# What\_Exit?'s moderation in the NJ Senator Menendez indicted thread
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [October 13, 2023, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527 "2023-10-13T18:12:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/1 "2023-10-13T18:12:15Z")
This [post](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nj-senator-menendez-indicted-on-multiple-corruption-charges-2023-09-22/990544/128) here. Talks about Republican corruption but here’s the thing. The thread is about Sen. Menendez - a **Democratic** senator. I called it a tu quoque argument. RitterSport says RitterSport is not defending Menendez in that post.
Reminder that this is a thread about Menendez and not Republicans so what relevance then was Northern Piper’s post?
So I point out that Northern Piper’s post is a tu quoque or at least a non sequitur unless he can relate Republican corruption to Menendez’s corruption. tl;dr Northern Piper makes an anti-Republican post and I point out that that post has nothing to do with Menendez **in a Menendez thread**.
Anyone want to guess who’s post was hidden and informed not to bring them up after it died off. My original reply was to Northern Piper’s usage of a fallacy, and my reply to RitterSport only mentioned Republicans to clarify the fallacy. So I guess if someone talks about the Armenian Genocide in a thread on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in a thread and there is no mod warning about talking about the Genocide, then you are not allowed to reply, “This is a thread about the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. The Ottomans have nothing to do with it.” because **YOU** are the one posting an off-topic post.
Now I know a lot of you will say, “Hey Saint Cad, you didn’t get warned or even noted.” True, but I bring this up as the latest What the Hell is going on with moderation thinking. I guess the members will decide if it is worthy of discussion or ignoring.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/2 "2023-10-13T18:14:25Z")
I explained why. You felt the need to start this anyway.
Start flagging posts you have problems with, don’t restart hijacks.
The post you were talking about was 22 hours old. No one flagged it.
My replies to your PM:
> Why didn’t you flag his post?
>
> Also which post?
> Are you talking about this post from yesterday?
>
> [NJ Senator Menendez indicted on multiple corruption charges {2023-09-22} - #128 by Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nj-senator-menendez-indicted-on-multiple-corruption-charges-2023-09-22/990544/128)
>
> If so, please flag such, don’t continue the hijack that had died down.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/3 "2023-10-13T18:18:07Z")
@Saint_Cad has a fair point. I shouldn’t have posted it. By the time that occurred to me, it was too late for me to delete it. My apologies.
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### Author:  [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/4 "2023-10-13T18:18:42Z")
Not only that, but @Northern_Piper had already acknowledged the hijack and voluntarily stopped contributing to it. I guess you missed that in your own close reading of posts.
> [@NJ Senator Menendez indicted on multiple corruption charges {2023-09-22}](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nj-senator-menendez-indicted-on-multiple-corruption-charges-2023-09-22/990544/132):
>
> Quite true. I’ll stop. More directly related to Menendez, he had a cameo in one of Legal Eagle’s Trump videos recently. LE was talking about the need to properly account for all one’s income and then there was a still shot of Menendez, with gold bars and dollar signs falling down around him. Was only up for a couple of seconds, just enough to register, and then LE was on to the next point he wanted to make.
You resurrected a hijack that would have been modded if someone had flagged it.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/5 "2023-10-13T18:19:51Z")
A fair point, poorly handled.
A flag of your post would have been the thing to do, not start a further hijack about it.
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/6 "2023-10-13T19:14:31Z")
**Moderator Note**
The thread title has been changed as the original title was far more appropriate for the Pit than ATMB.
ATMB is not the Pit. You may not Pit moderators. You may not engage in Pit-style attacks on moderators in ATMB. This includes Pit-style comments in thread titles.
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> I bring this up as the latest What the Hell is going on with moderation thinking.
Attacks like this are also not permitted. You can make your point without insulting and attacking the staff.
