I’m not some lame '99er. But, I gotta call them like I see them. Xploder deserved more consideration. And, IMHO, you have no sense of humor. None. Like, never…or you have to keep up it up for TPTB.
So, take that as you will. I only read here these days. And, well, gotta stand up for for the old Dope.
Congrats!
That’s true. I keep upping it up at the beginning of each day–right after a freshly squeezed spoonful of Pop Rocks, but before my 9:00 constitutional.
Awesome. You keep standing up against the Man. Don’t let him keep you down.
Okay, then. You are not a man. Clearly. Be sure to tuck yourself into your warm shell of mediocrity.
I love mediocrity. There’s no place to go but up. Or down.
Anyway, outside this new warning for your latest insult, we’ve noticed that you’ve had four warnings in the past few months–all of them for insults or just being a plain ol’ jerk. This last one makes five. Since you refuse to follow the rules, we thought a 30 day suspension was in order.
Now, don’t gush. Really. We’re just happy to help out.
That’s pretty obviously just trying to yank my chain. Clearly, like everything, it all depends on context. I get tired of prefacing each generalization with “it all depends on context.” Gets boring. However, although it would depend on context, I think “silly rabbit” would not generally (depending on context) be considered an insult, but (depending on context) “silly rabbit-fucker” might be.
That’s just patently untrue. I never read the splinter boards, I have no idea who posts there and who doesn’t (well, OK, I do know that Giraffe started one, but I never read or look at it.) We moderate what happens on THIS board, not on any other board, and we moderate under the overall rule of “Don’t be a jerk.”
The dope moderators are starting to sound like Mr. Vernon from The Breakfast Club.
Bender: Don’t you want to hear my excuse?
Richard Vernon: Out.
Bender: I’m thinkin’ of tryin’ out for a scholarship.
Richard Vernon: You’re not fooling anyone Bender. The next screw that falls out will be you.
Bender: Eat my shorts.
Richard Vernon: What was that?
Bender: Eat… My… Shorts.
Richard Vernon: You just bought yourself another Saturday.
Bender: Ooh, I’m crushed.
Richard Vernon: You just bought one more.
Bender: Well I’m free the Saturday after that. Beyond that, I’m going to have to check my calendar.
Feel free to substitute the name of some dope posters for “Bender” and a couple of different moderators for “Richard Vernon”.
Any more warnings and suspensions you guys want to hand out. Because it seems to me that some mods are going out of their way to piss people off.
Can I substitute Professor Farnsworth instead? More fun that way.
Anyway … what the hell happened? Spooky. This seemed to be a mild-mannered thread that resulted in two waayyyyyyy over the top and *beyond *off topic posters getting suspended.
Mods going out of their way to piss people off? How were xploder’s or Zhen’ka’s posts remotely relevant? Not hijack-like irrelevant, but out of nowhere relevant.
How is basic clarification dickish? Tomndebb even went beyond explanation and offered to rescind the warning. Where is all the umbrage coming from?
You consider this an appropriate comment from someone who runs the board?
“Awesome. You keep standing up against the Man. Don’t let him keep you down.”
We don’t need snark from the mods. We need them to do their jobs and keep the snark out of it.
Oh and Dex, Tubadiva clearly has a grudge when it comes to splinter boards. Let’s not try to sugar coat that.
And we don’t need the kind of bullshit Xploder and Zhen’ka decided to provide - which they did for no particular reason, and after prior warnings about it. Nobody provoked them into saying what they said.
But as far as appropriateness goes, even Supreme Court justices allowed to get sarcastic once in a while and we’re only volunteers modding a message board. I can understand posters getting upset if they feel their arguments or problems are being dismissed, but all SkipMagic did was get a little sarcastic with someone who was intentionally being a jerk. There are also some longtime posters here with fond memories of the days when the mods went a lot further with that kind of stuff, although I think if we were doing that today it wouldn’t be appreciated by many people.
