tomndebb, why the animosity?

[Peter_Morris]

Tom, why all the personal animosity? What have I ever done to you? People have frequently complained about your biased moderation before, but it seems as though you have something personal against me, and I want to know what it is.

Here’s a recap of recent events. It started with this thread: The elevated social status of soldiers, police officers, and firemen, is it well deserved?

My opinion, which I stated in that thread, and have stated in other threads before, is that I have no respect for people who are paid to fight in wars they don’t agree with. For example, there are many who disagree with the Iraq war, but go and fight amyway for college money.
This opinion upset some people, including someone calling himself Ibn Warraq who proceeded to invent opinions for me. According to him, I don’t respect people who fought against the Nazis, but that I do have “the utmost respect for the Waffen SS, the IRA, the Irgun, and Hamas.” When I,. and others, pointed out that this is a total misunderstanding of my words, he became even more vitriolic, claiming that I am "unwilling to stand by what * said and has since tried to pretend that * said something completely different " He also accused me of hypocrisy and that I lack integrity

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14467583#post14467583

That’s just a sample of the stuff he spat out.

I complained to the mods. Tom replied with a one line dismissal of my complaint, and did not respond to further messages. This is far from the first time. There have been several threads in the past that have turned to shit because of Tom choosing to ignore similar attacks. He has often expressed open hostility towards me, taken the side of my attacker, and frequently insulted me.

I then discovered an email from him, which somehow I’d missed for a few days.

@Tomndebb

I am going to let Marley’s Mod Note stand without further intruding in the thread, but your personal attacks on SSG Schwartz almost got you a Warning before I noticed that you made them before the thread was moved to GD. Remember that the next time you want to get indignant over things that others do that are not as bad as what you have been doing.

Say what? What have I done that’s worse than Ibn Warraq’s attack on me?

I spent several days exchanging emails with Tom, trying to get clarification. When I asked him to identify how I had attacked SSG Schwartz, he withdrew the claim and instead said he meant Yodoc.

When I asked him for an explanation of that his reply consisted of the following two links.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14457365#post14457365
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14458018#post14458018

In these two posts Tom claims there is something worse than Ibn Warraq’s attack on me. Something there, according to Tom, is worse than Ibn Warraq claiming I support the Nazis and the IRA. Worse than Ibn Warraq accusing me of lacking integrity. Worse than all the other things Ibn Warraq said against me.

I have asked him what he thinks is wrong with those posts. He refuses to tell me. He just keeps saying that

Just a note here: The posts were made in IMHO. There is a specific rule in GD that forbids saying “I don’t believe your claims.” That rule does not apply to IMHO, where the posts were made.

I’m only speculating that is what Tom objects to. I’ve asked him. I can’t get him to say either yes or no.

here is a sample of Tom’s responses to me:

@Tomndebb

I don’t have a personal animosity against you. I simply find your frequent complaints against other posters, when you have been engaged in the same behavior, to be tiresome. That is what I mean about reshaping your perception of reality. You present every stone you throw as a paperwad while claiming every pebble tossed in your direction to be a paving stone. On the few early occasions when I attempted to point out the relative parity of the exchanges, you replied with excessive heat that your opponents’ behavior was much worse than yours. I no longer believe that you are capable of judging such issues and I find your demands that others be punished for engaging in your style of “debate” outlandish.
I also determined that any explanation would be met with a protracted discussion of how much worse your opponents were that was never resolved. Even being a Mod I have better uses for my time than endless exchanges that go nowhere.

Tom claims not to have any animosity towards me, yet there seems to be plenty in this message. And it appears that he formed a dislike of me years ago, and since then has refused to discuss these things with me, because he simply knows that I won’t accept them.

As for exchanges that go nowhere, I’d say this is Tom’s fault. He repeatedly refuses to answer one direct question: What rule did I break that was worse than Ibn Warraq’s attack on me? The exchage would go somewhere if he would only answer the question.

