Why no warning?

Here:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21839024&postcount=36197

Miller issues a “no warning” reminder post about posting in English. This is not a new rule and these are not new posters. Personally I’d prefer to see the rule as “if you post in a different language, provide a translation”, but that’s not the rule and they (the posters) either already knew (or should have known) better.

I mean I get it, Trump’s a Russian agent and so it’s funny and I’m not super bound-up about it, but it does raise the inconsistency flag, since other “one off for humor” posts do get warned in other fora.

Miller very rarely gives warnings in the Pit. This is completely consistent with how he moderates this forum.

Yes, you are absolutely right and I wasn’t clear in my OP. The inconsistency is for the Board overall, not just the Pit. Sorry I didn’t make that more apparent.

Also, just to add, I have nothing against the posters in question and, after I used Google Translate, the posts were funny. It’s more that I, as a poster, shouldn’t have remember so many unwritten conventions to know when I can or can’t get away with breaking the rules.

Miller told them not to do that. Miller kicks ass that way. It’s one of the nice things we’re allowed to have. You know when people say: “This is why we can’t have nice things”? Lets not ever have to say that about the Pit.

Yes you should, and It is written, that’s why they were told not to do that.

There is, and has always been, inconsistency across the boards. Each forum has its own explicit rules and implicit culture. This is a feature, not a bug.

I’ve only seen Miller give only one warning, that I know of, and that was for explicit hate speech.

Other “one off for humor” posts also often do not get warned in other fora. It is, in all cases, entirely up to the discretion of the moderator whether a posts deserves a warning, a note, or does not require moderation at all. Moderators are expected to use their judgement in deciding what sort of response is appropriate for any given infraction.

Because I moderate the Pit, which was created expressly as a place where most of the board rules do not apply, I tend to use a lighter hand when I moderate. Tempers tend to be running hotter when people post in the Pit, and it’s easy to lose track of some of the more fiddly or obscure rules when you’re angry, so I try not to come down to hard on people for those sorts of infractions. “No posting in foreign languages” is a really good example of one of these kinds of rules: it’s not something that comes up too often, and it’s not immediately obvious why it’s a problem for the moderation staff when you do it, so it’s easy to forget that it’s not allowed.

Also, I think you’re making a categorization error by comparing how this was moderated, and comparing it to how other “one off humor posts” were moderated, because the rule isn’t, “Don’t make one off humor posts,” it’s “Don’t post in a foreign language.” I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen anyone get a warning for posting in a foreign language, regardless of forum - it’s very much the sort of thing that usually gets noted, not warned.

Well, I’d push back on the idea that anyone “got away” with breaking the rules. Both posters were moderated for their comments. That they were not moderated as heavily as possible does not mean that they were not moderated at all. But your general point goes back to what I was just saying: this is a heavily moderated board with a long history. The moderation staff is aware that there are a lot of rules, a lot of them created to handle specific circumstances that haven’t really happened since, and that it’s a large load to put on our posters to keep track of all of that. Which is why we have the discretion to give notes instead of full Warnings. I admit that I’m a little puzzled that, in your concern over having to remember so many different rules, your apparent solution is to be more draconian in their enforcement. Surely, in the circumstances, the preferable approach would be more leniency?

I’m not even sure when the last time was that I saw that particular rule come up in any of my fora, and on the rare occasions when it does, it’s usually a newbie who doesn’t know better.

I can’t recall ever having issued a warning for posting a foreign language, or ever seen another mod issue a warning for it. It’s normally handled by a note as a reminder to post in English. (If someone has received a warning, it’s probably because the remark was an insult and they disguised it by using a foreign language.)

Just because something is a rule, doesn’t mean a warning is typically given for a violation. You’re supposed to post in the right forum, but I’ve rarely issued a warning even for the most obvious violations (and then only after a poster persisted in doing so after being instructed to pay more attention to forum descriptions.) I generally only issue warnings for excessive quoting of copyright material or for posting NSW links in extreme or persistent cases. Those are handled with a note and removal of the offending material.

I can think of two instances. One was a person (I don’t remember if he was Austrian or German) for repeated posts auf Deutsch in more heated debates; he was non-official-warning warned several times before he got modded. The other was a series of posts in Japanese which were disguised insults; I thought it was a dumb move because someone here is either going to know the language or at least know a good translation site. But that is pretty much it.

I have made the odd post now and then in a foreign language or three; usually in the more light-hearted threads and then for humor. In the one Monty Python thread I believe I used something like मेरी मँडराने वाली नाव सर्पमीनों से भरी हैं (my hovercraft is full of eels) once and sometimes I throw some Yiddish into the MMP. So I am guessing most Mods look at context and intent before stepping in.

Those warnings, however, would have been more for failure to follow moderator instructions and for insults than for posting in a foreign language per se.

The intent of the rule is so that we are able to moderate the discussion. If someone is posting in a language we don’t understand, obviously we can’t see if there are insults or the discussion is becoming too heated. And while some mods could handle common languages like Spanish or French, not all can, so it’s better not to allow it. But if someone tosses in a few odd lines as a joke it’s generally not going to be a problem.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

**Miller **, Colibri, and Chronos, thanks for the explanation!

Hmmm…that’s an interesting point and one that hadn’t occurred to me. My literal first thought when seeing the first Russian post was “Uh oh, that’s gonna get a mod’s attention, you can’t do that.” I just figured that anybody who’d been around long enough to bank up 30k+ and 80k+ posts would also know the rule. It seems that (per Colibri) this is an infraction that isn’t considered “warning-worthy” without other considerations being in play.

Either way, my question has certainly been answered and if anybody wants to close this down, feel free.

Thanks again to all for the responses. It’s been informative.

Actually, I’ve been a poster here for quite some time, and I wasn’t aware that it was actually a rule. Had it been me, I would have appreciated the heads up sans warning.

I would assume the same rule would prohibit posting encrypted messages as well.

Interesting post from an OP whose user name appear to be of Polish origin…:smiley:

Many of the more arcane rules are the result of people being jerks in new and inventive ways that we hadn’t considered before. However, we try to avoid adding new rules if at all possible. While this might not technically be against the rules, we would probably handle it just by instructing the poster not to post in a way that we can’t read.

Some posters think that nulla poena sine lege applies here, that is, anything that isn’t specifically prohibited must be allowed. That’s not really the case, since we can’t really predict all the ways posters can come up with to be disruptive.:wink:

Really? I honestly had no idea! My user name is the name of a character in a book by Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons.

Hehehe, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m allowed to have my custom title in a language other than English. I think it’s just actual content they’re worried about, and even then I’ve only seen it modded when two people start responding to each other in a foreign language.