The moderator team.
No, not according to Percy:
quote:
Do you follow the NFL at all? If so, you might know that the NFL rules are formulated so that referees never have to make judgment calls. A player either violated a rule or he didn't, but his intent is never an issue. Hence, a "roughing the quarterback" call does not depend upon whether it was intentional or not, only on whether it happened or not. Similarly, a face mask violation is strictly a function of whether the face mask was touched (minor penalty, 5 yards and a 1st down) or grasped (major penalty, 15 yards and a 1st down). Intention to rough the quarterback or grab the face mask is never a factor in making the call.
As the Forum Guidelines have evolved over the years we've tried to keep this in mind. As much as possible we want to avoid making forum guideline enforcement a judgment call.
The intent of participants is not supposed to be a factor in their moderation, although I suppose we can expect a certain degree of allowance for mistakes.
And, remember - the erosion of confidence in
Dan's motives is nowhere near as damaging to the board as an erosion in confidence in the
moderators' motives. Dan Carroll's motives simply don't matter, Mod; only yours do.
You managed to do it within acceptable limits.
I'm well aware. After all, I had learned from Dan's mistake, and so
I didn't give you an excuse.
The criticism I was talking about was 'moderators should exercise extreme reticence to take action when they're the target of a rules infraction.'
I think that was implicit in the criticisms I was making. If that didn't come through then I apologize. But there was a singular reticence for moderators to discuss application of moderator philosophy, which limited my ability to put forth general precepts of moderator philosophy. Anyway, who am I to decide - Percy makes the rules, not me.
But you would have interpreted other moderators acting here as circling the wagons - by your own admission...so I fail to see how it could have increased your confidence in the moderators.
Oh, I doubt it would have
increased my confidence in the moderators. You wouldn't have
increased my confidence in the moderators if you had done everything I had said.
When someone fucks up, there's no way for that to resolve in such a way that your confidence in them can really
increase. If the moderator team had made more of an effort to correct their ample mistakes, that would have
eroded confidence
less, but once they'd fucked up in the first place, increasing confidence wasn't possible in that situation.
But preventing further erosion is important, too. Remember, it's about participants' confidence in the moderation. More is better.
I did my job with regards to NJ. I read a crap load of his posts and didn't see an infraction.
Sure, but you were wrong. I mean I don't know what else you would need at this point - even
NJ showed up here to tell you he was gay-baiting, just like Moose and Percy suspected he was. You're objectively in error that there was no infraction - gay-baiting is a "needling", "goading" tactic that is "disrespectful" and therefore against the forum guidelines.
The cop who looks around and strangely never seems to see any crimes isn't "doing his job."
But you interpreted Dan's words as being more than 'advice on banana eating'.
Sure, by indirect inference. That happens all the time and only rarely rises to a level that demands censure. Indeed, a certain amount of it is necessary to keep the debate going!
It wasn't that you were calling EltonianJames "an arrogant, baboon-faced, smelly, sycophantic, drooling mouth-breather"...just that he fit the shoes of one.
Well, look, I wrote the post, Mod, and let me tell you - yes, that's exactly what I was calling him. That was the point! I was trying to skirt the forum guidelines by
indirectly calling EJ arrogant, baboon-faced, and the rest. (Yes, some humorous hyperbole was intended.)
That's the whole point of the indirect insult - to make someone feel like they've been insulted, while at the same time leave yourself an "out" where you can claim you've simply been misinterpreted.
I keep saying I wasn't insulted.
Sigh... again, nobody thought you were.
This will go a little quicker if you can keep up, I guess.
I think "Yes -your judgement that I was breaking the forum rules is accurate" should suffice to settle the case as to whether or not a forum rule was broken.
But he didn't, not if you seriously thought he was actually telling you how to eat a banana. That's not against the forum guidelines. Saying "yes, I'm breaking the forum guidelines" isn't against the guidelines either.
Interpreting banana instructions as "disrespect"
is oversensitivity, Mod. It's just being prickly. Moderators need to not be prickly. They need to not be oversensitive. They especially need to not be oversensitive while they're accusing
others of being oversensitive.
There's no contradiction here. Not actually being insulted makes responding as though Dan insulted you
less defensible, not
more.
It was my opinion that he wanted to be suspended, yes.
But that's just stupid. Why would
anybody want to be suspended? If they want it, how would it be an effective punishment? If Dan wanted it, why did he complain about it?
Of course Dan didn't want to be suspended. Nobody does. If they wanted to
stop posting they just wouldn't post anymore. If people wanted to be suspended you could just make a "suspend yourself" button and save yourself a lot of work.
Of course Dan didn't want you to suspend
him. He wanted you to suspend
NJ. That was the entire point, how could you have missed that?
If they post that, a moderator might be afraid to suspend someone where they might otherwise have done so without hesitation.
Well, that would be a tragedy, now wouldn't it? If moderators were restrained and conservative in the exercise of their power? If they were hesitant and self-reflective before they acted?
Yeah, I can see what a nightmare that would be.
At the time, I didn't realize your posts were stemming from the fact that you were of the position that you would simply believe the worst possible interpretation was true.
How can I know it's not? And when it's that important, why shouldn't I exercise extreme suspicion of moderator actions?
Because it hurts their feelings? Too fuckin' bad. More is at stake than that.
We could let the discussion of moderator procedures thread become the 'flame the moderators thread'.
Or, alternatively, you could stop seeing constructive criticism as "flames." You could stop constructing the problem as "how many people do we have to suspend before people stop complaining about the suspensions?" Even after all this time I can't believe you still think it was the
participants who were the problem. Sure, one of them was - NJ! That was the whole point.
You thought one thing was 'the right thing'. The moderators disagreed.
And thus we were at an impasse. The participant team, though, was willing to discuss and weigh alternatives, compromises.
What compromise did the moderator team ever offer? When Percy said that Dan and Berberry weren't "willing to consider alternatives", what
specific alternative was he referring to? None of us ever said that "only one outcome was acceptable." All we ever said was that there was one outcome that was
not acceptable, but for some reason, that's the exact outcome moderators insisted was the correct and only option.
Why was that?
I was addressing the reasonable criticism you did make - so I'd appreciate it if you responded in kind. You argued that another moderator should have stepped in. I suggested that if they had, and had they agreed with me and suspended Dan - it would not have changed your views on moderator impartiality at all.
No, they
would have changed. They would have been eroded less.
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