>Um, I’m not sure what you’re getting at there. athelas is a moron who can’t
>sensibly string two sentences together. And it was actually you that I was
>calling a racist asshole, not Bush. Sorry if that escaped you in that thread.
First of all, I cannot code, though I can write. Big distinction there.
Second, if you couldn’t read my post, which is possible considering what the content of your post indicates about your intelligence, Shodan basically made my point in a post above mine.
The distinction between attacking/criticizing a post (or posting behavior) and the poster makes sense to me, and I think it’s an important one. But then my view is coloured by the child development stuff I have to process as a parent: “disapprove of the behavior, not the child, yadda yadda yadda.”
About what? That MEBuck’s thread WAS posted about 6 months ago? Since you never read it it the first place it frankly doesn’t matter if it was posted 6 years ago. You went after something as being against the GD rules without even reading the rules sticky, so it wouldn’t have done anything anyway. And posters got alone fine for years without a rules sticky, and would continue to do so if we took them away.
Personally, I think the whole “This POST in trolling”/’“YOU are trolling” is too insignificant to rate a sticky. Didn’t you just say “Ok, you got me. You’re right, there is one.[…] but still, it’s there for all to see.” What terrible thing happened becuase I didn’t have a sticky? Someone posted something…that was allowed! And someone else thought it wasn’t allowed, and emailed us about it. And I explained it, but someone went and posted a pit thread about the mods anyway. And then I explained it some more. Did anyone get warned for doing something they didn’t know was wrong because we didn’t have a specific sticky re it? No.
It may be a GD-only thing, because GD is the only forum where the rule is “attack the post, not the poster”. AND we may disallow the whole “this post is trolling” anyway now, we’re discussing it. But even if we do, Manny’s post was still acceptable at the time he posted it, and I feel both MEBuck’s sticky and my susequent clarification was clear enough.
I’m not going to put up a sticky for every little specific interpretation. There’s no sticky re “liar”, for instance. There’s no sticky about “fuck off”. There’s no sticky about the proper use of obscenities. There’s no sticky about “you’re crazy”. There’s no sticky about posting a OP very similar to one that someone else posted. There’s no sticky about having cites to back up your points. There’s no sticky re misinterpreting your cites. There’s no sticky re lying. The vast, vast majority of GD posters get along just fine with the rules I have given. I don’t want to put up a laundry list of specific interpretations of our rules. I do put up new posts in the sticky if we have changed policies, i.e., the Putz smilie being considered an insult. If you or anyone else questions whether something is acceptable, email the mods.
We allow the mods considerable latitude in what they will or won’t allow in their forums. All we ask is that they make forum-specific rules clear, either through a sticky or constant repetition. That’s what Gaudere has done. She has no control over what goes in ATMB or the rules FAQ. If I make any addition to the rules FAQ (which I hate doing - once upon a time the rules would fit on the back of a bar napkin), it’s going to be something like, “These rules apply to all forums. Moderators may establish additional rules that apply to their forums. Typically notice of these rules will be posted in the forum, but we do NOT expect the moderators to spell them out in minute detail. A reasonably attentive reading of each forum will make the limits of permissible behavior clear. Repeated violation of forum-specific rules is grounds for revocation of your posting privileges.”
I kinda like that. Whether I post it in the rules FAQ or not, consider it standard procedure from here on out.
And in almost all of those instances, december simply moved on as if he had never acknowledged them in the first place. Arguments that were gutted, that he acknowledged had been gutted, showed up again on the next page. And acknowleding that people make good arguments is not the same thing as apologizing for lying or misleading people in your OP. His “acknowledgement” was about as sincere as your “regards.” Try again, asswipe.
Is this sort of deception what you call “integrity” in your reality? RT isn’t complaining to the mods that he fucked up. He admitted that he fucked up in a big way by not reading his own cite, but is asking why manhattan didn’t get reprimanded for offenses that most other posters would never get to say without a warning. People who went too far on december in GD got properly nerfed.
My apologies, Gaudere, if I reacted too quickly in accusing the board of inaction. As I said in my email, I’m just not familiar with any previous situations where the board waited that long to say anything about a violation after being made aware of it. On Sunday, I more or less assumed nothing was happening because it was Sunday, and if you wanted to confer with other admins, they might not be home to answer an email. But by Monday at 9pm, I felt I could safely assume that if there was going to be a response to the dustup of Saturday night and Sunday morning, it would have already happened. Apparently I was wrong. I’m surer than ever that it won’t be the last time.
