I’m not playing your game, mhendo. I’m out of this thread.
Dear Shodan -
Calling my argument “disingenuous” is personal and insulting. That would be fine - mild, even - in the Pit, but I came into ATMB to try and calm things down. I am not “defending my actions.” This isn’t about me. I just happened to be the latest mod that a few people decided to poke recreationally to get a reaction.
You and others have said that threads like this have a purpose: to change a moderator decision. That happened long ago. The cop wrote a ticket; you (a generic “you,” not you personally) challenged the ticket; he rescinded it; and now you’re demanding that he publicly apologize, make you a sandwich, and paint a scarlet “B” on his chest.
What you’ve accomplished is to make mods like me not even want to read ATMB. I have better things to do with my time. I’m out.
[/QUOTE]
I honestly don’t think that any of this is ‘recreational’. I’m sure it’s heartfelt. I may be completely wrong and maybe people are deliberately baiting mods for kicks, but I don’t think they are.
What you’ve accomplished is to make mods like me not even want to read ATMB. I have better things to do with my time. I’m out.
[/QUOTE]
So much for the restrictive non-pit rules of ATMB making for drama-free communication. Chalk one more up for “Thin-skinned mods unwilling to hear reasonable complaints about their moderation.”
Nobody wanted him to run. But much as I hate to say it
this appears to be the case.
Question:
[ul][li]ATMB is the place for complaints about moderation. [/li][li]At least one mod has stated that he doesn’t feel like reading ATMB any more.[/li][li]In that mod’s case, is the message to go ahead and complain - I am not even going to read it. Justified, unjustified, RO, air-tight demonstration of unquestionable screwups - I don’t care, I am not listening.[/ul][/li]The ultimate stone wall, ISTM.
Calling my argument “disingenuous” is personal and insulting. .
[/QUOTE]
Wait. I thought the rule was outside of the pit you can attack the post but not the poster. So now attacking the post/argument is personal and insulting and belongs in th pit?
Let’s be frank, “your argument is disingenuous” isn’t quite the same as saying “your Cocker Spaniel is too aggressive.” It means “you’re being intentionally dishonest,” which means “you’re lying,” which sounds pretty insulting to me.
This isn’t a collection of power-hungry assholes - it’s a collection of pretty good people who sometimes get fed up with the abuse.
[/QUOTE]
Firstly, no-one accused the mods of being “power-hungry assholes.” How do i know that? Because if someone had made such an accusation, they would have been warned for using personal insults in ATMB.
Also, as i and others have pointed out on numerous occasions, criticisms of mods are about their performance as moderators, and not about whether or not they are “good people.” You can be a bad mod and a good person, or a good mod and a bad person. And to pretend that otherwise is, in my opinion, disingenuous. I guess i could have called it a “straw man” in order to make the point. Or i could have used his own word, “specious,” with similar effect.
Would you actually feel vindicated if someone did this and it turned out you were number 3?
If you are at this point, perhaps this volunteer job is just not worth it for you. No crime there. And it’s no slap to your character. You aren’t in competition with anyone. You are a mod, doing a job. A pretty thankless job at that, but you can’t beg for sympathy when you volunteered to do it. If you feel that you are not being appreciated properly or that you can’t live with the scrutiny, just resign. No one will hold that against you. I give you credit for signing up in the first place.
If you DO feel this way, why on earth would you want to continue to be a mod? There has to be something to being a moderator on a message board beside a free coffee mug.
But in the interest of keeping a conversation going and attempting to influence another person’s opinion, wouldn’t it be better to err on the side of assuming the best about the person’s intentions (or at least appearing to)?
It doesn’t hurt to be persistently nice but firm, for example:
“I don’t think your statement properly represents what I/we are trying to say. The issue we feel passionately about is this…”
You are, of course, correct. The problem is that such posts are apparently completely useless, at least in this thread, where Gary “Wombat” Robson is concerned.
Before i made my “disingenuous” comment, PlainJain said:
Which is pretty much exactly the sort of approach that you are suggesting i should have taken. And what was the mod in question’s response to that post? He completely ignored it.
I just happened to be the latest mod that a few people decided to poke recreationally to get a reaction.
[/QUOTE]
Emphasis mine.
It’s a constant theme for him: the idea that criticism is, for some people, merely recreational. Even if that were true (and it’s certainly not, in my case), it would behoove one to try and sort out the genuine and politely argued criticisms from those that appear more unreasonable. But he doesn’t appear to have made any effort at all to do that.
Of course, his claim is that his whole purpose in coming to this thread was to calm things down and keep things on an even keel. And, at a certain level, his earlier posts were quite calm. But they also completely and utterly failed to concede that there might, on some rare occasion, be some validity to some of the criticisms of moderating around here. No matter how calm your posts appear, if you begin from an assumption that everyone whose opinion differs from yours is a recreational whiner and troublemaker—which is what GWR appears to do in ATMB—then you’re unlikely to contribute productively to the discussion, even if you manage to kid yourself that that’s what you’re doing.
As i’ve said before, he (and some other mods and admins) insist on treating each instance as if it’s inconsequential, and appear completely unwilling to accept that, for some moderators, there is a pattern of poor decisions. And therefore complaints must merely be recreational whining that has no purpose but to make people’s lives difficult. But if someone’s aim in life were really to make life difficult for this board, and for the mods and admins in general, you’d think that the criticism would be far more evenly distributed, wouldn’t you? I mean, why annoy just a few people, when you can make a nuisance of yourself with everyone? And yet a small number of mods receive the vast proportion of complaints, and some mods receive almost none at all.
Anyhow, that’s my take on the matter. No matter what i say, GWR will no doubt consider that my only aim is to “make it personal” with him. And now that he’s said that he’s not returning, i fully expect some other mod to lock this thread pretty soon.
If your goal is to influence their opinion you will ignore any statement like that.
Responding to it or pointing out the problem with it in this thread won’t get you closer to your goal (assuming your goal is to influence their opinion about the original matter), just persist with a Ghandi-esque approach of non-combat and respect while attempting to influence their opinion.
This started out as being about Dex. It then, perhaps inevitably, included Czarcasm. GWB then made a few unfortunate comments, and now it’s all about him. Twixster got a mention, too.
Surely, with a bit of effort, we can get through all the mods. Either singly, or in lots.
