I’m sorry to see you go. I like your avatar.
I would, gently, suggest that an alternative to leaving forever is to only leave until you’re less invested in your interactions here. In my opinion there is absolutely no interaction with internet strangers worth getting worked up over.
The ability to disengage rather than get heated is a luxury don’t often have in real life.
But if this place is giving you that much grief, then leaving altogether is a good solution. I wish you well.
On re-read of my post, perhaps my tone can be misconstrued. It is meant in the spirit of the above. It’s just a message board. If it’s getting to you, for your own sake, do leave or take a break. I know I’ve had to walk away for a few weeks every so often, myself.
I said the same thing once. It took me a little more than a year to get over it. I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong here, but I hope to eventually see you around again.
If a poster announces he’s leaving, some will perceive that as “Please beg me to stay.” And some people reach that point where they can get incensed at others for not respecting their decision. Some readers will be glad to know at least there was a goodbye; they don’t want to wonder later whatever happened to…?
I agree with that basically. I would add that I’m not sure which thread the OP referenced but if the rest of us don’t know it was unacceptable, maybe we’ll post something similar.
This isn’t a banning—I would hope a group of mods would make that level of decision, like SCOTUS or whatever. Rather, this is a voluntary departure. It seems like reasonable, common sense to take a little time away and look at the situation when emotions aren’t running high. But OP I’ll wish you the best, whatever you decide.
MHO as well. If it is stressful in any fashion, walk away. If it becomes less stressful a day, week, month, year or whenever later come back if you like.
I hope gdave reconsiders at some point - I think he’s a good poster. But only if he decides he is getting more out of it than he is losing.
I think there was a misunderstanding. There was a post that gdave thought obviously grossly inappropriate. The issue was not obvious to chronos, who asked questions to better understand it. For the record, it wasn’t immediately obvious to any of the mods who participated in that group DM.
But I had the benefit of entering the discussion later, so after reading gdave’s replies to chronos, i understood the issue. I agree that it was right to remove the post, and i agree I’m part because of some of your comments to chronos.
Anyway, thanks, gdave, for bringing it to the attention of the mods. I agree with both the sentiment that if this board brings you stress, your should leave, and also that i hope you eventually decide to return.
(Also, technical note about Discourse: it handles reports in an unintuitive way. When you report a post as “other” it creates a group DM between you and the mods. The mods can remove you from the DM to continue the discussion among themselves, and often do so. In fact, we consider it best practice to discuss issues in private. But posters often find it disconcerting that the DM disappears. In this case, after gdave told us he planned to take a break from the board, one of the mods removed him from the DM.)
For the record, I think this is sound advice from two excellent posters. Step back. Take the time you need. The board needs as many perspectives as possible, and having a poster leave is saddening, but not worth your mental or emotional stress.
There are days when a poster makes me want to pull out my hair, and thank the FSM, I have the tools to ignore them, but that doesn’t help with a Mod. And since I’m not party to the discussion or the thread, I’m not going to be able in any way judge the good faith or possible misunderstandings of the parties involved.
And it does not matter - @gdave can make those decisions, as they are (presumably) an adult. And we’ve had many, many threads about how behavior can be insulting or offensive even if that was in no way the intent.
Again, take the time you need. And if in the future, you feel that being back here is good for your edutainment (I use the word unironically, as this is the BEST place for that particular portmanteau), then I (and others) would be happy to have you back, even if Chronos is still a feature.
Best of luck out there in the crazy, crazy world we live in.
Yet another endorsement of taking a break. There is nothing so great here that it is worth experiencing much stress over. It sounds like many of us have found other entertainment for periods of time. For me starting back in Cafe Society and staying out of the fora that seem to be bring out the more jerky and arrogant posters for a while longer was enough.
Maybe just stay out of fora moderated by the specific mod for now?
Participation here is something we do for fun. For many of us these are otherwise stressful times and we need our play. When it isn’t fun it is time to do some other play activity. Put this one back in the toy box for bit. Maybe in a month the next toy will annoy or bore and you’ll pull this back out and play with it again. Or not.
Take care in any case.
But, but, but, who’s going to post long and rambling analyses in the Arrowverse threads? I may not respond to each, but I definitely read every one. You will be missed.
Since we have no way of judging for ourselves which, if any, of the parties involved were in the right or in the wrong, I’ll just say that I’m sorry that the OP feels sufficiently aggrieved to have to leave, and would suggest that they not burn any bridges to prevent a later return. Lord knows I’ve taken a few breaks from being here due to being fed up with some shit or another, and it’s done me good to do so.
Anyway: take care of yourself, gdave. There are more important things in life than internet messageboards.
IDK about your specific circumstances but Mods are human too and make mistakes, but those mistakes are golden opportunities to admit that they are human. One of my shining moments when a mod called me out on something, and another poster (not a mod) called out that mod for the exact same thing in the exact same thread. I think the wording was Modname get you own house in order, then quoted his or her violation of what they accused me of. And that was the right thing to do. It was a thing of beauty and sometimes a apology with a explanation goes a very long way like I was having a bad day at work got yelled at because … and sort of took it out on you.
Uncontrolled and privileged moderation has been the downfall of many boards and tends to just end up with the same group think, which is the opposite of the mission. Perhaps you both can have a lovely chat and kiss and make up.
