Zen and the art of moderation 2 2

[Logan510]

I get the best strikes

 

I'll never know how one feels

Sure you will.

 

 

 

Haven't had one in four years, don't see how it's happening.

[Ogami]

I got a strike, I deserved it, like every single other person who gets a strike does.

 

Whining about it is ridiculous, period.

 

 

 

 

This, my friends, is as example of the successful rehabilitation of the convicted and their subsequent reintegration into society.

 

[Aces]

Oh it's definitely Duck Season.

[goldust40]

If you're going to respond again, RMA, turn the volume on the outrage down. It's not constructive.

 

 

You seem to have great difficulty in determining the difference between "outrage" and someone forthrightly disagreeing with your assessment of the situation.

 

You do, however, have a very easy time with threatening people. After all..."non constructive" conversation (with what is, and what is not, constructive of course being up to you) is a violation of policy, and a strikable offense.

 

I really wish you, and whomever it is that is contracted to do this work for the Certified Collectibles Group, would move on to some other company already and let someone else take your place. You really don't seem to be able to handle it when people take issue with the way you do your job.

 

I do hope that wasn't too "outrageous" for you.

 

(thumbs u

 

It's like ray-ee-ain, on your wedding day...

[Sal]

If you're going to respond again, RMA, turn the volume on the outrage down. It's not constructive.

 

 

You seem to have great difficulty in determining the difference between "outrage" and someone forthrightly disagreeing with your assessment of the situation.

 

You do, however, have a very easy time with threatening people. After all..."non constructive" conversation (with what is, and what is not, constructive of course being up to you) is a violation of policy, and a strikable offense.

 

I really wish you, and whomever it is that is contracted to do this work for the Certified Collectibles Group, would move on to some other company already and let someone else take your place. You really don't seem to be able to handle it when people take issue with the way you do your job.

 

I do hope that wasn't too "outrageous" for you.

 

(thumbs u

 

I respect your opinion, but as an unbiased observer...I completely disagree. I had the exact same reaction as Arch when reading your post; my view about your argumentative style is that you deliberately choose to use quite a bit of inflammatory language. Perhaps you do so for emphasis; I don't know. I think you, like most of us, has a real hard time being criticised. I mean, the eyeroll at the start of your post is just about as perfect an example of what he's talking about, short of a graemlin that's giving the finger.

 

I'm not saying this to argue with you, or to get into a prolonged parsing of your original post, but rather to give you a perspective from someone who hopefully you know doesn't have any antagonism towards you.

 

 

If you think this should have been done via pm, I apologise. It seems easier this way

[TupennyConan]

This is just a friendly reminder that none of us is the center of the universe.

 

Two things:

 

1) I admire your use of the proper verb tense of 'to be,' following 'none of us' above; a common usage error substitutes 'is' with 'are'.

2) I admire your OP as a superb example of Troll Baiting.

[slym2none]

I get the best strikes

 

I'll never know how one feels

PM me your password.

 

That is a come-on if I ever heard one.

 

Won't Mystie be mad!!??!

 

 

 

 

-slym

[Logan510]

I get the best strikes

 

I'll never know how one feels

PM me your password.

 

That is a come-on if I ever heard one.

 

Won't Mystie be mad!!??!

 

 

 

 

-slym

 

 

[bababooey]

If you think this should have been done via pm, I apologise. It seems easier this way

That option will no longer be available shortly.

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

 

Moderation is based on opinion, yes. Just like the verdicts in courts, the discretion of the police, etc.. There are mistakes, yes. You have cited one that was corrected quickly from a number of years ago - I don't remember how many years. I don't think that necessarily deserves the outrage treatment you give it, but then again your opinion of moderation opinions is based on... opinion. Was that english? Probably not.

.

 

Allow me to address one issue..in real life, people are allowed to defend themselves, present their cases.

 

You do not allow this here. There is no appeal, to anything, a fact you quite plainly state in the terms

 

So to compare moderation here to real life is disingenuous.

 

As for the years ago example...it was an example that disproved your statement that "(read: everyone who ever got a strike or warning) may deeply believe that in your case it was all about injustice. You may even have a point - like our speeder above who was not the fastest one in the pack. But you were still speeding."

 

Again...there was someone who was NOT speeding, yet got caught anyways.

 

These problems that you're saying are dealt with in a manner whereby...if I may paraphrase..."we don't see the whole picture" are so obvious, so ubiquitous, and so pervasive, it is impossible for even the most positive board member to avoid.

 

PS. A very large part of the problem is that you see statements like this:

 

No.

 

It's not.

 

Is it tedious? Oh yes. Yes, indeed.

 

Is it HARD?

 

No.

