can’t recall ever complaining about a mod action . . . until today.
In this thread, the following exchange occured:
First, I’m not sure Otto’s comment wasn’t genuine (albeit expressed in a slightly snarky way). I could paraphrase his question as: “If you’re going to require a higher level of courtesy in posters’ comments to moderators, are you likewise requiring a higher level of courtesy in moderators’ comments to other posters?” That seems like a legitimate question.
The phrasing was (mildly) snarky, sure, but so far as I know there is no stated rule against snarkiness. The thread in question said we’d be banned for whining and complaining (outside the Pit), not for being snarky. It also said we’d be banned for “making rude remarks about the staff.” While snarkiness might be mildly rude, it’s not an example of a rude remark about someone. Contrast to the explicit example given in that thread: “If you state in GD that Giraffe’s moderating is stupid, you’ll be banned.” If you want to start banning people for snarkiness (which I think is an ill-advised policy), at the very least you ought to make it clear that that’s what you’ll be doing before you start handing out bans.
And really, compared to typical exchanges on this board that comment barely rises to the level of snarkiness. Sure, he could have said “does this mean the mods have to be more polite too?”, rather than the somewhat hyperbolic “does this mean you’ll also be banning the mods?” But frankly, you have to be pretty damn thin skinned to have been upset by that. For god’s sake, he didn’t even go so far as to say the new policy was a bad one! All I detected is some implied disapproval of treating the mods differently than everyone else. Would you also have banned me for saying “I don’t think this policy is a good idea.” (And if so, why allow comments at all?) Because that’s a stronger statement of criticism than what Otto posted.
Look, it’s your board, and you can ban people because they’re mildly snarky, or because you disagree with their politics, or because you don’t like their username or any other reason you like. But do you really want to have a board where people have to fear banning for making even a mildly sarcastic comment to a mod? How is that compatible with the long standing practice of having the mods/admins participate in the discussions and debates alongside the other forum members?
If you’re going to have that quick a trigger finger, I’d be genuinely scared to engage a mod in discussion in great debates for fear that my answer gets “too snarky”. I realize you’re trying to draw a distinction between criticism of mod actions and other comments, but as I said that comment above wasn’t even direct criticism, merely implied criticism. Nor was it rude in comparison to fairly standard heated disagreements in GD. It certainly is enough to make me wonder what other “surprise” bannings we’ll be seeing.
What’s more, I sure as hell won’t ever reply to a thread in About This Message Board, since apparently any response to a policy change short of “great idea – well done!” can run the risk of a banning. If you don’t want feedback on new policies, why don’t you just make them closed stickies and not even bother allowing anyone to say anything about it?
To be clear, I’m totally fine with a policy of “don’t insult the mods or complain about administrative decision outside of the Pit.” (But wasn’t that always the official policy?) To be honest, I think there’s too much vitriol allowed in criticism of mod actions (probably because those criticisms occur in the Pit, where vitriolic responses are standard operating procedure). But I think banning someone for choosing snarky phrasing when asking a question about an admin decision is going much to far. Otto didn’t call anyone stupid. He didn’t even explicitly say the new policy was a bad idea – he just phrased his reply in a way that suggested (without insulting anyone) that he wasn’t happy with it.
You’re basically saying “Don’t even imply that you’re not happy with an administrative decision outside the Pit.” It’s not reasonable to expect the forum users to anticipate how seriously you’ll take something like a mildly snarky tone, or how much implied criticism you’ll read into one of our comments. And again, if you don’t want feedback on new policies, why allow replies at all? I also don’t think it was remotely clear that “no complaining about policies or insulting the mods” meant “no implied disapproval of new policies, not even in threads whose topic is those policies”.
Anyway, I hope you reconsider. Thanks for reading this.