Do not do this again.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/7 "2023-10-13T19:21:02Z")
For the record: if the issue were calling out Northern Piper for his use of a fallacy then that would be one thing because that’s what I did. Last I checked, posters were allowed to call out logical fallacies when they saw them. How many times have we seen, “Nice lookin’ strawman ya got dere.”
But to mod a post that says “This thread has nothing to do with Republicans” by telling me, “Don’t bring up Republicans” seems to me that you had not really read the post or even the series of responses. This is what happened.
Northern Piper: Rant against Republicans in a thread about a Democrat
Me: That’s a fallacy (no mention of Republicans)
RitterSport: He wasn’t talking about the Democratic subject of this thread.
Me: That’s why his rant against Republicans is a fallacy
What\_Exit: I see the word “Republican” in the last post. Invoking mod mode.
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/8 "2023-10-13T19:30:53Z")
If you read the thread, @Northern_Piper made a joke about Republicans putting up their hands if they haven’t been putting other countries ahead of the US (post 117). Sage Rat, I guess, didn’t see it as a joke and really starts the hijack (post 121). Northern Piper then continues with the hijack for a few posts, and then apologizes and gets back on topic.
Sometime later, you claim NP was defending Menendez, which he definitely wasn’t. Then you bring Republicans back into the thread and that’s when the moderator steps in.
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> RitterSport: He wasn’t talking about the Democratic subject of this thread.
I said he wasn’t defending Menendez, because he wasn’t defending Menendez. I just checked and I wrote that almost exactly. He made a joke about Republicans for sure, which was taken seriously, and he explained why his joke applied to Republicans (all part of a hijack), but he never defended Menendez.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/9 "2023-10-13T19:39:50Z")
> [@RitterSport](#):
>
> I said he wasn’t defending Menendez, because he wasn’t defending Menendez.
Given that it was a Menendez thread, I read it as a tu quoque argument. Tu quoques often do not say “My side is right because …”. They just go immediatly into “Your side does it too.” In my response to you I said if not a tu quoque then at least a non sequitur - but that was hidden by What\_Exit so I’m assuming you didn’t see that.
But none of that is the point of this thread my claiming a fallacy. It has everything to do with me using the word “Republican” in my reply to you in saying he shouldn’t be talking about Republicans and What\_Exit hiding that post saying Don’t talk about Republicans.
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/10 "2023-10-13T19:43:44Z")
Because the hijack had already gone away, and you were bringing it back. I was going to ask that people stay on topic (again), but then NP came in and apologized for the hijack and went back on topic. Then, many posts later, you brought it back up again.
It wasn’t a tu quoque argument because he was just explaining a joke. I guess the joke used tu quoque as its basis, but it was just a joke, that SR took seriously and NP then felt he had to defend (and apologized).
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/11 "2023-10-13T20:08:31Z")
Got anything to say about the “You should have flagged it” part of the moderation?
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/12 "2023-10-13T20:11:31Z")
I disagree with that as well since we call out fallacies all of the time or when people are off-topic. Plus there was no mod note at the time saying “Don’t talk about Republicans.” If What\_Exit says I should have reported it, then I’d like to know what rule he violated worthy of reporting.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2023, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/13 "2023-10-13T20:14:40Z")
His bit on the Republicans was off-topic. Pretty clear. But No mod saw it and no one flagged it either. Yours I saw and I put a stop to hijacks about the Republican party.
Someone going off-topic is not an excuse to keep up a hijack.
Also, this is really a lot when no warning was issued. Just a modnote to stop a hijack that also addressed all posters.
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2023, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exit-s-moderation-in-the-nj-senator-menendez-indicted-thread/991527/14 "2023-10-15T05:06:40Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> I disagree with that as well since we call out fallacies all of the time or when people are off-topic.
I try to avoid pointing out when people are off-topic because I see that as junior modding, which is also not allowed.
I flag the off-topic posts and if I have something to contribute on topic I will in the hopes that it steers things back.
But I’m not a mod and don’t pretend to be one.