Notes of some kind
Stryder said:
Seriously we don't mind people having constructive criticism or feedback, however most of the time it's just complaints created because somebody hasn't got their own way in an argument, or they don't like a poster or moderator
I think it would also be worth pointing out that the moderators fight furiously on a regular basis about rules, interpretations, and even each other's work.
To the other—
Copernicus66 said:
Outright nonsense. Scottx is confused by the inconsistency. He didn't expect to be moderated, and when he was moderated he simply sent a private message to the moderator disagreeing with the action (and asking for clarification, I bet) to which he got the middle finger extended!
No wonder this forum is a dead shithole, when the moderators behave in such a fashion.
—the general nature of complaint threads about moderation is
so simplistic that many of our complainers would be utterly lost if the moderators had it out in public.
Some things I don't see in the discussion about how bad the moderators are: People don't give coherent examples. We've had to coax, cajole, and cater to members in order to get them from, "Moderator is being unfair" to "Moderator deleted my post" to "Moderator deleted my post because" to ... well, the trail eventually dies off because it's an ongoing process, and we haven't reached the end yet.
So, a few examples.
Let us consider a few hypotheticals:
• A moderator consistently intervenes on behalf of a personal friend, to the point that, faced with a post the moderator does not want to answer as a common member, the moderator does not delete the post, but vandalize it by stripping over ninety percent of the content. Deleted posts are recoverable. Vandalized content is not.
• A moderator intervening on behalf of a personal friend rejects a complaint as being without merit, and then crows publicly that he never read the complaint.
• A moderator vandalizes a post, calling it the worst insult he's ever seen. In order to justify this, however, the moderator has to tell the member what said member wrote, meant, and believed. Convenient, since the record of what the post actually said has been destroyed.
• Thread A is opened in one subforum to discuss a general issue. Thread B is opened in another subforum to discuss a specific political aspect within a given general issue. A moderator combines the two threads by merging the second (specific and political) into the first (general consideration), and then strikes a post that criticizes what is coincidentally the moderator's preferred political outlook as off-topic. What a convenient way to get rid of a post that criticizes your preferred politics, eh? Just alter the topic of the discussion, then delete the post as off-topic.
Oh, I'm sorry, did I say hypotheticals? My bad. Those are all real. That is, they've all happened.
See ....
Once upon a time, members complained about a specific political bias among the moderators at Sciforums. The site had an obvious liberal bias, claimed the complainers. Moderators were deleting posts and antagonizing members according to their political persuasions, said the members. The closest we could get to working examples were occasions on which religious people were told that, "Because God says so" isn't a proper logical argument (especially as part of the classic circular argument that the Bible is true because God says so is true because the Bible says so), or that general statements like all Mexicans are criminals should be backed up objectively. Indeed, in the latter case, demanding that evidence instead of simply deleting the post, locking the thread, or banning the member was decried as "baiting". Over time, despite a lack of coherent complaint, site administration attempted to provide at least one part of a solution: We would elevate moderators on a quota basis in order to present the appearance of political balance.
This is what happens when we respond to vague assertions of wrongdoing. The alleged problem? Too liberal! Too liberal! Too liberal! The solution? Make political persuasion a prerequisite of elevation to moderator status. The outcome? Well, a bunch of those accusations of moderator bias
finally came true.
Moral of the story? Depends on who you are, I suppose. Some might say, "Conservatives shouldn't be trusted with authority," but that's rather narrow. Some might say, "Don't make political outlook a prerequisite for moderators," and that's a lesson learned too late. And some might suggest, "Don't attempt solutions until you have identified the problem," and I would agree wholeheartedly.
So if people want things to get better around here, give us something to work with. Don't poison your own case with an ego overdose.
And giving us something to work with doesn't stop at making complaints coherent. If a member doesn't like our ruling on an issue, there
are ways to go about pursuing the case.
However, at Sciforums we have long expected people to have about them certain minimum faculties. Functional literacy, for instance. And beyond that a minimum degree of subtlety sufficient enough to distinguish between the mere presence of words and their applications in a given context. If one continues to assert confusion over
very basic differences in how a word, phrase, or idea is applied, there's not a whole lot we can do to help.
It was long ago established that it is possible to insult someone by presuming that they are intelligent. I know, sounds like the damnedest thing, but I've run into it over the years more than a few times. Indeed, this idea popped up over the weekend, accusing that we are giving an advantage to "educated snobs".
In the meantime, what are we dealing with? There's actually a considerable amount of debate taking place regarding whether or not something that is either observably true or argumentatively demonstrable is an insult. Look, I realize that people don't like being called liars, but if they're caught in a demonstrable lie?
And there are people around here who play this game commonly mistaken for "Devil's Advocate". This game is called, "I'm A Fucking Idiot!" and involves repeatedly missing the most
obvious cues, clues, and points in a discussion. If they had their way, you'd have to scientifically tie your opinion to the goddamn Big Bang and everything else 'twixt then and now before they would condescend to understand. And, frankly, most of them wouldn't stop there. You could finally see an atheist question the validity of the Big Bang if it meant they could continue playing the dolt. In other words, people don't like to be told they're acting stupid, childishly, or otherwise. But when they are?
So here's a question that would help the moderators greatly:
When someone is peddling obvious bullshit, is it an insult to point out that they're peddling obvious bullshit?
After all, it's
not fair to call a liar a liar, especially when he's lying.
Really, you'd be amazed at how much of that we get; people behaving badly who complain when someone makes a point about their bad behavior. Indeed, one of our worst offenders apparently likes to complain whenever someone lashes back, and he's got a sympathetic ear in a politically-predisposed moderator to make sure he can go on attacking people's families and denigrating entire cultures while anyone who is offended by such behavior has to suck up and realize how wrong they really are to be offended.
In the meantime, the number of people who will throw their self-respect to the wind and follow the latest troll or sock-puppet into yet another round of futile, juvenile temper tantrums don't especially endear us to the most common forms of complaint.
And when the most common forms of complaint are pointed, accurate, and decently respectful and respectable, we will will be more kindly disposed toward them.
To the other, if people
really want us to start being more simple-minded about things, I suppose we could just change our criteria so that people are banned simply for being "dicks" or "cunts" if they're too aggressive, "faggots" and "bitches" if they're too petulant, "assholes" if they're Republicans or conservatives, "prigs" if they're Democrats or liberals, "deluded" or "insane" if they are religious, or "zombies" if they're atheists.
That would solve the problem, leaving the forum to be populated by my cat, Asguard's fish, and someone ... I'm sure someone around here has a box turtle.
Easy enough.