 

...as inflammatory. If you look for something in another's words...the odds are very good that you'll find it.

[Shootydog]

If you're going to respond again, RMA, turn the volume on the outrage down. It's not constructive.

 

 

You seem to have great difficulty in determining the difference between "outrage" and someone forthrightly disagreeing with your assessment of the situation.

 

You do, however, have a very easy time with threatening people. After all..."non constructive" conversation (with what is, and what is not, constructive of course being up to you) is a violation of policy, and a strikable offense.

 

I really wish you, and whomever it is that is contracted to do this work for the Certified Collectibles Group, would move on to some other company already and let someone else take your place. You really don't seem to be able to handle it when people take issue with the way you do your job.

 

I do hope that wasn't too "outrageous" for you.

 

(thumbs u

 

I respect your opinion, but as an unbiased observer...I completely disagree. I had the exact same reaction as Arch when reading your post; my view about your argumentative style is that you deliberately choose to use quite a bit of inflammatory language. Perhaps you do so for emphasis; I don't know. I think you, like most of us, has a real hard time being criticised. I mean, the eyeroll at the start of your post is just about as perfect an example of what he's talking about, short of a graemlin that's giving the finger.

 

I'm not saying this to argue with you, or to get into a prolonged parsing of your original post, but rather to give you a perspective from someone who hopefully you know doesn't have any antagonism towards you.

 

 

If you think this should have been done via pm, I apologise. It seems easier this way

 

It really just boils down to the last word with RMA...he's gotta have it. I've not read any arguments made by him that don't antagonize, belittle or otherwise berate in the interest of merely shutting up any contrary opinion.

[RockMyAmadeus]

If you're going to respond again, RMA, turn the volume on the outrage down. It's not constructive.

 

 

You seem to have great difficulty in determining the difference between "outrage" and someone forthrightly disagreeing with your assessment of the situation.

 

You do, however, have a very easy time with threatening people. After all..."non constructive" conversation (with what is, and what is not, constructive of course being up to you) is a violation of policy, and a strikable offense.

 

I really wish you, and whomever it is that is contracted to do this work for the Certified Collectibles Group, would move on to some other company already and let someone else take your place. You really don't seem to be able to handle it when people take issue with the way you do your job.

 

I do hope that wasn't too "outrageous" for you.

 

(thumbs u

 

I respect your opinion, but as an unbiased observer...I completely disagree. I had the exact same reaction as Arch when reading your post; my view about your argumentative style is that you deliberately choose to use quite a bit of inflammatory language. Perhaps you do so for emphasis; I don't know. I think you, like most of us, has a real hard time being criticised. I mean, the eyeroll at the start of your post is just about as perfect an example of what he's talking about, short of a graemlin that's giving the finger.

 

I'm not saying this to argue with you, or to get into a prolonged parsing of your original post, but rather to give you a perspective from someone who hopefully you know doesn't have any antagonism towards you.

 

 

If you think this should have been done via pm, I apologise. It seems easier this way

 

It was, and is, for emphasis. One is allowed to be unhappy, and express that unhappiness, without someone else reading their unhappiness as inflammatory.

 

Emoticons are used to express emotions. We are not emotionless automatons. I did not "flip the bird" or use any emoticon which could be construed as provocative. It expresses how I think about the situation.

 

And the situation here, despite what Architecht may believe about me and my posting habits personally, is pretty bad, much of the time, in many ways...an opinion shared by very many.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

If you're going to respond again, RMA, turn the volume on the outrage down. It's not constructive.

 

 

You seem to have great difficulty in determining the difference between "outrage" and someone forthrightly disagreeing with your assessment of the situation.

 

You do, however, have a very easy time with threatening people. After all..."non constructive" conversation (with what is, and what is not, constructive of course being up to you) is a violation of policy, and a strikable offense.

 

I really wish you, and whomever it is that is contracted to do this work for the Certified Collectibles Group, would move on to some other company already and let someone else take your place. You really don't seem to be able to handle it when people take issue with the way you do your job.

 

I do hope that wasn't too "outrageous" for you.

 

(thumbs u

 

I respect your opinion, but as an unbiased observer...I completely disagree. I had the exact same reaction as Arch when reading your post; my view about your argumentative style is that you deliberately choose to use quite a bit of inflammatory language. Perhaps you do so for emphasis; I don't know. I think you, like most of us, has a real hard time being criticised. I mean, the eyeroll at the start of your post is just about as perfect an example of what he's talking about, short of a graemlin that's giving the finger.

 

I'm not saying this to argue with you, or to get into a prolonged parsing of your original post, but rather to give you a perspective from someone who hopefully you know doesn't have any antagonism towards you.