I agree. This type of thread is often filled with lots of ‘this isn’t an airport, you don’t have to announce your departure’ replies. Plus, it’s been observed on many, many occasions that plenty of posters that announce their departure are back within a few days, if they ever leave at all. Though those do tend to be the ‘flash in the pan’ style posters. The ones that haven’t been around for all that long and are known for getting worked up pretty easily. I don’t think that’s the case for the OP. I see it happening more with the type of posters that, after posting for a year, are convinced the mods are out to get them for some random reason. Even more so if they’ve talked about similar things happening at other boards. They also have a habit of arguing with everyone in their departure thread.
To each their own, but what I’ve always found effective is when the person just sorta fades away. A poster that’s only been around a short time and creates a thread like this tends to turn themselves into the bad guy. A poster that’s been around for a long time runs the risk of burning some bridges on the way out. Not starting an ‘I’m leaving and this is why…’ thread gives people the ability to come back after a few weeks/months/years like nothing happened. Plus, if anyone is curious, it’s easy enough to look through their posting history and see, for example in a case like this, their last posts were a conflict with a mod.
On the other hand, like has been stated, it’s not a bad thing for people to say “I’m leaving and this is why…”, if what they’re saying is actually constructive, like it is here. The details are too obscure for anyone that didn’t read whatever thread is being discussed to understand any of the particulars, but there’s just enough details that it creates a track record (or continues a pattern, in some cases) should other people have similar issues.
Luckily, IMO, that’s not a threat for us. Sure, some mods may have overstayed their welcome (from the regular poster’s POV) and some posters have gotten away with far more than they should have, but overall I don’t think we’ve ever had any real issues with over or undermodding. There’s plenty of boards like those and they tend to be pretty bad. Especially in the day and age of reddit where anyone can create a forum for free and mod it almost however they want. It runs the gamut from banning anyone for just about any reason all the way to abandoning the sub, leaving it with no mods at all.
What is the point of publicly announcing a departure due to a specific interaction…and then not share the interaction that caused it?
Like, why bother saying ‘well we had words, I’m put off,’ I’m not sharing it with you, but def be sad I’m stomping off!
If you want allies, or action, or understanding more info is def required.
At this point all anyone can say is, ok then, ‘g’bye’, I guess!
Hope you’ll reconsider one day.
Because all the people who AREN’T Chronos, will miss you and your input. And really not understand why you even left.
I’ll just wish you happier times ahead and thank you for the input you have provided.
I think these should be mandatory. I want to know when someone is so mistreated he can’t stay on a messageboard anymore, and his reasons for leaving. I’m curious, and I’m edified, even if I disagree with the person leaving. Don’t be so judgmental of the person–you may be in that position yourself someday.
I also don’t really care if the person changes his mind and decides to come back. If he was a total dick in his leavetaking–“FUCK ALL OF YUZ!!” etc–I might give him a little teasing upon his return, but honestly I’ve gotten the back of some thoughtless Mod’s hand, or been abused on a board with no Mod intervening on my behalf when I felt that was called for, that I can only sympathize. Modding is hard, but that’s no excuse for doing the job badly, and I’d be astonished if a dozen posters every year didn’t feel like leaving because some Mod abused his/her authority. Frankly, I think some Mods (here and elsewhere) overstep their authority routinely and the PTB form a circle around the abusive Mod until we all forget about the inciting incident.
In sports, people sometimes say “Kill the ump/ref/whatever,” if they make an unpopular decision or (gasp) make a mistake. But humans are fallible and can only do their best. Without them, there’s no game. So it is here. My assumption has been that mods do the job so we can have the boards. Do they get paid? Are there any perqs to being a mod? Does it go on your CV? If it’s a case of a certain mod getting cranky, why is he/she still inclined to mod? Just bitter and taking it out on the world? And once you’ve heard people upset about a mod, are you likely to fill the void and become a mod yourself? I’m not being snarky; to me it sounds like a thankless task but maybe there are factors I don’t know.
IME, most fair-minded people don’t require that you agree with their every opinion, but they do expect to be heard. We had a thread in this forum about jokes and people were able to say what they wanted. Lookng toward the future, we do have a polling feature. You could have “OP is overreacting” or “Mod is overreacting” or whatever.
But it sounds like the OP’s situation quickly escalated, with little time for discussion.
For my part, I’m sad to see gdave go. gdave sent me a supportive PM when I posted about emotional problems my older son was having. gdave, I hope the absence does you good, and I hope you return if and when the time is right for you.
The SDMB is one of the healthiest online communities I’ve ever seen. Where some people see ‘routine abuse of power,’ I see proactive management. Very rarely do I see a stink in ATMB that seems worth the effort of typing it, and in the instances of legitimate grievance I’ve often seen the mods back off and rescind warnings or notes.
Let that sink in.
The SDMB is a place, on the internet, where authority figures routinely cop to mistakes and reverse decisions. And they don’t do it because we have leverage over them, although some posters act like they’re a CEO calling a problematic employee to the mat. They do it because they care about this place, same as us.
This whole post is admittedly tangential to the OP, since we don’t actually know what occurred.
I got two perks from being a mod:
Yeah, why not ?!
I would.
I notice you left out the respect and admiration of thousands. 