I’m kinda scratching my head about both the troll/trolling and lie/liar business. Sure, if I lie, I’m a liar. (At the moment, that is; nobody thinks you’re a liar if they know you told one white lie fifteen years ago.) Someone can say “that’s a lie” and the direct implication is that they think I’m currently a liar; someone can say, “you’re a liar” without specifying a lie. (Which was what Manny did in his first post in the thread.) In that latter case, your post last fall (contrary to what MEB said in his email) seems to suggest that that’s once again a rules violation.
Besides, simply by the basic logic of it all, “you’re a liar,” without specifying a lie, is unquestionably attacking the poster, not the argument, since it doesn’t bother with the argument. (I said something like this in my email response to MEB, IIRC.)
The troll/trolling thing seems similar to me, but it doesn’t seem to matter: Arnold Winkelreid’s FAQ in ATMB:
Underlining mine, not Arnold’s.
I’d take you up on that, except we’re not allowed to talk about who we’re putting on ‘ignore’! (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
I apologize to all for having been inactive in this thread all day; I’ve been in a class, and away from my computer. (No daytime posts from me tomorrow either, for the same reason.) Since I started this Pit thread, I should at least be around to acknowledge the brickbats thrown at me, some of which I richly deserve. I’ll be posting more this evening.
As you know, My thing is all about fighting the ignorance (As it happens, I’m not even that big a Bush supporter, for instance – I’m just tired of the 98-1 ratio of factual BS dragging down the ignornace-fighting potential of GD). I tried playing nice with RT last week, in a Pit thread no less, in an attempt to reduce ignorance and in return I got served a bigger, steamier pile than ever.
So in the current instance, I allowed my lack of respect for RT to overcome my respect for the forum. I shouldn’t have done that, and I apologize to you, the other GD mods and the GD readership for the lapse.
To be clear, I am not apologizing for the factual charges I made – I still believe them to be reasonable and supported by the evidence, including that there comes a time when the frequency of deception becomes so high that the person posting them should be banned as has happened in the past. But the tone in which I chose to convey those charges, which tone is read by everybody and not just by the recipient, was forum-inappropriate.
As I mentioned earlier, I have chosen a much nicer way to express my, uh, skepticsm as regards this issue in the future. And if a less nice way becomes required, I’ll put it here, not there.
And do we consider evidence of intent (since we can never know another’s actual intent) - that is, do we try to distinguish deliberate misrepresentation from honest misunderstanding, based on the poster’s behavior in the thread, and where necessary, the poster’s overall behavior on the board? And if so, what should constitute evidence of trolling, and what should constitute evidence of an unintentional screwup?
I agree that it is important for the board administration to be inhospitable to trolls, but they also probably don’t want to set the bar so that a few stupid statements don’t get someone banned.
A few years ago (just reaching back that far because it was the first thing that came to mind), I started a thread in response to a bunch of goofs who kept claiming that the average US taxpayer shelled out 40% or more of his/her income in taxes - something that they should have known was wrong, and that they could have verified with the least bit of effort. Were they trolling? Should they have been banned if they made an equally wild assertion the following week? Three such wild assertions in a month? At a time when we had maybe 500 active posters, we could’ve cut that way down, real fast. Probably still could, although we can more easily afford to lose a few.
Might give the mods more work than they can handle for awhile, though, if the exclamation point gets clicked every time someone makes an incorrect or misleading statement of fact in a debate forum, so that it can be counted towards the Manhattan Trollery Index for the offending poster.
So manhattan might wish to consider the implications of his stance. I’m just sayin’.
If I may, I need to interject here that while I have, I have to admit, lost my temper at Shodan in the past, and while I can say with 100% certainty that it will happen again in the future, I’ve always lived to regret it when it happens. Demo’s accusation is well below anything I would have expected, to the point where after reading that little exchange, piled on top of all the incivility that came before it, I’m rethinking why I hang out here. From what I know about racists (more than I would like), and to the extent one can tell these things on a message board, Shodan doesn’t qualify for membership in that group by a wide margin. He also shows exceptional patience, hanging out on a board that, while not quite Political Animal, ain’t exactly NR material either. I know for a fact I don’t have that kind of patience when the situation is reversed. Shodan, my apologies both for my past behavior re yourself from time to time and that idiotic accusation, to the extent that anything I said in the past may have led up to it. Just in case.