 

 

If you think this should have been done via pm, I apologise. It seems easier this way

 

It really just boils down to the last word with RMA...he's gotta have it. I've not read any arguments made by him that don't antagonize, belittle or otherwise berate in the interest of merely shutting up any contrary opinion.

 

And this, Sal, is a perfect demonstration of the problem.

 

This isn't true, not in a specific sense, nor a broad sense, and yet...this Shootydog feels it necessary to make the discussion about ME, rather than the issue. Despite the fact that, since January of 2012, for reasons that remain my own, I've made...perhaps...50 posts that actually said much of anything at all. No, despite that, it devolves into personal attacks about individuals, rather than talking about the issues.

 

This is about as excellent an example of what is wrong with this board that anyone could possibly have come up with.

 

[Shootydog]

If you're going to respond again, RMA, turn the volume on the outrage down. It's not constructive.

 

 

You seem to have great difficulty in determining the difference between "outrage" and someone forthrightly disagreeing with your assessment of the situation.

 

You do, however, have a very easy time with threatening people. After all..."non constructive" conversation (with what is, and what is not, constructive of course being up to you) is a violation of policy, and a strikable offense.

 

I really wish you, and whomever it is that is contracted to do this work for the Certified Collectibles Group, would move on to some other company already and let someone else take your place. You really don't seem to be able to handle it when people take issue with the way you do your job.

 

I do hope that wasn't too "outrageous" for you.

 

(thumbs u

 

I respect your opinion, but as an unbiased observer...I completely disagree. I had the exact same reaction as Arch when reading your post; my view about your argumentative style is that you deliberately choose to use quite a bit of inflammatory language. Perhaps you do so for emphasis; I don't know. I think you, like most of us, has a real hard time being criticised. I mean, the eyeroll at the start of your post is just about as perfect an example of what he's talking about, short of a graemlin that's giving the finger.

 

I'm not saying this to argue with you, or to get into a prolonged parsing of your original post, but rather to give you a perspective from someone who hopefully you know doesn't have any antagonism towards you.

 

 

If you think this should have been done via pm, I apologise. It seems easier this way

 

It was, and is, for emphasis. One is allowed to be unhappy, and express that unhappiness, without someone else reading their unhappiness as inflammatory.

 

Emoticons are used to express emotions. We are not emotionless automatons. I did not "flip the bird" or use any emoticon which could be construed as provocative. It expresses how I think about the situation.

 

And the situation here, despite what Architecht may believe about me and my posting habits personally, is pretty bad, much of the time, in many ways...an opinion shared by very many.

 

This I agree with. It's pretty rough around here lately. There seem to be a lot of disgruntled, angry folk with agendas or just the need to push some buttons.

 

[Shootydog]

If you're going to respond again, RMA, turn the volume on the outrage down. It's not constructive.

 

 

You seem to have great difficulty in determining the difference between "outrage" and someone forthrightly disagreeing with your assessment of the situation.

 

You do, however, have a very easy time with threatening people. After all..."non constructive" conversation (with what is, and what is not, constructive of course being up to you) is a violation of policy, and a strikable offense.

 

I really wish you, and whomever it is that is contracted to do this work for the Certified Collectibles Group, would move on to some other company already and let someone else take your place. You really don't seem to be able to handle it when people take issue with the way you do your job.

 

I do hope that wasn't too "outrageous" for you.

 

(thumbs u

 

I respect your opinion, but as an unbiased observer...I completely disagree. I had the exact same reaction as Arch when reading your post; my view about your argumentative style is that you deliberately choose to use quite a bit of inflammatory language. Perhaps you do so for emphasis; I don't know. I think you, like most of us, has a real hard time being criticised. I mean, the eyeroll at the start of your post is just about as perfect an example of what he's talking about, short of a graemlin that's giving the finger.

 

I'm not saying this to argue with you, or to get into a prolonged parsing of your original post, but rather to give you a perspective from someone who hopefully you know doesn't have any antagonism towards you.

 

 

If you think this should have been done via pm, I apologise. It seems easier this way

 

It really just boils down to the last word with RMA...he's gotta have it. I've not read any arguments made by him that don't antagonize, belittle or otherwise berate in the interest of merely shutting up any contrary opinion.

 

And this, Sal, is a perfect demonstration of the problem.

 

This isn't true, not in a specific sense, nor a broad ense, and yet...this Shootydog feels it necessary to make the discussion about ME, rather than the issue. Despite the fact that, since January of 2012, for reasons that remain my own, I've made...perhaps...50 posts that actually said much of anything at all. No, despite that, it devolves into personal attacks about individuals, rather than talking about the issues.

