In the thread skinny started about somebodies sig “that had a rude word in a foriegn language”: (that John just shut down): the Moderators have effectively said “we are handling it, and you folks do not need to know”. OK, I will buy the 1st part, but we are fighting IGNORANCE here, and not being the “the posters are only mushrooms- we know better” board. Why not just answer the damn question? Why not let soembody else do so? What earthshaking harm could come to us all if we learn a new rude word in swedish?
Yes, maybe it SHOULD have been reported to the Mods, 1st, but it wasn’t. We are here becuase we want to know the “STRAIGHT DOPE”- not the “fast-talk PC bullshit”.
You mods have every right to “handle” anything you want- but you should not conceal & cover-up.
I do believe he is referring to the sig line that had the vulgarity and attacks in it in some language other than english. I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’m wrong.
Are you suggesting that every decision we make should be put up for debate before the whole board? Or maybe that we should publish any and all private e-mail that we have amongst ourselves?
Personally, when I correspond with someone concerning board matters, be it member, moderator, administrator, or Cecil Himself, my good manners and respect for the correspondant demands privacy.
nanook is correct. And, no, you do not have to “open your decisions to debate”- but it cannot hurt for us to know on what fact you BASED those decisions.
And why lock down the thread where we were discussing it?
Why would it be so very evil for us to know the offending phrase & word, and discuss it? At not time did i suggest you should not “fix the problem”- but where is the harm is us KNOWING what the freaking problem really was?
At no time, Slythe, did I ask for ANY moderator to share ANY info on this subject, including private emails- but I feel it is wrong for the moderators to try and stop US posters from sharing the info, and discussing it.
What I think was wrong was the elitist attitute of the moderators: “you posters need to know nothing, we will handle it”, and the closing down of the thread to stop the discussion.
I know the subject of the thread Danny’s referring to, Nanook, but I missed what his “damn question” was exactly and what we were “covering up”. With his second post Dan has been a little more clear.
Dan, your problem is that because we didn’t tell you a dirty word in Swedish you think we’re being elitist?
What you did in that thread was speculate about who the offender was. That is something we have discouraged for some time now. Not because we are elitist, but because as we have said before, it creates (say it with me now) ill will, even if you are correct. Which you weren’t. And it’s not our fault you publicly accused an innocent poster.
An incredible amount of stuff goes on about this board that will never see your eyes, Dan. We have asked posters to change offensive screen names before they even post. We squash sock puppets daily without notifying the masses. I hardly think just because we don’t make a public announcement everytime we do this we us elitist. And it doesn’t contradict our mantra about fighting ignorance.
This is what we moderators do. We filter as much shit as we can before it even approaches the fan. We do things for the benefit of the board and its posters. We do our best to give posters the benefit of the doubt in questionable circumstances. We discourage witch-hunting and busybodies because we feel it is detrimental to the SDMB community.
And I’ll admit when we do all that and get accused of denying someone their “right to know” all the gossip on the board, it gets that much more frustrating to be a mod.
Hey, I like gossip as much as the next person, but sometimes I don’t get to know everything. In those cases, I let it go because it was really none of my damn business in the first place.
In the case you are referring to, it wasn’t something that affected the operation of the board in the slightest. Yes, I was also curious who it was and what the sig said, but the mods and admins have chosen not to make that information public. It’s none of our business. Let it go.
I see both points. But when I first read the thread concerning the profanity, none of us (save the OP and the mods) knew what language or which poster had it. So I (being a suspicious bastard) immediately tried to think of as many users as I could that I knew had foreign sig lines. And I placed all of them in the guilty column.
Now, for the record, I couldn’t think of a damned one of them, the bastards. But I would certainly imagine that there are a lot of other posters who do know of other foreign sigs. And those posters with those sigs, having read the thread, would feel that others are looking at them as the guilty one in question.
Now, I also have complete faith that the mods would correctly take care of the situation. And those with perfectly harmless and innocent foreign language sig lines would emerge rosy. But I would have liked to know who it was solely on the basis of not feeling those feelings I had when I saw a sig I didn’t understand.
I also realize my lack of “innocent until proven guilty” line of thought. I’m guilty of this quite often. But I think a good number of us went through the same thing when this first came out. I really don’t think the offending party would have been shunned from the Teeming Millions if outed. I don’t see us mass chastizing him/her. But I personally think that disclosure would have made a lot of us much less suspicious and wary of other Dopers creative enough to make a cool sig.
Alpha & other mods: again- I am not asking that the MODs spill any beans at all (altho if they wanted to print the 'offending phrase" <but not the poster who used it> I would not object). What I am objecting to is : 1>closing down the thread where we were discussing the subject. 2> Copping the attitude of “you guys don’t need to know- so we are going to stop you from finding out”. I am sure that you mods do a lot of work that we know nothing about- and that is great. In general, I support you guys. In thread after thread here in the PIT, I have supported you- but not on this.
But SG posted just the wrong thread- “The is some one doing something naughty, and here are some clues- but I am not going to tell you who it is” and “he has posted something naughty, and I am going to give you soem clues, but not tell you what it was”. Jeez- and you folks expect us to not wonder & try to find out?
Sure, there will be guesses- and some of the guesses will be wrong- like mine. And some of the guesses will cause “ill-will”. So- what would cause LESS ill will? Speculations & guessing? Or the facts? Are we here for the “straight dope” or the “mushroom farm”?
You can wonder and play detective all you want. It’s the public accusations we have problems with. And just because we don’t tell you whodunnit doesn’t make it OK for you make public your list of suspects.
It sounds the problem lies with SG’s post piquing your interest rather than the mod’s decision not to give you the answer key. Just because he phrased his observation in an intruiging way doesn’t mean the mods are obligated to answer the mystery. And that lack of obligation doesn’t mean that we are “elitist” snobs who consider the posters to be “mushrooms”.
This is why we don’t like public outings of this nature. People get curious and start playing Columbo. Various parties are accused and people generally feel shitty all around.
IMO, SG shouldn’t have opened the thread in the first place. But because he’s a good guy and rectified the situation with an email to a mod, I’m not upset about it. Still, it should have been kept to email.
The thread was closed and the issue was taken care of. The only discussion I could see near the end of the thread was people figuring out if the offending word was spelled correctly.
Daniel, did you not read what John Corrado and myself posted in the other thread? Here’s my quote, “I find this person’s sig far more offensive than mere profanity; it’s more along the lines of an ethnic slur.” There’s no need to speculate on the nature of the offense.
Now, what possible purpose could it serve to perpetuate such libel? That’s the kind of shit we remove.