That’s a total non sequitur.
By policing the rules.
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I vote for “debate chairs.”
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They’ve already said they’re no such thing.
I’m still waiting for an answer from Gfactor as to where I brought private discussions into the thread. Perhaps you can point it out to me.
Or, alternatively, they could realize that a warning on a message board is not exactly a dire threat to their existence, forget all about it, and move on with their lives.
I don’t understand the issue with using “knock it off” when most often, the people needing to be told to knock it off are in fact behaving like children. But hey, if people want a differnently worded warning, I think the mods should consider it. Maybe “Cease and Desist”? Perhaps a Stewart-esque “Settle down!”
Ooh, ooh, wait… I know!!!
“Bless your hearts!”
Dude, if a mod told me to knock it off (and they have), I just knock it the fuck off… no big deal. If a mod told me to shut the fuck up, then maybe I’d have a problem.
For the n+1th time, nobody thinks it is a dire threat to anything. I will leave it to the GD crowd to tell you what’s the name for that poor discussion habit of exaggerating your counterpart’s position. Mods are doing customer service and a using a phrase that some people might find offensive is a practice that deserves consideration. That’s all. Nobody is dying, it has nothing to do with Hitler and it is not a discrimination issue. Just people talking things over.
I’m old enough to have grandchildren, FTR, and I really don’t think that the phrase is at all rude. I think that this is a case where a phrase is really quite rude to some people, and others don’t associate it with rudeness at all. I’ve always said and heard it spoken in a very friendly manner. And yes, people have said it to me, in all sorts of circumstances. I, personally, think that “Leave it alone (with or without for now)” is pretty rude.
I don’t think that we’re going to find one phrase that will suit everybody.
I vote for “Halt!”. Followed by “good boy” if the poster refrains from continuing the behavior.
How is “Leave it alone” offensive?. I know “Leave it” is a common dog training phrase, but I doubt many have had traumatic experiences with it.
I liked “Let it drop”, FWIW. It offers a hint of “I agree with you, but better not make an issue of it” that even if you know is false, won’t create resentment.
I’ve got underwear older than your theoretical grandchildren, Lynn, and this answer strikes me as disingenuous and self-serving. Of course there are phrases you could find easily that would be more professional, less bossy, less abrupt–less rude, in short–than “Knock it off” but you choose not look for them. All you have to do is imagine what if the people you were moderating paid a lot of money for use of the Straight Dope and you understood that it was very important for you to run a carefully moderated board while not needless antagonizing any posters who might stray out of line from time to time. You think you hear a lot of “Knock it off!” at United Nations Security Council meetings? You think most organizations such as I describe don’t deal with similiar problems and devise phrases like, “Speaking in my official capacity as a Mod, I wish you’d tone your language down, and treat Poster X with a little more decorum. Your remark ‘blablabla’ was more nearly aimed at provoking an emotional response than furthering the discussion, in my official view, and I’d appreciate your most careful consideration of others’ feelings. Thanks for cooperating.”
Was that so hard? Totally off the top of my head. Firm, polite, clear–everything you wanted.
You can send my mug and notification of my offical Mod status anytime.
This appears to be another indication that perceiving an insult is a regionalism. This might provide an explanation why some posters bridle at the mildest suggestion, around here. If we have so many posters from so many cultures where different phrases are considered rude, we are probably lucky that we do not have more fights on the SDMB.
(Perhaps we need an ATMB thread in which everyone who tends to find insult can post the phrases they find insulting so that the rest of us can avoid those phrases if the offended poster is participating in a thread.) 
ETA: “Mildest suggestion” was a reference to all poster interactions, not just hearing from the Mods. I find myself breaking up any number of fights when one poster makes a polite suggestion or request to a poster who perceives it as an insult or a demand.
It’s also gotta be SHORT. Like fewer than half a dozen words. And it’s gotta be in keeping with Cecil’s Revealed Wisdom. Read a few of The Master’s columns, and tell me if he’s “firm, polite, clear”. I’ll grant you that he’s 2 out of 3.
I think that “knock it off” is casual and friendly. Others obviously don’t see it as friendly. I am reminded of the various threads we get where we are informed that in certain countries, “twat” and “cunt” are used as mild insults towards both sexes, IIRC. In my area of the US, (Fort Worth, Texas), both words are used as vile, extremely vulgar insults towards females. A male called a twat or a cunt might very well decide to take a swing at the person uttering the word.
I do not wish or need to know the age of anyone’s underwear. I just need to know style and color or pattern.
