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 Alfndrate wrote:
Practical: The YT alerts moderators of potential rules infractions, which is why moderators often say, if you see a rule being broken, hit the yellow triangle

Also false.

You see, our goal is not to stamp out every instance of rule breaking. That's the legalistic thinking I was talking about. If two users get into it in some obscure part of the forum but manage to work things out between themselves without any mod getting involved, that's fine. YTs are for users to bring something to a mod's attention.

 Jackal wrote:

Theoretical: If moderating is the job of the moderators, then why have the YT at all? Isn't alerting a mod a form of moderation?

Thats like saying reporting a crime is doing the work of the police.
Limited number of mods, tons of threads, they wont allways see stuff.

Thus why I said "Theoretical" I would expect Manchu to have gotten that reference, because I'm fairly certain he has read Know No Fear.

Good to know that 'Gak' & Hole combined gets through the filter, might want to see about adding that

 Alfndrate wrote:
are moderators not beholden to the same rules we are?

Are moderators supposed to be polite, not spam, and stay on-topic? Yes.

But remember the goal of the rules is to further the conversation not to establish JUSTICE. We believe that the best conversations generally emerge when everyone is polite, not spammy, and on-topic. In this specific instance, as Tom explicitly explained, it was in the interest of the conversation to keep asking the important questions.

As a moderator, that's his decision to make. It's not yours and it's not Cyp's.

Your question about whether moderators are beholden to the same rules strikes me as a convoluted way of asking whether users should be able to moderate the moderators (where "moderator" = forum police). The answer to that is no.


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 Cyporiean wrote:
might want to see about adding that

We have a list somewhere ...

But remember, the word filter is not there to excuse you. If you see gakhole unfiltered in your post, please edit it.

 Manchu wrote:
Your question about whether moderators are beholden to the same rules strikes me as a convoluted way of asking whether users should be able to moderate the moderators (where "moderator" = forum police). The answer to that is no.

Not really, but if a moderator starts attacking another user and stops being polite, it's not a bad thing for a user to say, "Hey (Mod), you probably shouldn't call (user) a donkey-cave."

 Manchu wrote:

But remember the goal of the rules is to further the conversation not to establish JUSTICE. We believe that the best conversations generally emerge when everyone is polite, not spammy, and on-topic. In this specific instance, as Tom explicitly explained, it was in the interest of the conversation to keep asking the important questions.

But as I told Tom in my PM's his posts where he repeated the same questions over and over actually drove me away from the thread, and made me stop reading it for the night. As someone that is genuinely interested in the case and what is going on, it was preventing me from getting any actual information... But like I said, he and I talked all of that out and it's just the most recent example.

You need to ask yourself what you really intend to accomplish.

Do you want to actually address a concern? The reasonable thing to do is write a PM to the mod in question or another mod or use the YT.

Do you just want to cause drama and think of yourself as a "hero of the people"? I guess that's where you would start posting in the thread about "abuse of power" and other nonsense.


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 Alfndrate wrote:
Not really

Well, you say that but you don't seem to actually disprove it either. In fact, you go on to ask a question that basically reiterates that what you really want to do is call out mods, one way or another.

 Manchu wrote:
You need to ask yourself what you really intend to accomplish.

Do you want to actually address a concern? The reasonable thing to do is write a PM to the mod in question or another mod or use the YT.

And I said in in the other thread and in my PM's to Tom that I will contact the mod (and the other thread is what prompted me to PM Tom in the first place.

Do you just want to cause drama and think of yourself as a "hero of the people"? I guess that's where you would start posting in the thread about "abuse of power" and other nonsense.

Gods no I'm no hero.

 Manchu wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
Not really

Well, you say that but you don't seem to actually disprove it either. In fact, you go on to ask a question that basically reiterates that what you really want to do is call out mods, one way or another.

So I can politely tell a user that they might want to rethink a post politely in a post, but I can't do the same for a mod (which is what my scenario says, mod attacks user, I say hey don't attack user (politely).

 Alfndrate wrote:
his posts where he repeated the same questions over and over actually drove me away from the thread, and made me stop reading it for the night

I think that's an acceptable risk, TBH.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alfndrate wrote:
Gods no I'm no hero.

Standing up for the downtrodden users against the corrupt and evil mods.



"I didn't ask for this."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alfndrate wrote:
So I can politely tell a user that they might want to rethink a post politely in a post, but I can't do the same for a mod (which is what my scenario says, mod attacks user, I say hey don't attack user (politely).

Again, I think you need to consider what you actually want to accomplish. I don't like to deal with hypotheticals like this because it's a waste of time. You want me to make a rule so you can apply it and tell me you just followed the rules when I have to moderate you. I'm telling you, my job as a moderator is to look at each instance and see the circumstances. If I think you're using the rules as cover to grandstand or bully or whatever, we gotta have a talk.

No, I'm looking for consistency :-\ I'm seriously confused by what is and isn't okay now...

1) YT is to "alert a mod to a rule-breaking post" (as per the actual text on the YT, but it's not mandatory to click it and actually alert mods)
2) You can suggest to a user they rethink a post and politely tell them they may be breaking a rule and this is okay, as long as you don't break a rule yourself.
3) You can't do this to a mod in public
4) You can PM a user or a mod that you have issue with and try to solve this amicably.


If you say, "if you see a mod breaking a rule then talk it over with them, if that doesn't solve it, PM another mod or click the YT and a moderator will look at the post and decide." I'm not going to hunt down every post by a mod and go "OBJECTION! YOU'RE BREAKING A RULE"

You're confusing yourself. The issue is simple: be reasonable. Do I really need to spell it out as a series of computer program code lines? I'm not going to do that because (1) you can't define reasonableness that way and (2) as I have told you a dozen times already this is not a society and we don't have laws.

Again, the rules represent broad, reasonable standards of social conduct. Do you know how to behave when you go out in public? If so, you should have no trouble here.

Alf I am afraid you have travelled a bit too far down the road here and have undermined your own request and shown how it wouldn't work.

You are still operating under the false assumption that I in fact broke a rule. As has been spelled out to you and corroborated in clear terms by another Mod now, who has now fully seen the posts in question btw, your whole argument is happening on the false premise that you knew the rules better than we did, and that justice was not served.

That's not what happened. You guys got it wrong, you acted wrong, and you have been politely discoursed with up to this point to try and explain how.

If you catch a mod swearing at someone, posting porn or whatnot, hit the alert. If you think something is spam and I don't, then I get to decide. At that point you or anyone is just huffing they didn't get their way when they never had the right to in the first place. It is my job to decide how to apply the rules and keep the conversation moving forward. That's what I did. There really isn't any more to say about it than that, and even to the letter of the rule, it was not breaking the rule.

At this point I highly suggest accepting the decision and moving on lest ill-will begin to build up on either side over such a trivial and stupid matter. We are all wasting our time at this point.