Tuba Diva, why did you lock this thread?

[Shot_From_Guns]

@BigT

I do have a suggestion for SfG, though. You can help matters by phrasing things in a less confrontational manner–just as much as they could. The best way to make sure you aren’t misperceived as haranguing is to be as kind as you can. Save the confrontational rhetoric for the big guns.

If anything I’ve said is overly confrontational, it only reflects my frustration with the general lack of dialogue on this subject.

And, please, let’s not turn this into a Tuba bashing thread–or they’ll have a legitimate reason to close, as well as suspect that was SfG’s intention. She made a big mistake in her response in this thread, but rubbing it in will not accomplish anything but making her more upset.

Yes, please. If you’d like to criticize her activities in the previous thread or this one, please stick to making legitimate points.

@Hawkins

You know what? Why don’t all you malcontents just fuck off?

Because I like this board. Did you not read my reply to Tuba?

@Irishman

You’ve had at least one other moderator state he would have locked that thread for the same reasons, and no moderator has contraticted that.

He said that he would lock it once there was a discussion of AA going on in another thread. He has *not *commented on whether he’d have forced the (ostensibly on-topic) discussion to another thread in the first place.

And you know very well that it’s not “at least one.” It is *exactly *one.

The mods and admins have stated that they are not going to make a rule that moderators cannot participate in threads the moderate or moderate threads in which they participate.

That was never *my *request. That was the request of one person, and everybody else (including me) said it was a bad idea. I’ve explained this several times. Perhaps I could send you a PM that you could print out and tape next to your monitor. The only thing I have asked for is recusal in the case where a mod has a clear personal involvement in the thread to the point where it’s affecting their judgment.

As for taking the topic to another thread, that is a difference of opinion between you and the mods. They feel that the in depth discussion of the merits of AA was a hijack from the topic of the thread, “What should I do about my drinking problem?” (paraphrased).

You know how we can tell it’s a paraphrase? Because it leaves out the part where the OP explicitly asked about AA.

The mods felt that the debate over AA was a hijack from a “I want help” thread, and moderated that thread accordingly, in like with exactly how they moderate threads that hijack a MPSIMS or IMHO thread with a Great Debate.

Incorrect. ***twickster ***felt that a discussion of AA was a hijack in a thread where the OP asked for a discussion of AA. *One *other mod eventually replied to my thread to say that he would also have locked the thread… after there was already another thread started to discuss AA. He failed to reply to whether it was appropriate to shut down the discussion to begin with.

Well, it’s a judgment call, and in the mods’ judgement, it was a hijack - a new GD thread was opened for the hijack and instructions were given to take the MPSIMS thread back on topic of “what should I do”.

No, not the mods’ judgment. One. Mod’s. Judgment. One mod, whose judgment was already *demonstrably *out of whack on that topic.

That, and the fact you keep bringing up “twicks broke the rules in that other thread”. Yes she did, and she acknowledged it and apologized. Continuing to repeat that looks like you are just trying to poke her with a stick rather than actually address any issues.

I bring it up because it’s absolutely relevant to demonstrating her state of mind. She was already mad enough to break one of the most important rules of the board. Why do you think she’s able to turn that on and off like a switch, when she’d already broken one huge rule?

If this is a policy issue that you question, let’s divorce the issue from the specific incident and try to ask the question in a more general way:

Should a moderator continue to moderate in a thread when they have become so invested that they themselves break the rules that they are supposed to be enforcing?

If you go back to my previous thread, that’s exactly what I was asking, while also giving the specific example that prompted the question. This was the conclusion of my post:

Call me crazy, but shouldn’t being so invested in a topic that you actually break one of the primary rules of the board and drag another poster through the mud outside the Pit be a tipoff that you do not have the perspective on a subject to properly moderate the thread?

If the moderators are allowed to start locking threads any time anyone brings up points of discussion that they find personally disagreeable, this community will swiftly cease to be (a) fun and (b) devoted to fighting ignorance.

[Irishman]

And you know very well that it’s not “at least one.” It is exactly one.

I said “at least one” because

1. I’ve slept since I’ve read that thread.
2. I don’t memorize who makes each post and each post made in the thread.
3. I didn’t read through the whole thread again prior to making that post to assure exactly who said what.
4. There are people who may have posted who are former moderators. Is that relevant? I don’t know.

