Bad call on closing the thread. The jokes may be tasteless, but they weren’t harming anyone. Just because you personally don’t like the jokes isn’t a good enough reason to close a thread. Complete bullshit.
So, it’s still a bad decision, but at least it has precedent!
I never said anything of the sort actually. I was just commenting that (1) those jokes were of a different nature than the ones The Gaspode was comparing them two, (2) they weren’t being made as a coping mechanism (at least not any more), and (3) the closure of the thread was (in my opinion) not much of a loss.
I then posted an additional comment saying that there are clearly some joke threads that are offensive enough to warrant closure, whether that was one or not.
I never said anything to remotely suggest that people “couldn’t bear a few tasteless jokes.”
I was simply offering up an opposite to your suggestion about people needing to be enough over the Challenger disaster to stop making defense mechanism jokes about it.
On a completely-unrelated-to-your-post point, what about the Celebrity Death Pool threads? Here we have a thread dedicated to the celebration of recent deaths for sport, that routinely gets thousands of views and hudreds of posts in the course of a year, and no one says dickie bird about it. If tasteless jokes about something that happened two decades ago are so horrible, one would think a thread about people competing to see who dies next would be beyond the pale.
What I always find most amusing about these sorts of threads that get closed not because they break a rule but because a mod doesn’t like ‘em is that had the thread been left open in many cases the thread would’ve died on its own in a day or two. Instead, closing them generally inspires someone to open a thread like this one questioning the decision, thus insuring the topic stays on peoples’ minds for a lot longer.
Precedent, yes, in that we made a decision with which you don’t agree. Disagreement on this board isn’t surprising, so there’s also precedent for successfully arguing why a thread should re-open. Simply labeling something as “lame” and throwing out a few quips doesn’t carry much weight, however.
Actually, there’s not much precedent for that at all, if you care to look.
Neither does labeling something as “distasteful” and locking it away, apparently.
What purpose is solved by closing that thread? While open, was it a cause for controversy? Had you received complaints? No? Then why close it? You didn’t like it, but I was not aware that the purpose of the board was to amuse the moderators. The rest of the 'Dope, it seemed, was content to ignore the thread, save for the small handful that was enjoying participation in it. Why was any sort of mod intervention necessary in the first place? Instead of a small, probably short-lived, mostly unremarkable MPSIMS thread, we’ve now got yet another tedious debate about board moderation, which is likely to draw out to several frustrating pages without any sort of meaningful conclusion.
Smooth move there, guys. Way to earn those coffee cups.
None, that I can see. But then, there is considerable precedent for purposeless moderation around here. I suppose the price of eternal vigilance against trollery and other undesirables is to put up with fair amount of anal moderation. This recent example, for instance, which was moved from IMHO to MPSIMS for no obvious reason. The IMHO forum description reads, in part, “For frank exchanges of views on less-than-cosmic topics. This is also the place for polling.” Why couldn’t it have stayed there? Beats hell outta me. It was certainly a frank echange of views on a less-than cosmic toipic, and it might even be loosely considered a poll. But it was moved. Go figger.
That was a general “you” and not a specific one.
As for the rest: yes, we received several complaints about the thread. We don’t always agree about thread complaints, but this time we did; so we closed down the thread. We weren’t going to leave it open because it had been overrun with tasteless jokes, anyway, and we didn’t want to encourage similar tasteless joke collections in the future. And again: nothing is stopping HubZilla (or anyone else who’s interested) in starting another thread focused on the underlying question of the first OP. The search for knowledge can live on.
If it’s just Challenger jokes you’re pining for, however, there’s a whole Internet out there where you can find your fix. It just won’t happen here.
I’d ask what your definition of “tasteless” is, but it would probably be more things than not under the sun. Especially since you seemed to have glossed over Otto’s post re: death pool threads.
I’m also curious as to who the mental giants whose sensibilities are so offended about a joke thread that instead of closing it on their screen, they ask the board to close it so no one can see it. Come on out of the shadows. Let’s give you the proper pitting too.
… or I missed it since it was posted right before a comment of mine.
At any rate, there’s a difference between threads devoted to guessing the death dates of the famous and infamous, and a thread devoted to exploiting the deaths of seven people–killed in a horrible accident–for cheap laughs. If you don’t see the tastelessness of the latter, I guess we’re just not going to agree.
I thought I unsubscribed to this thread, but I guess I didn’t, since I keep getting e-mail notices.
Every time I get one, I read the thread title and I think to myself “They’re both looking for a tight seal?”
Sorry, Cajun Man.
I am not sure what I love more: the implied morally superior attitude or the fact that you somehow feel honor bound to defend a call made by another moderator.
It’s the part that you find tastelessness in the latter but are ok with the greenlight for the former that makes your decision stink to high heaven.
And there’s that disagreement. I’m sure you’ll live.
Whoa, whoa. Hold on a second. Are we forgetting this thread? http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=87707&page=1&pp=50
This was made on September 17th, and it contained distasteful humor as well. It probably was more distasteful than the Challenger thread, and yet, it was funny as hell. It went to a full EIGHT pages before it was closed, and the thread title contained the words “WTC humor”, so it wasn’t like a mod missed it.
And yet, the Challenger thread (based on an event that occurred in 1986 was closed?
Please.
Not to say that I disliked either thread, I’m a big fan of dark humor, but it was ridiculous to close that thread.
I had no problem with you closing the thread, hell I have no problem if you all wanted to close every other thread you deemed offensive after all it is your board.
But is there really a reason to get smartass about it? If someone put in a suggestion box in their American wooden balls store and someone said "You should carry Chinese glass balls" you would reply in a civil way as to not lose a potential customer not a smartass way that would lose that customer as well as possible word of mouth customers.
Of course I could be missing the whole point, it just sounds like almost every reply in here was defensive not an explaination. The other thing I have noticed is in the threads where a Mod or Admin is asked a question, they seem to not appear, or if they do its a one post and gone. Then other mods seem to come to answer it for them. Seems to be a bit like a game.
But bottom line is its your board, run it how you like, but you should respect your customers to the best of your ability.
If its rule, say it and ignore the rest, if its a personal decision call, say so and explain it nicely and ignore the rest, if its a mistake, accept it and move on.
Ah, shit, didn’t see Troy McClure SF’s post. Well, my opinion still stands.
I 100% agree with this sentence. “The thread was tasteless” is pretty much a bullshit explanation here. May we expect you to start closing all TMI threads (especially those concerning female issues, which, being a guy, I find especially tasteless due to, well, I’m a guy), and to start closing all “horror du jour” threads (especially those concerning the various tortures some would inflict on the perpatrator of the horror, which I find especially tasteless due to the desire to inflict torture), and to start closing all baseball threads (especially those which don’t acknowledge the 1969-71 Orioles as the greatest team ever, which I find especially tasteless because they were)?
I repeat: “The thread was tasteless” is pretty much a bullshit explanation here. This is not what I expect from the SDMB.
Flying lumps of foam?
It could be that we are just trying to raise the tone around here a bit.