“Fuck you” is spectacularly short. “Eat me” is even shorter. I think you’re over-rating the virtues of brevity here, Lynn, and under-rating the virtues of treating your clientele well. I think you could access a macro pretty easily, such that punching the “FY” keys would trigger a few mild and polite sentences such as I’ve composed for your consideration above. Face it, you’re not just concerned with the inconvenience of Mods having to compose their own sentences, anyway. Being abrupt and bossy with clientele is one of the perks of being a Mod, and you’ve got to compensate them somehow, don’t you?
Just out of idle curiosity, why does it have to be short? I really can’t think of a good (sensible) reason.
Interesting that. Here in the UK, ‘cunt’ is the ultimately vile insult. ‘Twat’ is almost a form of endearment; certainly a very mild insult.
As this seems to be becoming a IMHO, ‘knock it off’, to me, isn’t particularly offensive - just a bit brusqe; perhaps you don’t mind it because it fits in to your ‘it’s gotta be short’ credo?
It’s got to be short because when I’m actively moderating, I’m going to be typing all this stuff every time. I’m sure I could copy and paste stuff from a file, but that takes longer, IME. When I was moderating, I was spending AT LEAST 2 or 3 hours at a time, several times a day, doing all sorts of fiddly crap. There’s a lot of moderating that takes place out of sight…for instance, removing spam and banning spammers, name changes, and doing email (both with mod staff and answering emails from posters). There might very well be a macro that I can access, but I have no clue as to what it involves. I am not a programmer type, I’m a user type, when it comes to computers. I use macros in various computer games, online and offline, but there the macros are already built into the system, or are easily customizable.
I don’t think your long and passive-aggressive version is actually usable, since most people here – myself included – do as much skimming as reading. A three-word warning processes quickly and will register with far more people; not just the person being warned, but others who might benefit from being reminded that Behavior X is not acceptable.
How about “Don’t do that”? Or, if y’all’s tender feelings need to be catered to, “Please don’t do that.”
What I find so fascinating about all of this is that once Frank stepped down as mod, all of a sudden he started going after his former colleagues with a single-mindedness that suggests years of pent-up resentment. What’s got his panties in a twist?
Damn. Hope none of mine ever get posted.
I’m a fan of “Chill.” Repeated warnings may be upgraded to “Take a chill pill” or “Chill the fuck out” as necessary.
As for the ‘private conversation’ thing, I take that to mean you’re claiming something for which counter-evidence exists, Frank. If I came into the Pit and complained about how a particular mod called me a fuckhead, or never got back to me on an issue, or something that had been handled in private, it’s my opinion that the mods are well within their rights to put up the actual conversation as a defense. We can link to old board posts when we want to show when someone has said this or that; I don’t really see relevant private communication as all that different, especially when you want to drag a fight with the mods public.
The addition of the “please” to whatever phrase they use could not possibly hurt or be much of a burden.
As to Frank, he does seem to have some issues but his *snort *got too much attention (IMHO) and I too find it very odd that the content of his private Email got posted without his permission. It seems to violates a minor trust.
Just to stay balanced, I think **Frank **and Marley23 both showed escalation of overreacting that led to this pit thread. I also disagree strongly with **Marley23 **being called a terrible mod. I don’t see it and I don’t get it.
True, you wouldn’t hear “Knock it off” at the UN Security Council Meetings. But of course, you also wouldn’t hear the President of Costa Rica say “Yes, Bernard Kouchner, you are stupid.” I think it’s safe to say there are lots of things you might hear on the SDMB that you aren’t likely to hear at a United Nations Security Council meeting.
That said, if I were Queen of this board, I would officially change ‘Knock it off’ to “STFU”. Four short letters-- it’s firm, concise, an all around crowd pleaser.
For the more sensitive posters, I’d upgrade it to “Please STFU”.
Why not just say ‘there are raisins in that elephant’? The fact that no-one will know what the hell you’re talking about is a side issue; at least no-one, except, perhaps, elephants (who aren’t great readers of the SD, so that’s probably a risk worth taking) will be offended.
Now in all seriousness, I think that just quoting the offending paragraph and stating what rule it is breaking serves both clarity and brevity. We don’t need to be told to follow the rule, just a quick reminder of what the rule is and that TPTB found you in breach of it.
And yes, brevity does matter, a lot IMO. I am completely behind Lynn’s thought about having to either type an ode to the civilized behavior on the internets or having to hunt for a standard template to copy and paste. And let’s not even joke about having a table of what every poster considers offensive.
The ideal moderator response should be typed fresh and without much thought to its phrasing.