What I said about manny stands, BTW, in case anyone’s getting any ideas. No, I’m not rereading his oeuvre, such as it is, to see if my judgement was accurate. This is still the Pit.
You are wrong, in my opinion, about which thread title is relevant. Categorically, undeniably, wrong about that.
It’s too insignificant for a sticky, and yet you expect everyone to just know it? I’m confused as to how you draw that conclusion.
If it’s not important enough to be made into a rule, DON’T EXPECT US TO KNOW IT. I cannot fathom why this is so difficult.
Really. So it’s okay for me to attack posters in other forums? That, too, is a crock.
I’m sure you do feel you’ve been perfectly clear. Apparently the fact that people in this very thread have voiced some confusion is meaningless to you. All righty.
Yeah, but you do have a sticky on the following: “Do not say or imply that your fellow posters achieve sexual gratification or soil themselves in glee/distress due to recent news reports, politcal icongraphy, contemplation of ideological positions, etc. In fact, if you’re going to discuss someone’s bowels or genitalia at all, it better be DIRECTLY relevant to the debate at hand.”
Again, I am not asking for a sticky on every single rule you guys have come up with. That would be a waste of time. But is it really too much to ask to have them written down somewhere where we can see them? Somewhere other than buried in a sticky in one forum. Perhaps, as I suggested, as a sticky in a more appropriate place, like ATMB or - here’s an idea - the FAQ.
What is it with you guys? Wonderful, so those who have read this thread - and only them - will know this is “standard procedure.”
Repeating a rule to the same bunch of people who read that particular brand of thread is counterproductive. You’re assuming those who don’t read that thread to learn it through… osmosis? What? Grand psychic phenomena? Tell me what type of astral projection you want me to employ, and I’ll study up just so I can pick up any mention of new rules and regulations in order to be a Perfect Poster.
As I said before, this whole business about troll post/troll poster isn’t forum specific in the least, unless trolling is permitted in every forum except GD. Is it?
If it’s not forum specific, then it shouldn’t be in only one forum.
<< As I said before, this whole business about troll post/troll poster isn’t forum specific in the least, unless trolling is permitted in every forum except GD. Is it? >>
Sheeeeesh. Goddam right the business about post/poster is forum-specific. You can insult the poster in the Pit, for instance. And in Great Debates, you’re allowed to insult the post but not the poster. And in forums like CoCC, AtMB, and CoSR, you’re not allowed to insult the post OR the poster. So, YES, the whole business IS forum-specific.
Please note: while the rules on insults vary by forum, the rules on trolling are pretty consistent. The rules on CALLING someone a troll are different from the rules about BEING a troll.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll post stickies with all the rules of good manners and proper behaviour. You’ll find the first topic posts on page 9, after the 450 stickies.
If I go into CCC and tell you to go fuck yourself, it would be allowed?
Why are they different? Are you saying it’s okay to call someone a troll? Or that it’s okay to BE a troll? (Since you say those rules are consistent, I assume other variables don’t come into play.)
I still say one stickie with all of the rules would be more helpful, or even - god forbid - the fucking RULES FAQ.
YOu may want to smack yourself on the forehead now, to save yourself the bother later; or you may want to reread what you were quoting, and THEN smack yourself on the forehead.
Personally, I wish they were a little bit less lawyery about the rules (the distinction between calling a post a troll and calling a poster a troll seems silly to me, for example, and I hope they get rid of it). At the same time, their place, their rules.
However, it’s interesting the Dex mentions two rules (cannot insult post, cannot insult poster) that are pretty much the same from forum to forum. The Pit is the great exception (you CAN insult the poster there and nowhere else). This doesn’t make that particular rule forum specific; it only means that the Pit is the exception to the rule.
Now THAT is nitpicking. But it’s true - a forum-specific rule would apply only to one forum. The rule is that one cannot insult another poster. The exception is that one is permitted to do so in the Pit.
Much appreciated and very classy, but not strictly necessary.
I lose my temper frequently (big surprise there, eh?) but not usually for long. And you are not one of the Dopers against whom I harbor a grudge for any reason I can recall. So there aren’t, and never were, any hard feelings.
I like the Straight Dope partly because the convention against talking about sensitive topics like politics and religion is off, and I can argue and yell and get carried away. But it is still only a message board.