Sorry but, uh Tuba?

[Demo]

In Doob’s thread about Opal,
Aura said:

I thought that the whole point of the Pit was to blow off steam. Doob could post a flame thread about his next-door neighbor, or some freak who sent him an incomprehensible email, or just about any SD poster in existence, and you wouldn’t bother asking him to close the thread. Why is he specifically prohibited from flaming Opal?

And Tuba said:

Yeah, but as it originated elsewhere, that fight needs to be somewhere else and not here.

             If you have a problem with what Opal does someplace else not here, you need to address that problem with her in that other forum.

             Why should we have to deal with this crap?

             your humble TubaDiva
             Administrator 

Now, I’m not sure if you were responding to Aura or yojimbo with that, but either way, I just don’t understand why this is such a taboo subject. Most of the things discussed in the Pit originate somewhere else and it’s not like this is coming from another board or anything. And clearly, this was something that Opal brought here. It wasn’t an issue until she did. So, in essence, it did originate here. I just wanted some clarification so that, in the future, we can avoid problems like this. I certainly hope you don’t see this as a criticism or anything else. I’m just curious. I’m continuing it here in the Pit because this is where it originated.
PS: I don’t need any comments from the yokels about “This is their board and they can do what they want!” or “You don’t need or deserve an explanation!” Anyone who posts such drivel can blow it out their ass. I have high regard for the moderators and the administration of this board and have stated as much numerous times. I’m just not connecting on this one.

[porcupine]

This confused me a little, too, since the comment about “you don’t know who your friends are” (in #straightdope chat) was made here at SDMB. But being a relative newbie here I don’t know the history behind things…

[2nd_Law]

For the record, I love the mods and admins on this board. I actually lust after one of them, but I digress.
I can see why Tuba decided to shut down that thread, because it looked like it was going to devolve into a flame war that would make the Florida presidential election look like a Three Stooges pie fight.
Unfortunately, however, sometimes such things do and have to happen. I am not clear on the issues involved, but in my uninformed opinion it may have been best for the flame war to have been contained to a single thread and allowed to burn itself out.

[Coldfire]

MadHatter, are you reading this?

This is how you voice a complaint or question regarding the administration. Contructive, polite and to the point.

Demo, I think the answer is that the #straightdope chatroom is not affiliated with the SD or the Reader. Therefore, any debates about it or its inhabitants are not really at home here.
Although I understand your confusion. All in all, it was pretty dumb on Opals behalf to bring it up like that. Even if she wasn’t referring to herself.

[Lazarus7]

*Originally posted by Coldfire *
Demo, I think the answer is that the #straightdope chatroom is not affiliated with the SD or the Reader. Therefore, any debates about it or its inhabitants are not really at home here.

Umm … now I am confused …

so it is only ok to bring things to the pit that originated at the SDMB or the Reader?

Ummm … is that right? … how about all those flames of people’s landlords … and threads on political candidates, and freaking Brainy Smurf for that matter!!!

I know I am grossly oversimplifying, but come on! …

[CnoteChris]

I might also add that if were not allowed to ‘cross-talk’, as it were, about the ‘other’ board, why is Ed Zotti talking about it and the poster in question in the message that floats above everything on this board?

This too is meant as a clarifying question, not a rip.

[Eutychus]

Ed’s message was posted as a courtesy to Opal, not as a springboard for discussion.

[Yue_Han]

Look, fights with Opal in the past have gotten pretty intense. I don’t want to dredge all that up again, but I’m pretty sure most of the main players in this fight have been here long enough to remember certain incidents that Tuba would not want repeated.

–John

[casdave]

Think of it like this,

There’s an argument going on in two separate rooms, you only have access to what happens in one of them, others have access to the other and some can switch between them and get the whole picture.

So now others get involved and the whole thing gets very unpleasant with lots of misinformation and misunderstandings.

So maybe it’s best kept in the place it started and to where it applies.

[Jack_Batty]

Perhaps it can be considered this way …

When you’re in the Pit flaming about generic people (that asshole who cut me off in traffic or my douche-bag landlord)or things in the public domain, so to speak (Bush or Gore or McDonalds), these are things that most readers on the board can relate to.
But if I were to say, “Hey Cnote, last week when I met you on the street, and you said something pissed me off” followed by a personal tirade, where nobody knew exactly what I was talking about, it probably wouldn’t be welcomed here.
Regarding the Roast Opal thread, I got a glimpse of it before it was deleted. It was pretty harsh. Also, I had no idea what exactly Doob was referring to, only that he was supremely pissed at Opal. Now, Doob is friend, and I’ll stand behind him most of the time, but I gotta say, I felt a little oogy reading it. I felt like I was eaves dropping in someones personal fight.

[Falcon]

I’d also just like to add that I know Tuba asked us to take this to the forum where it applies. Unfortunately, there is none. Fathom is inappropriate, and Opal no longer comes to chat. This issue CAN’T be brought up where it started. Opal brought up the issue here on the board. Therefore, Doob (and others) felt this was the correct place to discuss it. Perhaps they were wrong, but hey, that’s the way I see it.

(And in the interests of full disclosure, I agree with Doob’s post in MPSIMS. The one in the Pit was gone by the time I saw the thread.)

[OpalCat]

I, too, was surprised at the closure of the thread. I thought that he had a right to flame me if he was so inclined. I admit, I didn’t realize he had such a passionate and burning hatred for me, and it surprised me… but if I was going to find out about it, this is where I’d expect that to happen.

[David_B]

Falcon said:

I’d also just like to add that I know Tuba asked us to take this to the forum where it applies. Unfortunately, there is none. Fathom is inappropriate

Why is Fathom inappropriate? Fathom has a section called The Bitch & Moan Zone. It is described as follows: “Use this forum for rants, complaints, and general whineyness.”