You are moderators and you are held to a higher standard when acting as moderators (or administrators as the case may be). It doesn’t matter that moderators are volunteers. If you don’t like the requirements of the job, resign. Until then, keep the snark to yourself when you’re wearing a moderator hat.
It doesn’t matter what Xploder or the other guy posted. It is YOUR job as moderators to not respond to that kind of baiting with
snarky comments.
Oh, I realize this will fall on deaf ears, since most of the time when people raise the issue of bad moderator behavior, it’s met with hand waving and excuses.
:rolleyes:
It doesn’t matter “how it used to be”. All that matters is that moderators need to keep the snark out of all moderation related posts.
No u.
We take our instructions from Ed Zotti, so far as I am aware. I don’t think he would say that refraining from snarky comments is the only thing (“all that matters”) in doing a moderator job. I don’t think he’d say that’s of any importance whatsoever.
That’s nowhere in the job description, actually. It’s your opinion that it’s incumbent upon us to ignore that kind of thing. And in almost all cases, I agree with you. In this one, I don’t, and if you have a problem with “bad moderator behavior,” I don’t think this is a good example to make an issue out of. I don’t think it’s bad behavior if a mod gets mildly sarcastic after a couple of people deliberately break the rules to prove a non-existent point. Who is harmed by that, exactly?
It does matter. It shows things don’t have to be done the specific way you’re describing, because before you posted here, things were done a different way for years.
And don’t get me wrong: not everybody was thrilled with the former state of affairs and it evolved to the way things are today for some good reasons. (The big one was pay-to-post.) Although every mod wants to have his own “I am the fucking hall monitor” moment, I think, just once.
That’s a semantic argument. Of course it isn’t the only thing that matters.
The point is that moderators, as a matter of good policy, should keep be professional and courteous, to a fault if needed, when wearing the moderator hat.
It’s all very well to propose this Robotic Theory of Moderation and insist that moderators be unfailingly polite in the face of deliberately jerkish behavior directed at them. This poll on "Would You Mod the Dope? indicates a large majority of posters (including you) would want no part of it. It’s hard enough to find suitable moderators as it is. If sainthood becomes a requirement, then no one will do it. In fact, I suspect that many if not most of the existing moderators (including me) would resign if we were required never to be sarcastic, even when issuing warnings.
This said, we do strive to maintain a level of reasonable discourse. I don’t think anything said by a moderator or administrator in this thread has been even close to what has been said by several posters.
I’m confused. Before you said:
Which sounds like a sort of categorical imperative. Are you now revising your argument from “moderators must (by definition) be nice” to “moderators should be nice (because good policy dictates it)”? Those are two different claims. Why, if I wasn’t being nice, I’d say (consults pants) . . . oh never mind. Here’s a towel. Good day sir! 
Couldn’t you just take off the boots? We didn’t need to see that.
Since I have no standing to dictate how moderators “must” act, all I have is how I think they “should” act.
Oh and BTW, I didn’t say moderators had to be nice. I said they should/must be professional and polite.
“This said, we do strive to maintain a level of reasonable discourse. I don’t think anything said by a moderator or administrator in this thread has been even close to what has been said by several posters.”
No it didn’t. But neither should it.
You must realize that you only make your job harder by giving people shit back in moderation posts, right?
No. That’s the only part that’s fun.
There are some who believe that moderation should be “automod” – no personal interaction whatsoever, no right to comment.
Others feel that moderators are here to be kicked and beaten like rented mules for perceived faults of judgment or defects of character.
None of the above is appropriate or acceptable.
If you find what we do now offensive you should have been around earlier – once upon a time there was far more give and take and staffers were much closer to Cecil in their attitudes and this was not only permissible but appreciated. The restraints on staffers today make what we say and do a pale imitation of the used to be.
For some we will always be seen as The Man, evil Nazi Mods with our oppressive jackboots firmly pressed against the throat of the victimized. Come and see the violence inherent in the system.