Yes, what a difficult thing to ask, to not put an argument into a moderation post that you cannot respond to.
I was a moderator on an internet message board for a while, the way it was handled was that the moderator handles were specific but the people running them was a team. So you’d always get a warning from the moderator but you weren’t sure who the poster you were dealing with was. It was an interesting system prone to its own sorts of abuses, like the one guy who was deleting things that differed from his conservative political viewpoint without telling anyone. Posts would just disappear. I was asked to leave as moderator because the guy who owned the message board was writing hit pieces on Obama during the election and actually getting some national publicity for them, was one of the early people who defined the ‘Obama is an acolyte of Saul Alinsky’ style of attacks. I was very passionate in my defense of Obama so I was asked to resign. The guy who was randomly deleting posts was asked to leave too. I got banned for calling him out publically and threatening to expose his identity if he didn’t stop doing it. He no longer posts there much but I am back as a regular.
The business of moderating an internet message board is interesting. My style was to stick to issues of civility completely and entirely. I didn’t mix my opinion in with my moderation. I have sympathy for mods but I wouldn’t go so far as to feel bad for the poor put upon mods with their thankless job. It is tedious, but there’s a way to do it and a way not to do it. That’s just my opinion though.
Tom, would you agree to follow guidelines something like these?
Do not respond to a thread until you’ve read the entire thing. (XKCD’s boards will ban you if you respond without reading a whole thing. They’ve got the benevolent tyrant thing down pat. It’s awesome).
If you do respond without reading the whole thing, call in another moderator for support.
Before modding in a thread you’ve been participating in, call in another mod for support.
In my ~10 years here, you’re the only mod whose behavior has been in my opinion unjustly biased. I think steps like this would cut down on the actual or apparent bias.
Clearly there are several people who agree with me that Tomndebb is unique in his approach.
Time to Pit my shenanigans? Sorry bub but the Pit thread is just winding down. You can probably try to revive it but I think that most of the people are sated.
You sought me out bub, not the other way around. Feel free to Pit me. Time it properly if you want me to come in and drive traffic for you. Right now my energy for such things is at a lull due to after Pit post-coital bliss. You missed the last orgy so you’re going to need us all to not be spent when you do it. There’s a perfect balance of everyone being pissed off at me and not. As far as I am concerned the drama is over.
Why? I do act as a Mod on another board. If I get report that s poster has- on page 6 after 250+ posts, committed a violation like a disguised profanity, then why the fuck do I need to read the other 250+ posts?
No one is saying Tom didn’t read the whole thread:rolleyes:, clearly he did.
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I thought in context reading the whole thread pretty obviously meant reading the whole thread before posting. Sorry that wasn’t clear to you.
Well, no. You have no way of knowing if it’s a good reply until you read other replies to the same post. That’s why so many threads are cluttered with redundant information, people repeatedly asking the same questions, and jokes that have already been made.
Nonsense. Over the years **tomndebb **has consistently hand-waved away any and all criticism of his modding. He only seems to respond to Ed’s directions; everything (and everyone) else is ignored.
Think you left a word out there, sport. Let me fix that for you.
“Over the years **tomndebb **has consistently hand-waved away any and all unfounded criticism of his modding.”
God knows that modding is a thankless task, especially in GD, but **tomndebb ** has performed that task well over the years. In such a passionate forum if you’re not getting complaints then you’re not doing your job properly. I don’t envy him that job.
In fact,
*When the enterprising troll is not a-trolling
When the jerk has stopped being jerkish for a time
He loves to hear the merry bells a-tolling
And listen to the distant village chime.
When the members have done jumping on each other,
They love to lie a-basking in the sun
Ah take one consideration with another
The poor mod’s lot is not a happy one, … happy one.
(Chorus of admins and mods)
When there’s moderating duty to be done, to be done
The poor mod’s lot is not a happy one … happy one.*
Prove that. Or else back off. Many of us believe you are wrong, and that your accusations are wild and reckless. Frankly, I wish they would promote Tom to admin and bring back DavidB to mod GD. Then you would get a fair amount of scolding, belittling, and snark to go with your alleged hand-waving.
So what. You should feel lucky that the board policies allow you to even express criticism of a moderator. Lots of other boards and you be whacked with the ban hammer.