So if there is a place to bitch, moan, and complain on the page related to the chat, why not do it there instead of here?

[TVeblen]

This isn’t an opinion, because I didn’t see the deleted thread, haven’t hung around in chat in ages and am generally clueless.

So take this more as a plea, expanding what John and yojimbo already noted: TM is the “sister board” to the SD. They’re separate but connected in a lot of ways: by interests in common, posters and quite a bit of history. Some of that history has been a mite touchy at times (applying tactful understatement).

So I can see why the concerns and personalities blend between that two sites, but also understand the logic–and courtesy–of Tuba’s stance that issues arising from chat be handled at TM rather than here.

If I understand correctly, the initial conflict originated in chat at TM. Chat is boon to the extended community here, but it resides on TM turf, so to speak.

Cutting to the chase, lots of Dopers aren’t chatters, for whatever reasons (mine is a dismal lack of time, not lack of appreciation), so the incident sailed under the radar, so to speak. And the proper, reasonable venue to address the incident is TM, not here.

This may be totally misplaced, wrong-headed empathy, because Opal is a bright, assertive, articulate lady who can and does speak for herself. But seems to me she’s put a helluva lot of skilled, unpaid time, sweat and work into TM and if I were in her shoes I wouldn’t appreciate having an “issue” dragged into even a friendly neighbor’s house.

If nothing else, it’d confuse and upset the neighbors–and possibly dredge up bad, old grudges that should have been laid to rest long since. Frankly, I think Tuba paid Opal a respectful compliment as well by refusing to let a TM issue become a nasty (and generally uninformed) issue on the SD.

Shit, when will I stop being wordy?!
Veb
P.S. Damn, damn, damn–and I hope I don’t post this screed twice, just to compound the fracture. My finger slipped…

[Jophiel]

I’m not interested in arguing about Opal (with who I had a rather pleasant and helpful email session) but I’m confused on how some people are viewing this:

Opal made a comment about #SD in MPSIMS. It was a rather hurtful comment to quite a few people, basically slandering something in a single blanket statement that a lot of people hold fairly dear. Much like if I was to post in a MPSIMS thread about the Fathom board, “Yeah, but all of those people are elitist assholes who’ll fuck you over first chance they get.” People wanted to respond to it. Because Doob didn’t want to drag the MPSIMS thread through the mud, he created a new thread in a forum appropriate for the things he was going to say, the Pit. The issue in question started, and ended, on the SDMB.

Fathom has nothing to do with it. Opal didn’t post about #SD on Fathom so going there to complain makes as much sense as if I went to the Left Behind message board and talked there about what Opal says on the SDMB. For that matter, #SD isn’t even a Fathom related channel. You can no longer access it from Fathom (a point which Opal says was intended for a long time now and not a result of the thread, which I believe and only serves to further push #SD from Fathom) and Opal doesn’t go there (to #SD), so why would you post about it on Fathom?

I’m not trying to argue with the admins, but I don’t understand the “there’s more appropriate places to discuss this” concept here.

[CnoteChris]

David Bwrote-

So if there is a place to bitch, moan, and complain on the page related to the chat, why not do it there instead of here?

That’s a great point! So why wasn’t, isn’t, the thread dealing with TM ‘Chat’ being shut down now? It doesn’t deal with things even associated with the SDMB.

Why is it when one person associated with that place starts getting slammed and makes sweeping comments about the people here, on this board, that posters here are told to stop the slamming, ‘there’s better places for it, but not here’, but the general conversation about the site continues to go on and remain open?

I think what people here are reacting to is the feeling of a double standard- “Talk about it all you want, but don’t get nasty. We’re WARNING you”.

[manhattan]

You’re right, Cnote. It’s obviously much better to go on raising a ruckus and causing problems on this board about something which uses the name “straightdope” but which is not owned by the Reader.

Why, if you did it often enough, you might even piss them off enough to get them to notice and care! Wouldn’t that be fun?

Be careful what you wish for.

[CnoteChris]

manhattan

Call me an idiot, but your last post reads more like a threat than anything else. I’ll keep that mind. Thanks for the warning.

[Una_Persson]

I know this is the Pit, but let’s all try to just “calm-diddly-down”, to paraphrase Ned Flanders.

I think there is a basic issue of whether or not #straightdope issues belong on this board or not, especially flames. I understand of course that not only is #straightdope not affiliated with the Chicago Reader, the Chicago Reader wants to put in place a “Chinese Wall” between conflicts in #straightdope and itself. Am I understanding this correctly?

I echo Jophiel’s sentiment - that where the appropriate forum actually is, is unclear. Unfortunately, it seems there really may not be an appropriate forum in existance on any board. And thus perhaps we really should just not ever bring up snide, off-the-cuff remarks or open flames about #straightdope here or on Fathom - as some people were recently guilty of.

Or respond to them, as I and others are guilty of.

For my part, I’m not going to bring up any compaints about #straightdope (of which I have none), or respond to them when made by others, on this board.

[Silo]

Well the way it looks to me is: TubaDiva plays favorites.

Many months back there were some threads I started and others started concerning SD chat. Gee, they didn’t get shut down and had people’s posts deleted (well one thread was closed after it went on a bit). And those threads were way more nasty and chat related than the thread in question. So it’s quite obvious that “Tuba plays favorites.” That IMHO opinion is bad behavior for a moderator, let alone an admin. I like all the moderators/admins here with the slight exception of Tuba. I think she oversteps the virtual bounderies of a being a good administrator sometimes because she can (i.e. because she does a lot of work for this site). While I wont and haven’t expressed my thoughts on the issue in the thread in question, I do think the thread should exist.