I said “at least one” because that was what I was sure of. “At least one” is accurate. Exactly one is at least one.

That was never my request. That was the request of one person, and everybody else (including me) said it was a bad idea.

I see that. Sorry I wasn’t clear.

[Contrapuntal]

@Gfactor

As you’ve recognized the post quoted above violates ATMB rules. I appreciate your promise that it won’t happen again, and I hope I won’t need to hold you to it.

Gfactor
ATMB Moderator

This is what happens when a member breaks a rule and then apologizes for it. Unless of course it’s twickster, who gets to chime in with a lame apology for "doing something she shouldn’t have,’ never once acknowledging the broken rule, while other mods in the same thread give it the good old la di da.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

I’ve often thought about changing my user name to “RUAMOD?THENDIE” to point out the rampant hypocrisy. If they got the Ghostbusters reference, it would probably be disallowed.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Irishman

“At least one” is accurate. Exactly one is at least one.

It’s also conveniently ambiguous in your favor. Here’s a list of everyone who posted in that thread who is or has been a board staffmember, AFAIK:

**twickster **(3 posts)
**Giraffe **(1 post, joking, former mod)
**samclem **(1 post, joking)
**Colibri **(3 posts)
**TubaDiva **(1 post, locking)

Out of all of those people, not one of them confirmed that they agreed with twickster’s initial decision to force the AA discussion to another thread.

[Czarcasm]

@Shot_From_Guns

It’s also conveniently ambiguous in your favor. Here’s a list of everyone who posted in that thread who is or has been a board staffmember, AFAIK:

**twickster **(3 posts)
**Giraffe **(1 post, joking, former mod)
**samclem **(1 post, joking)
**Colibri **(3 posts)
**TubaDiva **(1 post, locking)

Out of all of those people, not one of them confirmed that they agreed with twickster’s initial decision to force the AA discussion to another thread.

You called rollcall and nobody showed? Thath’s dithpicable! Perhaps they didn’t get the memo that all of twickster’s decisions had to be vetted by two or more other mods and/or admins. I’m sure their thank-you note for your timely reminder will be in the mail soonest.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Czarcasm

Perhaps they didn’t get the memo that all of twickster’s decisions had to be vetted by two or more other mods and/or admins.

So does that mean that you think a moderator who has a clear personal interest in the line of discussion in a thread (e.g., to the extent that they’ve already broken a board rule) is absolutely and unambiguously able to continue moderating that thread with no bias? Or are you just being cute?

[Colibri]

@Shot_From_Guns

**Colibri **(3 posts)

…

Out of all of those people, not one of them confirmed that they agreed with twickster’s initial decision to force the AA discussion to another thread.

This is a direct misrepresentation of what I said in the thread here:

@Colibri

At that point in the thread, some people were continuing to address the OP, while others were intent on debating AA amongst themselves. Since debates are not appropriate for MPSIMS, it was entirely appropriate for twickster to give instructions to take the debate to GD, as she did, rather than moving the entire thread. I frequently take the same course in GQ, and I would have done the same if I were a MPSIMS moderator. This is standard practice in forums outside GD.

[Czarcasm]

@Shot_From_Guns

So does that mean that you think a moderator who has a clear personal interest in the line of discussion in a thread (e.g., to the extent that they’ve already broken a board rule) is absolutely and unambiguously able to continue moderating that thread with no bias? Or are you just being cute?

Oooh, I get to vote? I’m definitely going with “cute”.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Colibri

This is a direct misrepresentation of what I said in the thread here:

Wow, I completely forgot that you’d said that. My apologies for totally fucking that up. However, what you did *not *do was respond to my follow-up question as to *how *the debate on AA was not on-topic (i.e., such that it should be allowed to continue or the thread moved), given the actual text of the OP, such that sending it to a new thread in another forum was reasonable (versus having a chilling effect on a discussion the moderator didn’t like).

ETA:

Czarcasm, you *are *the vote.

