Didn’t mean to say it was. My apologies. However, for the record, I read that comment more as a “Keep behaving like this and it’ll get you banned”. But it’s as open to interpretation as any other post.
Also for the record, I don’t deny that posters with Delusions of Authority exist (and, also-also for the record, I apologize to PLD for accusing him of such). I just don’t think it’s a very wide-spread phenomena.
Oh, and…
Many thanks, sir (madam?).
I apologize to anyone who I may have offended in the OP last night. I do still think there are posters guilty of what I recount there (hell, in all likelihood, that includes me), and it makes me extremely uncomfortable with the board sometimes, but I picked two less-than-stellar examples. Hey, everybody here gets to play drama queen at least once a year, right?
SPOOFE, you’re right that it’s up to posters with SDMB familiarity to offer the weight of their experience when appropriate; I agree fully, and my issue isn’t with that. It’s with those few who feel their experience gives them added authority.
Yea well, what I say goes, period. Oh wait, you don’t know who I am???
Yea you are right. I see it too, possibly even do it myself sometimes unintentionally. But that doesn’t make you any less right, just tunnel-vision on my part. Sometimes it’s just hard to keep the fingers off the keyboard when the opportunity presents itself.
In a community this big you are gonna have those people that can’t get over themselves. But, I can’t think of a single poster on the board that would be missed more than a couple of days if they decided to leave. Me? I doubt anyone would even know I was gone. But that’s ok. That’s the way it should be, people come and go. That’s life.
But on getting back to the OP, let’s just hope that, as Pd has made a good point, when this happens the receiver has the common sense to just ignore the self-appointed moderator. People that have lurked any time at all will have a fairly good idea who these people are and how to handle them, or merely avoid them.
You’re not talking about when members respond to questions (usually about how to obtain drugs or something) with “Erm, that sort of question is frowned upon around here” kind of response are you?
Mooooo
It behooves me to mention that “you are not a member” would’ve been a silly OP>
LOL,
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=96443&pagenumber=2
to summerize:
Tries: Sua, don’t be a jerk
Sua: sldjflkjdfkljsdlkfjsd
Tries: repeat refrain
Sua: slkjfdskljjdskjfdklsdf
Tries: repeat refrain
Me: Tries, don’t be a moderator, oh and let me put on my virtual mod hat to say this should go to the pit if you choose to pursue.
Of course, while I’m typing it well aware of the conflict between these two statements. But both needed to be said, and I couldn’t figure out any other way to do it.
Its seems to be OK to me to say “hey, this is the way this board works.” But somewhere there is a line. I’ve seen it crossed, but like pornography, I know it when I see it.
If I said I preferred dorian over phrygian, would that make me a moderater?
You take that back or I’ll see to it that you are banned.
That is quite possibly the worst joke I’ve ever heard. I shall see to it that you are banned
10
9
8
[sub][sup]alright alright. It’s becoming old, I know. But that joke deserved it[/sup][/sub]
pan
I think the opposite may be true (in some cases). Posters with SDMB familiarity may be useful in cases involving obvious clear-cut issues that are not so obvious to newbies - I think it’s something of a problem when posters with SDMB familiarity weigh in on gray ambiguous areas, about which they may be wrong.
OTOH, those who “feel their experience gives them added authority” are either right or wrong about this feeling. If they are wrong then their intimdation will come to nothing and they will only look silly. If they are right, well then they are right. (Maybe not so pleasant, but so like much of life in that regard.)
I was going to continue this, but I’ll accept the above. No hard feelings.
It’s just difficult that, as someone who does have long-term experience here, that experience is sometimes (and more and more often, it seems) read as high-handedness. I was given the newbie treatment over at Sinfest and have learned to appreciate what we have here. Further, those very few newbies who start swinging with their first post deserve to be swatted down, IMHO. And when those same newbies who pick fights go on to accuse those of us who have been here for a while of “playing moderator,” it’s either a tired joke or just plain annoying. Yes, I’ve used that as a " :rolleyes: running joke" myself, but the bottom line is, no one is a moderator but those who are, actually, moderators, and we all know that. I have no power to ban anyone, but I do have the power of observation to say, hey, what you’re doing is, based on my experience here, unacceptable, and I’d lay odds it’ll get you banned. By saying so, I’m expressing an observation, not playing moderator, and it is disappointing that it’s perceived as being so when we all know better.
I think the best advice here came from Hamadryad:
Perhaps spelling it out more often might be the answer.
IMHO, that is, and, as always, YMMV. 
Esprix
I’ve been sniggering over this all day. Bravo Ethilrist. 
milo