You know you're wrong, Dex

About This Message Board
1

If you weren’t you wouldn’t have “doube-dared” me to take your ridiculous warning like a man–did you think that was going to shut me up?

For those in need of specification, I was a participant–far from the instigator or the OP–in a thread questioning Czarcasm’s modding. I merely paraphrased Mhendo’s post about Czarcasm, paraphrasing the Wizard of Oz’s response to Dorothy, in an attempt at levity as follows:

I called him a very good person but a very bad moderator, which is almost exactly what Mhendo, and poster after poster, had just said about him

Rather than simply close the “offensive” thread, or hand out warnings right and left, Dex chose to call me a jerk, and single me out for stepping over the line.

Buy a sense of humor, and try to learn what warning a poster is really intended to do. Double-dog dare to me to take this petty, silly temper tantrum in silence like a man? How childish.

2

Suicide by mod.

3

Maybe, but i think Dex’s post in that thread is pretty fucking shitty. And the warning he gave to prr, as ridiculous and asinine as it was, is the least of its problems.

Dex:

Whatever complaints i’ve had about the moderation of this message board over the past couple of years, i’ve always considered you to be one of the better mods/admins around, and for the most part i’ve thought that your decisions have generally been judicious, and your assessments have generally been reasonable, even when i disagreed with them.

But that post was ridiculous. You think that people complaining about the board are being “offensive and insulting,” but you adopt exactly the same sort of tone and language in your own post. This sentence, in particular, is a classic:

Way to set an example there, buckaroo!

I also thought Wombat’s closing of the thread was indicative of the general attitude to complaints around here recently: one small indiscretion in the thread serves as a convenient excuse to shut down criticism and discussion. And, predictably enough, it’s shut down without even a response from the person at whom it was aimed.

I know this won’t change anything, because i seriously think that you don’t give a flying fuck what people say anymore.

4

Seriously, guys, the moderation around here has gotten bizarre. I understand it must be frustrating to feel under attack, and you must think we’re all a bunch of ingrates. But here’s the thing - while you’re doing a great job in the aggregate keeping spam away and discussion high-caliber, you need to find a better way to deal with criticism. This sweep-it-under-the-rug strategy ain’t workin’. Everyone knows that the moderation that started this whole shitstorm was a bad decision. But rather than just dealing with that in a reasonable way, we’re getting bannings, threads are disappearing and being brought back, new random warnings are being given, and threads are getting closed when they still contain reasonable discussion.

Come guys, it’s been a couple weeks. Cut out the overly-defensive behavior, and deal with the legitimate complaints that have been brought up.

5

I dunno: I’m not seeing a lot of crimes against humanity by the moderators of this board. Say for the sake of argument that a couple of warnings were given out unjustly. Who cares? It’s really not that hard to keep your nose clean here.

Some see “Bad Volunteer Moderation”. I see, “Having problems with authority”.

6

Lucky no-one’s accused them of such then, isn’t it?

If you’d even bother to follow the actual argument, you be able to work out that it’s not merely about “a couple of warnings…given out unjustly.” Nor is anyone suggesting that it’s difficult to “keep your nose clean” around here. I have, i think, received a single warning in over 10 years on these boards; there could be another in the dim distant past, but i only remember the one that is listed in my infractions.

It’s about a pattern of poor moderation. Sure, it’s not the end of the world. This is, after all, just a message board. But to argue that it’s not a big deal is stupid, because it is a reasonably big deal precisely in the context in which it occurs, and that is in the context of this message board.

If someone stops me on the street and asks me to list the things i’m most concerned about, you can be sure that the moderation of the SDMB is not going to be on the list. It’s not something that exercises me when i’m off-board, doing other things. But here at the SDMB, that topic understandably takes on a greater significance, because it is directly related to people’s experiences here. If you don’t understand that already, though, there’s probably no explaining it to you.

7

Yes, because people who have a problem with someone abusing their power, even on a small scale, just have a problem with authority. The problem can’t be with the people who actually have the authority.

And I am likewise by Dex’s post in that thread. I mean, how upset do you have to be to write “are” instead of “our”? That’s not a joke, either. Dex has always come across as well-spoken, so for him to make that kind of mistake, combined with his other angry remarks, implies he gave the Warning, not because it was what was best for the message board, but because he was upset. And that’s not the reason Warnings are given. It is not something that should go by without comment.

In fact, I take the part that mhendo as the type of justification that people do when they are angry. It’s a way of poisoning the well. And the only reason to do so is if you know that the argument you are poisoning is a good one.

And it is a good one. A Warning is not a slap on the wrist. That’s a mod note. A Warning, especially on someone who already has more than one, is a precursor to a suspension or banning. If it wasn’t considered a punishment in its own right, mods wouldn’t give them.

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Yes, that is my primary problem with this “slap on the wrist” that I have been as taunted by **Dex **not even to file the mildest of protests against. I’ve accumulated a LOT of warnings in the past year or two, most about as silly as this one, and far from a suicide by mod, this looks to me like the mods have decided to build a case for banning me, and intend on publishing a list of the warnings I’ve received to justify it, realizing that few will open that long list and see how uncalled-for the warnings have been, and fewer will care that I’ve been banned.

This one is particularly silly, since I’ve gotten another official Mod warning for doing far less than almost everyone in that thread (and doing it with a deliberately light touch)–I was paraphrasing the tone of the entire thread, no Mod had come into previously to ask everyone to refrain from repeating that tone, when Dex went off on me, and me alone. The least I can do is protest against this abuse of the Mod warning while I still have a voice to protest with.

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It’s also usually the same jerks that have problems with their jerkish behaviour being reprimanded.

10

So, my point is well and truly made. You can dish it out , but you can’t take it.

Yes, I apologize for the tone of voice in my warning. Your post was the last camel that overflowed the cup. Don’t pretend otherwise: it was not “humor,” it was sarcasm, and it was calling a mod a “bad person.” Were other earlier comments as bad or worse? Yes, indeed. And you’re correct: to be fair, I should have warned several of them.

Let’s be clear: recreational outrage is not to be directed at mods. You want to challenge their decisions, fine. You want to discuss their actions, fine. We’re happy to respond, and we sometimes apologize for error (as I am now) and retract.

But:
(1) Once the decision is made and reviewed, and (in the “do mods tattle on reports” thread) stated as Official Policy and agreed to unanimously by the mods (this time I’m correct in saying that), the whining and complaint needs to stop. The appeal has been made, has gone to the appeals court (unanimity of mods) and to the Supreme Court (official policy) and it’s done. Further RO is ridiculous.
And
(2) When the hounds are braying so loud, there’s no room for calm rational discussion. The point of moving complaints against mod actions from the Pit to ATMB was to remove the emotional nastiness, the snide remarks, the personal insults – and to achieve reasonable discussion. That’s mostly worked, but we’ve had a strong downhill slide. ATMB is NOT the Pit Lite.

Yes, my disgust-o-meter had hit “it’s time to do something” and you were the most recent offender. Yes, that’s unfair. I will doubtless reverse the warning in a day or so. But, on the other hand, the message needs to be heard loud and clear: pile-up on Mod will NOT accomplish anything. Recreational Outrage against Mod is NOT appropriate. Personal insults against Mods should NOT be tolerated.

And I knew that my just saying that in a Mod Note would never be heard amidst all the personal insults. I needed a dramatic action to get attention, and you were it.
Damn, I didn’t realize I had made a typo on “our.” Yes, I was upset: not at that one post in particular, but at the general direction of that thread and other threads.

11

Oh, sorry, meant to add: I will almost certainly NOT be on line for the next day or two, between traveling and doctor visits. That’s not ignoring anyone, that’s just my life.

12

No, letting Dex’s warning stand unchalllenged might have been slow suicide by mod, but thanks for your sage advice anyway. I will always value it.

13

How the fuck do you parse what **prr **said as calling a mod a bad person? What a shitty call.

14

Well, it was the /opposite/ of what he said, see, and everybody knows it was opposite day.

… I got nothin’.

15

And if I was being sarcastic and intending to call Czarcasm a bad person, shouldn’t I be credited for coming to his defense and labeling him a very good mod?

How the fuck would I know whether anyone is a good person, given only his or her on-line persona, anyway?

16

I’m going to agree with the people saying there’s been a decline in the moderator quality of late. Several of them appear to be enforcing their own arbitrary, petty standards that have nothing to do with the actual rules of the board. Others are more consistent, but not blameless, because they close ranks to defend those making the bad decisions.

17

One thing I would like to know is: what do you think is the reason for this outpouring of what you see as vitriol? I still see it as persistent attempts to achieve justice and reason*. The posters are, I’m sure, not doing it out of spite or malice. So why do you think they are doing it?

*OK, that is a bit high handed, but I hope you know what I mean.

18

Well, if it was a sarcastic tone, then it means the opposite of what it says. Thus, when Dex says he thinks prr was being sarcastic, he thinks prr means the opposite of saying that Czarcasm is not a bad person.

The tone comes across as mocking, and mocking isn’t merely humor, it’s a dig. From the phrasing, it seems to be mocking Czarcasm, and that’s how Dex took it - especially given the tone of the rest of that thread.

Dex, you are usually pretty level headed, so let me just say that in this case I don’t think the warning to prr was fair. I do hope you follow through as you stated and reverse the warning.

19

I don’t agree with a lot of the recent complaints about moderator decisions. Even if a moderator makes a mistake and then digs in his/her heels, it seems like a pretty small matter.

BUT I have to say that closing the Czarcasm thread and warning Pseudotriton is ridiculous. The thread seemed like a big waste of time to me, but it was a mild discussion of Czarcasm’s moderating. That’s what this forum is for.

And PRR’s comment was in no way an insult. It boggles the mind to think you could be warned for saying someone is a good person but a bad moderator. The fact that Dex immediately said he’s likely to rescind the warning is just proof that even he doesn’t believe his own BS.

I like the moderators around here. I think it’s great when they adopt a touch of Cecil’s know-it-all, sarcastic tone. But that doesn’t work when they make obviously boneheaded decisions.

20

Dex is not going to be able to be around to answer you for a little while so please keep that in mind.