it seems to me that this misses the point somewhat.
Firstly, speaking for myself at least, i can take it fine. Remember, we (the membership) weren’t the ones who made the decision to remove complaints about the mods from the Pit to ATMB. If you want to call me names, fire away. The only thing about it that would concern me is that you would be abusing your position of authority, which is precisely why i didn’t like the post you made yesterday. It wasn’t that you were being nasty; it was that you were taking advantage of your position to do exactly what you were telling everyone else not to do.
Also, the “dish it out but can’t take it” comment is rather inappropriate, given that your ability to dish it out also comes with the authority to issue warnings, which is exactly what you did in that thread. This imbalance makes it rather silly for you to assert some sort of equivalence here.
Firstly, you are basically the only person who has read that post who interpreted it as an insult. Everyone else, including me, interpreted it exactly the way that prr has since explained: it was a humorous riff on my own comment about Czarcasm being a good person and a bad moderator.
I’m also curious as to which other comments in that thread you thought deserved a warning. And i mean genuinely curious. I mean, now that we’re here, why not actually have a productive discussion about ATMB’s purpose? For example, do you consider my comment about Czarcasm being a good person but a bad moderator to be unacceptable in ATMB? If so, then maybe you could explain why. And if not, then whose comments deserved a warning?
there are a few problems here.
First, how are you defining recreational outrage? My presence in that thread, and in this one, is far from recreational. I’m here precisely because i think this has become an important issue here on the boards, and one that should be addressed. Is recreational outrage simply a criticism that you disagree with, or are you using some other standard?
Also, regarding the last sentence in that paragraph, isn’t one problem sometimes that you are not, in fact, “happy to respond”? After all, the very thread we’re talking about here saw no response at all from the moderator whose actions inspired its creation, and, apart from a post by Spectre, only saw any real moderator engagement once you and Wombat marched in with warnings and closings.
And yet, in the very thread that we’re discussing here, the mod who had been criticized had not even bothered to respond, and nor had there been any ruling made. The main reason that the thread was continuing was precisely because the complaint made in te OP had not been addressed in any substantial way, and had not been addressed at all by the one moderator who should have addressed it.
Your use of the example of the tattling thread is also instructive. In that thread i, and quite a few others who are sometimes critical of mod decisions (e.g. hajario) came to the defense of the mods, and made clear that we thought the explanations offered were perfectly reasonable. Hell, my own posts (1 2) specifically came to the defense of Czarcasm, the very same mod that i’ve been criticizing elsewhere. It may surprise you to know this, but a lot of us who complain are actually genuine about it, are perfectly willing to be reasonable in assessing each situation, and are also happy to defend moderator actions when we feel that’s warranted. It might make you feel better to think that every critic has some sort if irrational vendetta, but it’s simply not the case.
That’s fine. But there was also some talk, when the rule changed, about moderators being willing to make substantive response to genuine criticism. It seems to me that, like the civility of ATMB, this is something else that has been on the wane. Maybe there should be a requirement that the moderator whose actions have been called into question must make some sort of response. Hell, even if the response is something like, “I stand by my decision, and i won’t be responding any further to this thread.” At least then we’d know where the person stands.
Again, if there have been pile-ups recently, it’s precisely because some moderators have been so unresponsive to even the most gentle criticism. Your words in this post suggest that you don’t believe this to be the case, and that you think the mods are “happy to respond,” but that’s not the impression that you’ve been giving recently.
And yet the attention you got, in my case at least, was mainly something along the lines of, “Fuck, Dex is generally a pretty rational guy, but that post was just insane.”
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:23, topic:593744”]
Throughout most of the Straight Dope forums, it’s easy to put on the mod hat or take off the mod hat. Most of us are now putting a “Moderating” title on the post to make it clearer, but mod action is usually pretty clear. ATMB is a different animal.
In this post, for example, I am speaking as a moderator, but I don’t have my “mod hat” on – no warnings, no instructions, no policy statements. It’s all too easy to assume that any staff member making a statement in ATMB is speaking on behalf of the whole staff and making lasting firm proclamations of policy.
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I was thinking about this yesterday, in the context of the thread about whether mods out posters who report other posters, and it seems to me that ATMB might be one forum where mods should just assume that they are posting with their mod hat on, because that is how everyone else take it.
This forum is designed precisely for “questions, comments, and complaints about the SDMB,” and as representatives of the SDMB, mods and admins maybe should only speak AS mods and admins in this forum. In other words, if someone asks a question about rules or policy, and you’re not going to offer a factual answer, then maybe you shouldn’t post at all, because it can just confuse the issue.
Take the thread i just mentioned, for example. I came to Czarcasm’s defense in that thread, because i thought some people were being unreasonable, but then Czarcasm also made this post:
I think that’s a problematic way for a mod to post in ATMB. Czarcasm had already made five posts, in a thread specifically asking about official board policy. I think it’s reasonable, in those situations, for the membership to assume that he’s posting in his official capacity.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:23, topic:593744”]
It makes most of us hesitant to speak here. Sometimes, when something is “just the way we do it” and there is no written board policy (e.g., thou shalt not reveal the name of someone who reports a post), we hold off and wait for an admin or one of the old-timers to speak up. We are then accused of being nonresponsive.
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Well, if you’re not going to take my previous suggestion, then what’s so hard about something like, “Well, there’s no official written policy for this particular situation, so i’ll wait for someone else to weigh in on that. Speaking for myself, thuogh, i would never reveal the name of someone who reported another poster.”?
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:23, topic:593744”]
I closed the other ATMB thread for the same reason I’ve closed threads elsewhere on the boards: emotions were running high and it looked like people could stand to calm down for a day or so. Unfortunately, PRR decided to open this thread 14 nanoseconds later. sigh As someone who wasn’t involved in the incident that sparked the other ATMB thread, it really didn’t require days of debate. It’s over.
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And it would have been over long ago if there had actually been a response from the moderator in question.
Here’s a question for you, and for any other mod or admin who wants to respond:
This message board has set up a forum specifically for “questions, comments, and complaints about the SDMB.” Furthermore, we were told a couple of years back that this was to be the ONLY forum for such discussions, and the Pit was not to be used for criticism related to moderation or board performance. Given that such a forum exists, and we’ve been ordered to use it when we have concerns, do you think that a moderator whose actions are called into question in that forum has a responsibility to respond to the criticism?
If not, it seems to me that the whole purpose of this forum is little more than that of a soundproof room, where you send people who you don’t want to listen to.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:23, topic:593744”]
The vast majority of the mod notes I’ve issued have had no response. They’ve needed no response. If there was one, it was “oops, sorry.” By the end of the day, everyone’s forgotten about it. Lately, I’m seeing notes and warnings dissected for tone of voice, and sparking lengthy discussions about whether Poster A should have gotten the same warning as Poster B. We don’t issue warnings and mod notes because we don’t like people. We don’t issue them to rile people up. We don’t issue them because we’re power-hungry (c’mon - any mook can set up a message board and be a mod. Our “power” is nothing to flaunt). We issue them to try and pull things back on track and keep the boards fun and educational. The sooner we all forget about them and move on, the more fun and educational the boards stay.
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You expect us to accept all that, and yet you apparently won’t accept that members around here don’t complain “because we don’t like people.” We don’t complain just “to rile people up.” We don’t complain “because we’re power-hungry” or just looking to be disruptive. We complain to “try and pull things back on track and keep the boards fun and educational.”
If things have changed lately, as you suggest, why is your only conclusion that the membership has become more unreasonable? I mean, the people complaining are people who have, in many cases, been members for years. If there has been a shift, will you at least entertain the possibility that it has been caused, at least in part, not just by increasingly whiny members, but also by moderating decisions that are questionable at times?
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:23, topic:593744”]
I apologize for rambling, but I looked through the ATMB threads last night and thought, “what’s the point?” Czarcasm apologized. Dex apologized. Dex made the official policy statement on thread reports that was requested. TubaDiva confirmed it. All of it has been debated to death. I have no dog in this fight, but what are these threads possibly going to accomplish.
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But you’re conflating two different threads here. In the one specifically direct at Czarcasm, he didn’t apologize; he never even made a showing.