@Tomndeb

1. In your odd view of the world.
2. I am not going to get into that with you. That is the point. Your odd view of the world will result in multiple exchanges with you making claims that I consider trivial while dismissing your own behavior that will descend into niggling over individual words and which things you consider worse than others. This exchange is a good example of that behavior.
3. Yeah.
4. This is the longest e-mail exchange, but we have had other discussions in the BBQ Pit and ATMB. My pointing out the things to which I object will make no difference. You already noted a couple of those things and then tried to rationalize your behavior as being “accurate.” It would be a waste of my time to idsentify other statements simply to give you the chance to dismiss them.

This was in response to five simple points that I put to him. Astute readers will note that he avoided one of them altogether.

Point no 1 was that he seems to have some animosity towards me. His response, that I have an odd view of the world, is typical behaviour from him. It is precisely because of such comments that I think he is hostile. I have no doubt that if I’d said “you have an odd view of the world” to any other poster, Tom himself would jump on me with a warning and a threat of banning.
I think I have made one previous complaint about him in ATMB, not the muliple discussions his email implies. And those discussions in the BBQ Pit that Tom refers to never happened. I do not post in the pit. Not at all. I couple of times I responded when someone pitted me. And the last one was several years ago. Other than that, no Pitting from me. But basically I have had very few long discussions with him. Mostly he refuses to answer at all. This is as informative as he ever gets.
He accuses me of trying to rationalize my behavior as being “accurate” I have looked through our exchanges, I cannot find what he’s referring to. I’m pretty sure I never said anything about being “accurate.”
This is not just one instance of bad modding. It’s just the latest in a long list. Tom, what have I ever done to you to make you hate me so much? Obviously I did something to you years ago for which you harbour some deep resentment. What was it? Why the massive grudge? What did I ever do to you?

[tomndebb]

I do not bear you personal animosity. You demanded that I take action against another poster whom I deemed had behaved in a manner similar to you. You insisted that his behavior was much worse, then demanded to know how I could possibly equate the level of misbehavior in his posts and yours. I have no intention of going round and round with you defending why I have not banned some poster with whom you have an issue. That is all there is to this.

[Peter_Morris]

It is obvious that you have some huge animosity towards me.

You are the one going round in circles Tom. It would be easier if you would answer the question.

[Chimera]

You wanted Arguments. That’s down the hall and on the left.

[Czarcasm]

@Peter_Morris

It is obvious that you have some huge animosity towards me.

You are the one going round in circles Tom. It would be easier if you would answer the question.

Yeah, tomndebb-when did you stop beating your wife?

[don_t_ask]

@Chimera

You wanted Arguments. That’s down the hall and on the left.

No it’s not.

[Frank]

@Peter_Morris

It is obvious that you have some huge animosity towards me.

If true, in what way does that make him unique?

[tomndebb]

@Czarcasm

Yeah, tomndebb-when did you stop beating your wife?

When I woke up in the middle of the night with her holding a huge pot of boiling water over me, reminding me that I had to sleep some time.

[Rhythmdvl]

@don_t_ask

No it’s not.

Yes it is.

…
On a side note (without treading into the OP title’s domain), I would suggest that the *only appropriate forum for questioning the veracity of another poster’s personal claims is the Pit. It’s one thing to say “Mickey, I don’t really believe you got six in one shot,” it’s a very different thing to say “Mickey, I don’t believe you’re actually a cartoon character.”[sup][/sup]

Given the subject of the challenge (which has been suggested in other threads as well), I daresay it’s incumbent on Argent Towers to create the thread (if it is to be created, that is. Being non-military, I have no basis to think one way or the other).

[sup]*Whoa, that just dredged up a very, very old memory. Didn’t we have a poster here who once claimed to be an animator or a cartoonist or something similar? Wasn’t his outing a Very Big Deal in the Very Early Years of the Dope?[/sup]

[jackdavinci]

Ibn’s response to you was comprehensive, well thought out, and you have mischaracterized a few of the things he said, which is funny since that’s what you accuse him of.

