I have been a regular in the SD for a little over… well two years al together, although I did let my membership lapse for a bit.
Having survived several unmoderated chat room meltdowns, in other forums, I have to tell you that the moderation in here is pretty well done.
Mods are human, and occaisionaly screw up.
But for the most part, they protect us from innanity, nut jobs and , frankly, assholes.
If you don’t like the moderators, go somewhere else.
Pure and simple they are unpaid (I assume, but don’t know if they have to pay their dues) volunteers, who put a lot of time and consideration into the decisions they are forced to make by “unruly” posters.
And their “calls” are , in my opinion, correct at least 90% of the time.
These people who have been nominated… sure you may like the cut of their jib, but other than that, do they have the dedication, interest, commitment and ability to do the job? (No slight intended to anyone on the list, I feel it is a valid question).
I’m gonna try one more time to get the point across.
I don’t give a fat fuck if eggy gets suspended, banned, or hung by his balls from the Triboro Bridge. Ok?
I DO care when Czarcasm closes threads, effectively stating, I’m gonna punish the offending OP by not letting other interested Dopers participate in these threads. Fuck them, too. Really effective, that.
I DO care when Czarcasm makes up, or alludes to nonexistent rules about returning to a thread, and closes it when an hour has passed since it has been opened, before the OP could reasonably have replied.
I DO care when I start a thread, and Marley 23 points out that I should read another thread, started AFTER mine, and when I note the time difference, instead of a simple, courteous, acknowledgement, I get fucking snark.
Hopefully this will serve to clarify your, and other queries.
That’s my beef, FTR. I really dislike how often and how many threads are closed because they’re too old, or too tasteless, or too whatever. (The only exception is spammers. Spam threads can be nuked from orbit and I am genuinely thankful to the mods for keeping the forums clean.)
Elect me as a mod. I’ll ban all of you motherfuckers! All of you! You hear me? I’ll ban your asses so fast, you’ll try to sit down and wonder where your ass went.
That’s what’s causing you to froth at the mouth? Are you freaking kidding me? This has suddenly become the least deserved pitting of the month.
scrambledeggs was warned over and over and over again. Hell, he got pitted at least once and mentioned in multiple others. And you’re mad because Marley23 (politely the first time) pointed you to the explanation as to why?
I don’t always like how snarky the mods can get at times, but frankly, I agree with it this time. Grow the fuck up.
Presuming that eggs was just trolling by posting an asinine number of threads, which seems to be supported by the evidence, the closing of the latest thread appears to be little more than a moderator-enforced “We’re not feeding the troll any more.”
In any case, I hardly think it’s worth calling the mods dictators and calling for a revolution. Give it up.
Well now that the Meenie7 threads indicate that we have a body of Dopers, including moderators, that are happy to countenance the existence of ghosts, I think the OP may have a point.
Most of the Dopers on board are reading or talking quietly amongst themselves. One person can’t sit still or be quiet. Hopefully soon he’ll do some reading, or find that he wants to join the conversions going on around him.
At the next stop, 7 Dopers get on and 4 log off.
Several Dopers are complaining to you about the restless fellow in their midst. He keeps jumping from seat to seat, asking random questions to no one in particular and then running off. You tell him to settle down. Most of your Dopers are pleased by this.
At the next stop, 6 Dopers get on and 3 mouth off.
That one Doper has not settled down at all. Most of the others are putting up with him hoping that he tires himself out or gets off soon, although a few are trying to talk to him. Surprisingly, some are complaining about your conduct. What the hell did you do, you wonder.
At the next stop, 2 Dopers get on and 1 is suspended for a month.
Once again, most of the Dopers on board are reading or talking quietly amongst themselves. Some of the most vocal Dopers on board are calling for your head. All seems right with the world.
You know I like ya, dances, but you forgot the first rule of revolution:
FIRST, put together your revolutionary army.
THEN, declare war on the status quo.
Personally, I don’t see the logical bridge that spans the gulf between “We’re paying consumers/producers of this message board” and “that means we have full managerial power over it”. We’re cohabiting this virtual space that is provided by the Chicago Reader. The Chicago Reader also provides the “police” of this virtual space (the mods), a “city council” (the admins), and a “mayor” (Ed). It’s a company town. We’re invited to visit here, either for a fee or for the payment of watching advertising occasionally. We are not ‘citizens’. We are “prosumers”…we both produce and consume content in this virtual space. But we don’t run the place.
In this case, I think a better term than “troll” is “seagull”= flies in, shits and flies off. In other words, the threads themselves weren’t so trollish in nature, it’s just that we do expect an OP to come back once in a while. This was the 1st time anyone was punished for this, AFAIK, but I have never seen anyone seagull so many new threads. :eek:
