Okay, I don’t know anything about lissener’s personal life, and I don’t really give a shit. All these “Hey, aren’t you that one guy who did that one thing three months ago?” posts aren’t registering with me. Now then…
…isn’t the thread title alone inherently acknowledging that cruelty is something one is supposed to be ashamed of? That was kind of the whole point, right?
:rolleyes:
That’s not the reason it got moved. It got moved precisely because it was going to end up there anyway. Since you’ve been here apparently a long time, I don’t see how you couldn’t have not known that what you posted was going to start a storm.
I really don’t believe anyone who posts here is that naive.
You are free, of course, to invent any reasons you need to continue to paint yourself as a victim.
Damn the fiendish ingenuity of these mods! Will they never cease to come up with new ways to torment us?
Of course. The supposed “disconnect” is completely on twickster’s end and IMHO probably feigned. lissener wanted to talk about shameful stuff like that without people shitting on his head and twickster said no, I want people to shit on your head.
Alas! Twickster has cast him out into the snow without the milk of human kindness. Have you no shame, Twickster?
Guess not. It’s karma.
Or maybe it’s just Chinatown, Jake.
The concept here is that one can criticize or question moderator actions in ATMB. One may not insult the moderators, and one may not insult other posters in ATMB. I don’t see that any of the recent comments are about a moderator decision, they’re about a moderator’s personality… and about other posters. That’s off limits, and will stop NOW.
My comment was directly about twickster’s moderator decision. What are you talking about?
eta: should I perhaps had said “twickster said no, i should probably let people shit on your head”?
Says the mod* who said it was perfectly okay to be condescending and rude, as long as you don’t call a poster names.
You see why I said it was a stupid call?
Anyways, while the post you quote is obviously impugning Twickster’s character, it is specifically talking about the moderating decision. It’s actually alleging that Twickster made the decision out of spite against lissener, due to the OP. From her responses in the thread, I don’t think this is impossible, though I’m trying to continue to give her the benefit of the doubt (and not believe the rumors). She has yet to show the full level of professionalism I would expect out of someone with no ulterior motives.
I think this crap would be easy to avoid if you’d just not move a thread to the Pit until insults are already flying, or, at least, always give the OP the opportunity to get his thread closed, since he didn’t intend it to be in the Pit. (This is has been traditionally allowed, I believe.) As I’ve pointed out before, it’s in your best interest to avoid any appearance of impropriety. And it’s not like it’s as hard as you guys seem to think it is.
Honestly, this whole thing could be over if Twickster would have just come by and said, “I apologize for not understanding the purpose of your thread, lissener. Still, it was quite provocative, and I don’t think it was right for any forum but the Pit. Since you don’t want it there, I think the best action is for it to be closed. Any posters who wanted to respond to you in the Pit can follow the rules and open a Pit thread to do so.”
I mean, that was pretty much the result, as it was precisely what the rules/traditions say should happen, but because Twickster hasn’t said it, it does come across like she was emotionally invested, and thus had an ulterior motive. While it is perfectly fine for her to be disgusted as a poster, as a moderator, she should be above that.
*Apologies if it isn’t you. But then you need to have a conference with the one who said it.
That’s not a reason.
I hate commenting in these threads because I’m such a lurker. But sometimes they bother me enough that I can’t help it, so here goes.
I recognize that the OP was inflammatory. Others have suggested that it was intentionally so, but I’m not at all convinced of that. In fact, I was rather surprised to see the charge leveled. But here’s the thing: It’s irrelevant. Anyone here can pit another member at any time (save the mods, apparently–I guess no one is safe from arbitrary rules).
Taking you at your word, twickster, I’m led to conclude you have no control over the MPSIMS forum, which is rather surprising. A stern warning to keep it civil should be unnecessary. All of us are aware of the general rules of conduct, and following those rules shouldn’t be beyond our abilities. If a few people choose to ignore the rules, I think a note or warning or whatever would have been appropriate–that’s why we have moderators. But if such a reminder is insufficient to maintain order, then the forum is clearly out of control.
SInce I find that hard to believe, I have to consider that you moved the thread for some other reason, at least in part. “Let’s you and him fight” seems as likely a candidate as any, but I can’t read twickster’s mind any better than I can read lissener’s.
I’m aware that a general policy of the board is that moderators won’t bail a poster out of a thread if it turns on him by closing it. But feeding the fire by moving a thread to the Pit comes across as egging the mob on. And “saving someone else the trouble of pitting him” is pretty clearly an implicit pitting.
Unfortunately, anything I (or any mod) might say about my intentions is parsed six ways to Sunday – and when I try to avoid that mess by not getting defensive about those intentions, my not saying anything is parsed in twice as many ways.
lissener started a thread that had already started going badly by the time I saw it. I couldn’t see any way to keep the thread on track, given the highly provocative nature of the thread topic, so I moved the thread to the Pit. lissener chose to believe that the thread would have been fine had I left it where it was, which is a point I genuinely didn’t understand.
The tile of the thread was “Acts of cruelty you’re not ashamed of.” Despite the opinion of some of you that I’m playing dumb here, I honestly can’t conceive of that topic as leading to anything but outrage and anger against any person performing acts of cruelty, not feeling shame about that cruelty, and reporting said acts and lack of shame on a pubic message board. Despite what partial explanations for his motives it took me six tries to get out of him, I still can’t see any reaction other than outrage and anger to the OP as he wrote it, and I still can’t see such a thread ending in anything other than a complete fucking trainwreck.
lissener sees my refusal to try to prevent that trainwreck as being a personal attack on him. To my thinking, the refusal was nothing more and nothing less than a recognition of the impossibility of preventing the trainwreck. Despite lissener’s wishes, outrage was inevitable and had already started boiling up before I got to the thread. I didn’t cause the outrage and I didn’t orchestrate the outrage. All I did was make a judgment call that there was no way to control the avalanche of outrage that was already building, and thus to do some kind of damage control as best I could.
I could have locked the thread or I could have moved it to the Pit. Even in retrospect, I don’t see one or the other as being an obviously better solution.
ETA: padabe’s post was made while I was working on this one. My post doesn’t respond directly or indirectly to his or her post. My response to it would be: threads that require that degree of moderation to stay on track don’t belong in MPSIMS, they belong in GD or the Pit.
What doesn’t lissener see as being a personal attack on him?
Entirely incorrect. There is nothing mod-warnable in the thread before you moved it.
That’s the rub exactly: you saw into the future of the thread, and imagined only one outcome. You didn’t even give it a chance to require mod intervention, let alone closure, let alone transfer to the pit.
I never even made that claim, though I certainly don’t consider it a certain impossibility, as you do. I only said that you should closed it, or given me the option, rather than decide, unilaterally, that no attempt at mature discussion would be made. You almost literally INSTRUCTED people to make it a personal attack, rather than even make an initial attempt to see if anyone was willing to discuss a difficult subject maturely.
We’ll never know, will we? The trainwreck is on you: you switched the track.
Your entire position is based on your 100% certainty that I somehow came up with the one single subject in the history of the Dope that is completely beyond mod capacity to oversee. Even if that were true–especially it if were true–locking the thread makes far more sense than tossing it into the extreme fighting cage.
Bullshit. How is throwing open the gates to the mob damage control? How is “damage control” in this context anything other than locking the thread? YOU set the tone for reaction. YOU dictated that there was no response possible outside the pit. YOU created a self-fulfilling firestorm where none had yet flared up. And your refusal, at this point, to acknowledge that, only diminishes you. Damage control = locking the thread, or at the very least a preemptive warning to keep it civil. Tossing it in the pit = throwing gasoline on an incipient ember and causing a blaze.
That’s such outrageous bullshit that it’s clearly disingenuous.
There are so many things wrong with this that more keep occurring to me.
[ul]
[li]I’ve seen threads moved to the pit due to an overly pittish OP; due to the attacky tone of the thread starter. I have never, to my knowledge, seen a thread moved to the pit for the sole reason that a moderator thought the CONTENT of the OP required a pitting. How is that not dictating the response?[/li][li]Trying to imagine this from twickster’s POV–an exercise in empathy to understand her inflexible position–I see her finding the thread, I see her reading the OP, I see her becoming horrified–then what? She’s horrified and disgusted, but she doesn’t want to be seen to directly attack me; the last time she did that she ended up eating her words. (Not to suggest she’s afraid of me; but I’ve made it an issue before, her fairness toward me when in the past she’s lobbed unfair accusations at me and had to retract them.) I’m imagining what I’d do in she situation she finds herself in: remind other posters to be civil, thereby “protecting” a poster who disgusts me, or, dump the chum in the piranha tank and wash my hands of it. How is that not personal? [/li][li]Twickster moved the thread to the pit because it so disgusted her that she could not even imagine–still can’t, apparently–that any human being could possibly have any response to it that would be acceptable outside the pit. Again, this is her reaction, which she attributes, universally, and with certainty, to all other possible responders. How is that not personal?[/li][/ul]
Great post, mostly. IMHO, the move to the Pit was not warranted.
Dex:
Post 65, the one before yours, is about a moderator decision. It sarcastically draws a parallel between lissener unashamedly throwing his cat out and twickster’s decision to move his post to the Pit. Twickster comes out the winner when one considers the actual cruelty that is involved. In my opinion, the move to the Pit was warranted by the subject matter and the hackles that were already rising.
Lissener, casual animal cruelty is not something that connects in a healthy mind. Yes, outrage was on its way. I would have directed mine at the concept though, and not at you.
Posters should be free to discuss “acts of cruelty you’re not ashamed of” in MPSIMS while staying within the forum guidelines, just as posters are free to start threads to castigate other posters in The Pit.
Moving Lissener’s thread to the Pit just was a pitting by proxy. At the very least the moderator should have given him a choice. The moderator could have closed the thread until said choice was made.
Mods should moderate and maintain order. That means keeping discussions in non-Pit threads civil and on point.
If an OP wants a civil discussion, the OP will not start a Pit thread but instead will elect to put the thread in a forum where civil discussions may be had.
Mods moving threads to the Pit just because the Mod feels the subject matter of the thread or a post in a thread is pitworthy is an abuse of power.
People start and post in non-Pit threads with an expectation of civility and with an expectation that such civility will be maintained and even enforced by Mods.
If other members feel a thread or post is pitworthy, then those members are free to start a Pit thread.
If a Mod feels a thread or post is pit-worthy, then the Mod should start a Pit thread. If there is a rule against that, then change the rule, accept the rule as a condition of being a Mod, or don’t be a Mod.
blondebear started a turn signal thread once in the IMHO forum, wondering why people don’t use turn signals all the time. Expecting a civil discussion on point, I admitted I don’t use turn signals if I don’t see other people around.
No posts had been pit-worthy in that thread. A few non-pitworthy posts later, the Moderator does this…
After the move to the Pit, I ended up at the bottom of a huge vitriolic dogpile when I should have just abandoned the thread immediately.
More relevant posts…
lissener, I don’t think you’re ever going to get this as long as you insist on seeing it as a personal matter between you and twickster. She’s correct: some threads are going to end up being a disaster no matter what a mod tries to do. Some threads belong in the Pit because of the kind of response they are going to get and the direction they’re going to go. Sorry you’re unhappy with how this turned out but to my mind it was an obvious decision.
The posts after mine do have strong points on that side of the issue. This is a good use of ATMB.
Remove all references to “personal” from my posts. My points still stand. In retrospect it was a mistake to use the p word; it’s completely incidental to the main point and it supplies you with a strawman to tilt at and an excuse to ignore the more cogent issues that I and others have raised.