Agreed. So moderate the sniping, score settling, and recreational complaining, but leave the thread open for discussion.
This forum is About This Message Board and, at least in my mind, the place for discussing the moderation and other aspects of the board, not just a Q&A. If the same rules applied to GQ, there would be about 4 open threads.
False equivalence.
If the question is “Moderator X, why did you do Y?,” what is left to discuss after the moderator answers the question?
You need more potassium. I get foot cramps a lot. Hurts like hell.
Medical advice belongs in IMHO. I’ll move it there. In a second. Here . . . . . .
Whether or not Moderator X was right to do Y? We used to be able to have those discussions in the Pit, and then we were told we couldn’t do that anymore, because there was too much cussing there or something, so it should happen in ATMB. Fair enough, I guess. Now we’re pretty much being told we can’t do that here either.
Look, I get that the mods are volunteers, and that people shouldn’t be rude to them. I agree with that, as a matter of fact. I’m fully on board with the idea that the moderators work hard, and that they do a good job. But one of the things about this board in the past has been a fairly loose moderating style. The mods weren’t seen as somehow elevated above the rest of us where any sort of disagreement was forbidden. There was the idea that the board mods and administrators actually cared what members thought; that if people had a problem with a decision or the way that things were going on, or if they suggested changes, then the Powers that Be would at least consider that.
It doesn’t seem like that anymore. It doesn’t seem, to me, at least, that the mods or admins want to listen. Maybe it’s just me and I’m wrong, but this place used to be fun. It’s not anymore. The tone’s changed. I wish I knew how to be more precise than that.
It boggles the mind that you had to explain that.
Going beyond “X” and “Y”, there’s the whole “Z” thing. I’ve talked with people from Canadia who call “Z” Zed. Seriously. What’s up with that foolishness?
Yes, of course, people can ask a Moderator to reconsider; and moderators can think about it, discuss it amongst ourselves, and then decide yea/nay on revising the original decision. No one is saying that a decision isn’t open to discussion. twickster’s example was a little too pat, IMHO, but it was only an example. Whether further discussion is reasonable depends on the situation. Some questions in ATMB are indeed simple Q and A.
ATMB is not “Pit Lite” as Marley says, and it’s not “Great Debates Lite” either. Eternal rehashing of the same issue becomes a waste of time. Yes, of course, posters can raise different perspectives that the mod hadn’t thought of, and a moderator can change a decision based on discussion in ATMB. We all have.
But there’s a limit. How many times can the same decision be questioned and reconsidered by the mod? By the 42nd time, for sure, it’s recreational outrage, and doesn’t belong in ATMB.
But, due to the rules, it can’t be discussed anywhere else on the board. We can’t discuss moderating decisions in the Pit, even if we aren’t trying to convince you to change them.
You guys moved recreational outrage about mod decisions to this forum. And don’t tell me that you don’t think recreational outrage belongs on this board, or you wouldn’t have the Pit at all.
How it really comes across is this: You don’t want to read it, so you think you should get to make it where nobody can discuss it. That is completely against the spirit of this messageboard.
Saying that ATMB is not for these types of discussions doesn’t change the fact that you made it that way by preventing those conversations from happening elsewhere. And all forcibly shutting down those conversations does is let that anger stew and have it boil over elsewhere.
Yes, I’m claiming that the hostility in this forum is a direct result of not having anywhere else to vent these frustrations. You can’t both have a forum that allows people to vent their spleen and expect them not to do it only in cases that involve moderation.
Closing threads obviously isn’t fixing the problem–ATMB is more hostile since the rule change than it was before.
And still the Dope has no :barf: smiley. 
This is incorrect. The OP was John Mace. Ibn Warraq requested that the thread be closed so that the person holding a gun to his head couldn’t continue to force him to participate in a discussion that he finds unnecessary and offensive.
And then, some how, he managed to get the other thread closed, as well. To ridiculously premature closures.
Take your beefs out of this thread to the Pit. This topic will not develop into the same feud/bickering match between yourself and those other posters.
Okay. But I hereby request that you now close this thread.
I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken in the belief that the thread was closed because a poster happened to ask it to be closed in the last post. That was coincidental.
The decision to close it had already been going on by then and the choice was made prior to the last post in that thread. The fact that his was the last post and that it mentioned the thread being closed was good timing on his behalf…it wasn’t us listening to him or taking his advice.
Okay. Seemed to me that you guys made the simple mistake of assuming that he was the OP (and OPs usually get a degree of deference in these things), given the privileged tone of his request. That, and Jonathan Chance was involved in that thread and if it were to be closed, it seemed like it would have been done by him, most likely with a short explanation.
But I see my error: thinking that Mods might make a mistake. :dubious:
The only thing I would add to my thread that was closed is to assure Jonathan that I suffered absolutely no anxiety over his long deliberation.
That was obvious to me but it would have been nice for a moderator to have made a quick post to that effect before closure.
Where was there the slightest suggestion that the moderators thought I was the OP in that thread.
Beyond that while I don’t want to come across as ignoring Idle Thoughts note or taking a shot at Magellan(I’m not), regardless of how one feels about his claim that a gun was being held to my thread and I requested the thread being closed because I didn’t want to participate in a discussion about whether or not blacks were mentally inferior to whites and whether or not it was racist to claim it so, Magellan seems to be conceding that the question posed by the OP had been closed and that had the mods not closed the thread the thread would have carried on for pages not on anything related to the OP’s question but as to the question of whether or not it was racist to be a believer that blacks are mentally inferior to whites.
In short, he seems to be conceding that Idle Thought’s belief that had that thread not been closed we would have had yet another long tiresome discussion similar to the many threads we currently have in GD.
Regardless of how one feels regarding that argument he was trying to promulgate, that there’s nothing racist in claiming that blacks have lower IQs due to genetics, I think we can all agree it had nothing to do with the OP.
As for the thread wondering if I had some sort of mod powers or influence with the mods that closed the above mentioned thread, look, I’d have loved to continue with the joking posts regarding whether or not being Muslim gave me special powers and was quite tickled by being asked to produce a fatwa, but the OP had rather clearly been answered.
What is the justification for keeping either of those threads open?
Seriously?
Poster: “Moderator X, why did you say ‘form’ when you meant ‘from’?”
Moderator: Because I made a typo.
Subsequent posts:
Choice A: There’s nothing left to discuss.
Choice B: Sixteen pages of complaints and gripes.
Choice C: Sigh. Poor Opal.
Choice D: Discussion of why racism is perfectly OK as long it’s against a race other than mine
Yes, there are some times where further discussion is warranted. Yes, there are some times when it isn’t. As with everything: situational.