 

This is about as excellent an example of what is wrong with this board that anyone could possibly have come up with.

 

 

I'm just addressing a specific example that's being discussed here in this moment. I agree...the problem is widespread and not just about you.

 

[LetThereBeComics-migration]

Despite the fact that, since January of 2012, for reasons that remain my own, I've made...perhaps...50 posts that actually said much of anything at all.

 

Wasn't that a protest against the inadequate ignore feature?

[PeterPark]

This is just a friendly reminder that none of us is the center of the universe. Moderation is not about any one person. It's about setting limits for the community in order to allow for constructive discussion.

 

I read a story once a while back about a guy who was driving down the highway somewhere in the south, staying with traffic, minding his own business. Traffic, however, was going about 15mph too fast for the limit. As he is driving, he and all of the other drivers have the bad luck to drive past a speed trap.

 

Out roars the police car, on go the lights - bam, he's got somebody. Well, it turns out to be our hero - the one who is just driving along with traffic.

 

Our hero gets ticked off, and can't wait for his court date. In court he makes alot of noise at the judge about how everyone was driving fast and how he was not even the fastest of the pack. He protests in a loud voice about the injustice of it all, the lack of consistency and horrible mental anguish that this speeding ticket has caused him.

 

The judge looks at him and says, "Hey, have you ever been duck hunting?"

 

This stops the man short. Weird question. "Yes, I have," he says.

 

"When you go," says the judge, "and you're sitting there in the duck blind, and a flock of ducks flies by over head, do you pick out the fattest duck in the flock... the one that looks like it has the most flavor, or do you just pick a duck and shoot?"

 

The man just looks at him. "Guilty," says the judge, and fines him.

 

The point of the ticket in this case was definitely about the speeder, but it was also about all of the other speeders.

 

Your posting guideline tasks, should you choose to accept them, are pretty basic. They are outlined fairly decently here on the site. They are executed by a number of different people who interpret those guidelines as they moderate, just as all of you interpret those guidelines as you post. It's not a big deal. It's not a deep mystery. It isn't a conspiracy.

 

If you don't want to get shot, don't be a duck. Sometimes you can drive by a police car at 7mph over, sigh with relief and not get a ticket... and sometimes for the same thing you get pulled over AND you get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. Other times, you get a warning ticket.

 

What moderators want is to set some boundaries so that good discussions can take place without everyone wanting to destroy each other and to set the acceptable social tone at a level that doesn't drive any notable percentage of the community away. That is true whether the posts are humor or debate.

 

Some of you occasionally (read: everyone who ever got a strike or warning) may deeply believe that in your case it was all about injustice. You may even have a point - like our speeder above who was not the fastest one in the pack. But you were still speeding.

 

By and large I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to moderation because:

 

1. The people posting are generally wrapped up in their posts whereas the moderators are not.

 

2. The moderators, contrary to popular opinion, are not doing this because they love tedious thread trimming and reading moderator notifications by everyone from upstanding members of the community to lunatics. They are just trying to help the community.

 

If you think someone got treated unfairly and then you look around and suddenly evidence starts popping up all around you of a trend of unfairness... you may want to research confirmation bias.

 

Did you know that smarter people are actually MORE likely to suffer from confirmation bias?

 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/daniel-kahneman-bias-studies.html

 

Take a deep breath and enjoy your comics.

 

Oh, and stop hassling the mods. They are trying to help. Think about what it's like to be a mod - the difficulty and tedium of sorting out he-said she-said, the process of choosing where to rein things in when a whole thread has started going off track without just laying waste to everything around you.

 

Then do this: assume that the moderators have positive and helpful intentions. Assume that they didn't aggressively apply to become moderators out of a deep desire to torture an internet community. Think about why they do what they do with all of that in mind. You might come to different conclusions about the mechanics of moderation and community.

 

Have a nice day, guys.

 

Ugh, be careful appealing to psychology when you are looking for credibility...

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Despite the fact that, since January of 2012, for reasons that remain my own, I've made...perhaps...50 posts that actually said much of anything at all.

 

Wasn't that a protest against the inadequate ignore feature?

 

15%

[Ogami]

Am I the only one seeing sane, reasonable, rational RMA?

 

Are the boards so mentally deficient that they can only bleat, "two legs bad, four legs good" regardless of the data that is right in front of their eyes?

 

All of the negatives posted about RMA in this thread (let's stick to this thread for the moment) have been negative "proofs" about an RMA that doesn't really exist anymore.

 

Is RMA perfect? Certainly not. But he is a far cry from the circus fun house mirror that many boardies would have other boardies believe he is.

 

And a far more rational man that deserves better than he's getting.

[Logan510]