Good point.
You know years ago, when dinosaurs walked the earth, a few posters had convinced the staff here that revealing magic tricks was also illegal. 
So, say it is unethical, or immoral or unprofessional, but maybe not illegal unless you can absolutely positively back it up.
And before this, I had no issues with gdave, he was a good poster. But attacking the staff like this in not one but two flounces- especially when totally wrong about the illegal part- I have lost any sympathy .
Well, in the USA, it’s certainly illegal to distribute something that features children in sexual situations.
But your larger point stands.
Remember, flouncing is a virtue. We want posters to take time off from the board when it’s not useful for them. And we want them to come back when they’re ready. The alternative is disruptive behavior and moderator action.
Exactly.
“Flouncing” is not simply “stepping away for a while”. To flounce is
“to leave an online group in a dramatic manner,” and may or may not involve burning a few bridges or stirring the pot on the way out.
Someone who flounces doesn’t leave quietly or calmly, they give a diatribe about how awful the place is, often in fine detail, and explain how they will never be here again. Failing to stick the flounce means being gone for a while only to show up again saying “And another thing!”, or starting posting again like nothing ever happened.
As long as they aren’t breaking any rules, it’s good that they let out their emotions, so that they actually do come back later without baggage.
I do not agree with this. Having an unconrolled emotional outburst that you regret later is perfectly human, but nothing that I would ever describe as a virtue.
Tone-policing posters off the board is not productive.
There’s a broad difference between “fuck you motherfuckers! I hope the servers explode and wipe your garbage posts off the internet!” and “I’m feeling very aggrieved and here are my reasons for leaving.”
Gdave’s post is clearly the latter and, as has been pointed out, posters in this thread have been broadly supportive of him as a member of this community even when they’ve disagreed with his interpretation of events.
As I said earlier, I hope gdave will evaluate the timeline of events (re: the timing of the video being taken down relative to his conversation with Chronos) and perhaps reconsider whether he’s being fair. Likewise his feelings about said conversation being purposefully removed from his message history.
I also think it would be reasonable, if he wanted it, for the mods to forward/screenshot/whatever the conversation he lost access to (though not the portion that was meant only for the mod loop) though, again, I have no particular desire to see it for myself.
It might be good practice going forward for mods to offer that to any poster who loses a message history in that manner. I can’t imagine it happens too terribly often, though perhaps I’m underestimating the amount of vigorous moderator v. poster debate happening behind the scenes.
J_B’s point above, PLUS in many ways, it’s more adult that the actions of some posters, who have -repeatedly- fought notes/warnings in this very forum over and over, often attempting to relitigate the same issues that got them noted/warned. To lay it all out and get out is in no way worse than fighting tooth and nail over a similar conflict with Mods. And @gdave’s complaints have in no way been more vituperous than the posters in such threads.
And further, unlike posters who earn and receive bans and sock up to return and re-fight their old fights, gdave didn’t. They were probably checking back to see if their leaving had prompted any changes or following up on people they actively liked on the board, only to see that from their POV nothing had changed and that we were simultaneously having a fight over the right to be cruel in the language thread.
So TL:DR, a flounce is a self-imposed exile, and can be a positive one, gdave isn’t banned or suspended in anyway and is as equally free to come and go as any other non-suspended poster.
And yet the board has rules about tone. Things you can and can’t say to posters, how you can and can’t say them, where you can and can’t say it. This board isn’t tone deaf. Tone says things about you. Tone weighs on how people read your arguments. Tone matters. People who complain about “tone policing” are asking for the right to be jerky.
Since tone policing is one of those terms that has a meaning that isn’t immediately obvious:
I’ve heard the term many times before. My evaluation of it stands.
Hence,
Complaining that you don’t like how someone else expresses their opinion while following the rules is tone policing. And it damages the board.
If someone gets mad, leaves, and then comes back, that is a good thing for this board, as it is much better than them breaking the rules and getting booted.
I agree.
Complaining about complaining about how someone expresses their opinion is also tone policing. You are saying I have no right to have a lesser opinion of someone who can’t control their emotional outbursts or maintain a civil tone. (And I do.)
I always assumed flounce = flee+announce. As in, you are running away but make a bit show about it, turning it into a performance. Sort of like a publicly-broadcasted exit interview, except you’re offering info without being asked.
It’s like “flaming out”, except a person that flames out typically acts in a manner that gets them banned/ejected, rather than leaving on their own terms. (Though generally a person who flames out is probably not wanting to stay anyway, they have a “fuck this place, I’m going to smash stuff until they kick me out” attitude.)
In this case gdave didn’t flame out and I expect they’d be welcomed back if they wanted to.
No, I am not saying that. I am not complaining about how you are expressing yourself. Nor have I expressed mine opinion of you. I am saying that your actions have negative consequences.
It isn’t a neologism. Dates back to the 1540s, so definitely a paleologism.
I didn’t think it was, I figured it was a portmanteau, like galumph (which isn’t a neologism either since Lewis Carroll coined it in 1872, or at least after 150 years I don’t consider a word a neologism). Merriam-Webster considers it a portmanteau at least.
Carroll likely constructed the word by splicing gallop and triumphant (galumph did in its earliest uses convey a sense of exultant bounding).
Clearly I was wrong about “flounce” though.
But you are right that it has always carried emotional connotations of trying to call attention to one’s aggrieved departure. Nobody ever “unobtrusively flounced from the room” or “stealthily flounced to the door to elude observation”.