[Colibri]

@Shot_From_Guns

Wow, I completely forgot that you’d said that. My apologies for totally fucking that up. However, what you did *not *do was respond to my follow-up question as to *how *the debate on AA was not on-topic (i.e., such that it should be allowed to continue or the thread moved), given the actual text of the OP, such that sending it to a new thread in another forum was reasonable (versus having a chilling effect on a discussion the moderator didn’t like)…

I didn’t respond because I had already addressed the issue in the exact part of my post I quoted. It was MPSIMS, not Great Debates. As such a debate was not appropriate for the thread, even if related to the OP. It was appropriate to ask the debate aspects be taken to another forum.

As I posted in the other thread, after her initial error, twickster did nothing outside of the norm in moderating the thread. Your complaints are unjustified.

[Contrapuntal]

@Colibri

As I posted in the other thread, after her initial error, twickster did nothing outside of the norm in moderating the thread. Your complaints are unjustified.

Well, she ordered me to “take it to ATMB” without noting that she was acting as a mod. Is that the norm?

[Colibri]

@Contrapuntal

Well, she ordered me to “take it to ATMB” without noting that she was acting as a mod. Is that the norm?

Are you unaware that she is a mod?

[Contrapuntal]

@Colibri

Are you unaware that she is a mod?

Of course not. Have you read that thread?

How could I point out that she failed to note that her actions were mod actions if I did not know she was a mod?

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Colibri

I didn’t respond because I had already addressed the issue in the exact part of my post I quoted. It was MPSIMS, not Great Debates. As such a debate was not appropriate for the thread, even if related to the OP. It was appropriate to ask the debate aspects be taken to another forum.

So if the OP of an MPSIMS thread calls for a debate, why wouldn’t you just move the whole thread to GD? Why is the answer to *force *people to stop talking about the thing they want to discuss which is a *direct reply *to the *specific question *of the OP?

It never should have been in MPSIMS–the whole point of the OP was to request opinions/debate. So why was the answer to force the on-topic debate to another thread and then lock the original instead of moving the whole thing to GD/IMHO?

And I make the same request I made before, which not one person was able to respond to: if you think it was appropriate to force the discussion out and lock the thread, can you give me one other example of anyone doing this in any other thread?

I just did a quick search for *moved IMHO *using the board engine and here are some relevant threads just from the first page of returns (out of at least a dozen pages):

Calling All Armchair Diagnosticians: moved from MPSIMS to IMHO by twickster
honda 100k check: moved from Cafe Society to IMHO by twickster
Guests over who Will. Not. Leave. What can you do? (Do not need answers fast): moved from GD? to IMHO by Gary “Wombat” Robson

Do you think that in each of those threads the people answering the OP’s questions should have instead been instructed to start a new IMHO thread?

[Colibri]

I’ve already answered that, in my experience as a mod, twickster’s actions were not inappropriate for the thread. I don’t think I need to respond further on this (unless I am misrepresented again).

[twickster]

Look, SFG, there were two ways to handle it – the way you wanted me to do it (move it immediately), and the way I tried to do it (allow a non-debate discussion of multiple options for dealing with alcoholism in MPSIMS, while having a debate on the specific issue of AA in GD). I acknowledge that the way you wanted me to do it would have been a legitimate choice.

Is there any chance you could acknowledge that what I was trying to do – facilitate discussion of people’s personal experiences of ways of dealing with alcoholism, *in addition to * a facts-and-figures debate – might also be a legitimate moderatorial choice?

[Ostrya]

The SDMB has forum dedicated and designated to debating. Everyone agrees that forum should be held to only that.

But if a discussion breaks out that resembles a debate in a fluff forum like MPSIMS, why should it be disallowed there?

MPSIMS is a forum advertised as a dedicated decoupage of miscellaneous mishmash. Why can’t that occasionally include a discussion that resembles debate? What’s the problem with it? Why does it need to be acted upon?

Don’t the mods have better things to do with their time than nitpick over debate-like discussion occurring in a forum called Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share?

[Contrapuntal]

@Colibri

Are you unaware that she is a mod?

Hold it. Did I misunderstand you? Are you suggesting that every time a mod speaks she is acting as a mod? Or rather* is it the norm* that when a moderator is acting as a mod she makes a note in some way shape or fashion that she is acting as a mod? You know, like in the very thread in question?

[twickster]

I generally make an effort to be clear when I’m acting as a mod, but am sure I’ve failed to do so once or twice, esp. in cases where I couldn’t not be acting as a mod (moving or closing a thread, e.g.).