Admittedly I engaged in some snark early on but then I studiously avoided engaging with my opponent in that thread from then on.
Much later I tossed a dash of snark in but softballs really and well, well below thread locking threshold I think.
I thought I and the others in the thread were managing a relatively polite discourse. There was a little heat but again I thought easily within board rules.
One guy continued his usual jibes throughout but is it the policy of the Board to let one guy zap a whole thread? Seems a bit unfair to the rest.
I had some replies I wanted to make that (I think) would have been on topic and relevant and snark free (mostly and again easily within the bounds of other threads where people take light jabs at each other).
There are worse things than handing out warnings when things get a little over-heated. Some historians debate certain events forever! There is always something new that someone can find to shed a little light – or at least one can hope someone will be motivated to dig further. I think it’s a great use of the Straight Dope!
Indeed. I have no doubt that if God himself (or herself) came down and proclaimed the truth on this that some in that thread would still remain unconvinced.
There were others in that thread who, while staking out a position, I think were being honest about the debate and could be swayed.
As noted I avoided one person in particular who was being overtly antagonistic and (after a few initial posts) I refused to respond to. I did respond to everyone else though and think I did so in an appropriate manner.
Just bummed one guy could solo deep-six a whole thread. I had some good responses I stewed on a bit while bored at a company function.
I have no opinion on this particular case (which I haven’t read) but I do agree with the general sentiment. I think it happens too often that someone becomes a jerk in a thread and that leads to the thread being closed. Why? It is not like there is a limited supply of warnings they have to save. Warn the sucker and let the thread live.
One wonders why this particular moderator’s name gets brought up so often in this regard. It seems, from what I’ve seen, to be to the exclusion of everyone else but for Dex in a discussion about this particular moderator. This really makes one ponder what relative merit there is in having a moderator who causes more problems than he fixes.
I’m not a mod here, but I do mod elsewhere on the net. Locking a thread is sometimes the simplest solution to a problem. Much easier than going back through the thread and trying to figure out who threw the first punch at who, issuing a warning or two and then dealing with the inevitable complaints about “I got warned but not the other guy, and his was worse than mine”, etc.
I will note, though, that this board has an alternative–the thread could be moved to the Pit, and let the posters therein have at it.
Weird. He closed it, but not before getting in his two cents worth (as a poster, not a moderator.) It seems to me that if the thread were wandering into a bad realm it was wandering before his penultimate post.
Eh, Great Debates is by far the most contentious forum, and Tom seems to be the one who watches it during the most active time of the day. I suspect replacing him would just lead to his replacement getting the same amount of heat.
Perhaps. Perhaps it’s my limited time here. But how about we try it for a month, which is about how long I’ve been here, and see if the proportion changes.
You call it a demotion; I call it a way to determine whether your conjecture holds water. Moreover, the suggestion isn’t mine alone; he gets more traffic here than all the other mods combined from what I’ve seen. Of course, I’ve been here a month only; perhaps it’s the case that it’s just been an unlucky flurry of activity I’ve noticed.
I’m not looking to have anyone demoted or anything. Just curious why the thread got locked.
I e-mailed and received a reply from one of the survivors of the USS Liberty attack and thought it would be relevant to the thread. As noted I was being careful to stay well, well under GD warning/locking/banning language and I think most everyone else was too. I have seen far worse get by on GD. Puzzled why this one got stopped.
I don’t think he causes any problems. The problems are caused by the posters. All Tom does is moderate them. Great Debates is as heated as the Pit, except that it has stricter rules than the Pit. Always has. That’s just the way it is. In the Pit, you can say, “You’re a liar and an idiot.” Great Debates merely requires tact. There, you say, “Your post is misleading and inaccurate, and frankly is idiotic.” You attack the post, not the postER.
So, Tom’s job is actually harder than a Pit job (Ed’s rules notwithstanding). He has to ensure civility. Rather than talking about throwing Tom out, there should be talk about closing certain people off from the forum. I think the software allows that. At least, it should
ETA: Oh. And the reason he gets mentioned so often is because there are so many crybabies who don’t know how to use tact, and are upset because Daddy isn’t being fair, or some such nonsense. They feel slighted, and they peck at their keyboards to relieve some tension. They blame him, and so he’s the one they bring up.
You saw one guy making jabs. I saw more than one guy dropping shots into the discussion, after we had already had an intervention, and I was really not looking forward to coming back and handing out Warnings.
“Jabs” appear to be in the eye of the beholder.
I dd not think that anyone had violated the rules–yet–but it looked to my jaundiced eye as though the tempers were heating up, again.
A couple of those folks have posted, here, in earlier threads on this topic.
I don’t think that their comments will change any views. On the other hand, while I suspect that I am merely flicking my lighter near the fuel vent, I am willing to give the thread another chance, based on the idea of “additional information.”
Having closed it once, of course, I am not going to have any reluctance to close it again.
You do realize, I hope, that my post was a bit tongue-in-cheek. You will note that it took no position on the actual debate and that it simply carried on the tradition of the Straight Dope in attempting to fight a bit of ignorance. I am not even sure that the “error” was anything more than a slight memory lapse, (the Liberty class freighter was so ubiquitously discussed around WWII, that many people simpy forget about the possibility of the Victory class), or a good, educated guess that simply happened to be off the mark.
Dex has assured me that there is a policy of seeing which mods get reported most often. If the other mods and admins didn’t think that tomndebb was doing a good job, he wouldn’t be a mod.
Liberal, buddy: everyone always says you want to bash tomndebb. Thus I’m surprised to see you defending him. Cool.
Why? Anyone reading the thread, (or rushing to read it once it had been closed, to see what was going on), would have benefitted from my minor correction of a non-issue point.
I see no reason to hide information simply because a thread is being closed.
Wassamatter? You afraid that someone will not confuse Liberty and Victory ships in the future and bring chaos to your plans for world domination?
