I’m not contending that all, or even most, threads posted to this board must have merit, I’m just saying that if it doesn’t, I’m not going to waste much time worrying about whether a Mod closes it or not.
OTOH, there is the “Don’t be a jerk” rule, famed in song and story, and it seems like, just sayin’ here, that this may have had something to do with it. Anyway, like I said, show me that content of some merit or other is being suppressed here, and I’ll try real hard to get worked up over this teapot tempest.
I don’t think the thread in question should have been shut down, either, and only partly because I was having such a great time with it. I think a warning along the lines of, “Take it easy on blinging dead bodies, guys.” would probably have done the trick. I also think the tasteless ruling was bogus; it was tasteless from one of the first posts, with someone’s vomit being blinged. Is blinging anything Holocaust related taboo? We blinged 9/11, too - shouldn’t that also be taboo? People poke fun at serious subjects all the time; it’s as human nature as laughing at someone taking a fall. Just check out the editorial cartoons in any newspaper some time. I looked at this thread as similar to that type of lampoon.
I agree with the OP. I haven’t laughed at a thread so much in a long time. Tasteless, yes, but not worthy of closing. The uptightness of the mods has been getting on my nerves for a long time. I am very very sick of the puritanical censorship that is going on. These mods have too much unilateral power based on their own personal whims and hang-ups and it’s ruining the boards.
I imagine the Mods have pissed each one of us off, occasionally, but they’re not ruining the place. Time and again I see them keeping order here, reining in Dopers (myself included) with appropriate warnings such as “Don’t do that again.”
You’ve got to have enforcers to step in when the situation demands it. Letting bullies run rampant is one sure way of destroying a board.
But one thing bugs me. Being a Mod seems to mean never having to say you’re sorry. It must be part of the code - never admit you blew a call. So, they assume an air of infallibility, which is, in my mind, fucking grade school.
This particular call was egregious. Makes you wonder if they act unilaterally, or do they confer with their peers before locking down a thread?
I’ve seen it too. I’ve also seen them re-opening locked threads after much discussion. I post occasionally on a private message board, and the moderation there is pathetic; they post rules that they don’t even get close to following, the owner and her cronies do whatever they please, and the only discussion of their moderation that they want to hear is praise for how wonderful they are. Blecch.
For what it’s worth, since I didn’t sign on for an account at Blingee, I couldn’t see at least 4 or 5 of the photos, including some of the worst, apparently.
Boards with no moderation usually devolve into spam receptacles, and its members drift away. Boards with “community moderation”, where users have the option of removing offending posts, are subject to nasty delete wars.
FIIW, Blingee deleted some of the offending images.