The two examples of your own misbehavior - I don’t see anything wrong with the first, not sure where Tom was going with that. The second you were definitely misbehaving, perhaps within the letter of the law for when it was still IMHO?, but well outside the more general rule to not act in a jerkish way.

It’s not important for Tom to give you a play by play of your misdeeds, because you didn’t get a warning, so it’s a waste of his time to get into a nitpick about it.

His point about that was merely that in that thread, your own behavior was a lot closer to crossing the line than Ibn, so it’s hard to take your outrage too seriously.

But in truth, your own behavior ultimately isn’t relevant. Whether you were good or bad, Ibn’s behavior should be independently judged. And in this case, Ibn’s post wasn’t bad, and he did none of the things you accused him of. In fact, his was one of the more thought out posts in that thread.

I can’t speak to any issues outside of that thread.

[Irishman]

“Vitriolic” is not a fair description of Ibn Warraq’s post. I’d describe his post as calm and rational. At best, he says he doesn’t have much respect for you, but that’s a far cry from vitriole.

If this is typical, then I can see why tomndebb feels your judgement in these matters is suspect. If he’s interacted with you before over these kinds of things, then I can certainly see how me might feel going 'round and 'round trying to justify who is being a bigger poopyhead, you or your opponents, would get tiresome.

[Peter_Morris]

Among other things he accused me of supporting the Nazis and the IRA.

Do you seriously not see anything wrong with that?
And the problem with Tom is that he keeps accusing me of things that never happened. Just as an example, he claims that we have had many discussions in the pit, and his opinion of me is based on those discussions. Those discussions only exist in Tom’s imagination.

That is the basic problem here. I’m not making this thread to complain about Tom failing to moderate one person spewing abuse at me. I’m talking about a years-long habit of refusing to discuss these matters.

[KarlGauss]

@Peter_Morris

Among other things he accused me of supporting the Nazis and the IRA.

Not quite. He said, rather articulately, that that was the logical implication of your statement (and I agree with him).

[Peter_Morris]

It is the exact opposite of what I said.

[DSeid]

Well then it is amazing how many people read what you said as something other than what you said, isn’t it?

Look, I didn’t participate in that thread and have no particular interest in reading an old back and forth; I’ll base just on your own op - If what you claim is that you respect those who fight for causes they believe(d) in and not those who fight in wars because they signed up for the college money (which is what you state in your op), then it rationally follows that you would respect a true believer Nazi gunning people down, and not the 19 year old who joined up for the job and the adventure and then did heroic things. That is not his claiming that you believe those things; that is his saying that such logically is what you would believe if you really believed what you stated.

Or do you only mean to say that you respect a true believer who believes in what you believe? If so that is not what you have said and the fault for that is not with those who bothered to read it.

[Czarcasm]

@Peter_Morris

It is the exact opposite of what I said.

It may be the opposite of what you mean, but it seems to be dead on for what you said.
Perhaps if you said what you meant…?

[Peter_Morris]

Folks, Czarcasm is another (ex) moderator who hates me. Although in his case the reason is obvious

And he has a very long history of misrepresenting things that I say.

[levdrakon]

No, you said soldiers who believe in the cause they’re fighting for are heroes, and the obvious implication of that is Nazi soldiers who believed in the cause they were fighting for would also be heroes.

Instead of acknowledging that, you’re obsessing about moderators hating you. It sounds paranoid. T&D pointed out you have a way of obsessing over little details like this and you’re showing everyone here that you do indeed obsess over little paranoid details like people hating you when in fact they don’t.

You sound paranoid and obsessed with T&D. You really do.

[VinylTurnip]

@Peter_Morris

Folks, Czarcasm is another (ex) moderator who hates me. Although in his case the reason is obvious

And he has a very long history of misrepresenting things that I say.

Looks like he’s decided to turn over a new leaf, then.

[Chimera]

I have no dog in this fight, but it seems that if all these people in positions of authority are being accused of mis-representing what you say; especially given the one example above; the issue is not them, it is you.