Regarding Rodney King Thread

[jazzbo]

To me this thread became what it is because Hans seemed to take so much offense that Soul Station mistakenly attributed the closing of the thread to him. He read attitude into it that I'm not sure Soul Station meant, and came back with attitude.

Hans has every right to get upset, but I just understand why in this instance, nor for Larry to say "some search you made," etc. So I commented on that aspect of it and it took off from there.

I've nothing more to say about this than I've already said, and I mean no offense to any on this thread, and have respect for Hans, Larry, Soul Station et al. . . . I admit to being a Libertarian in matters of bulletin boards, but I do understand the need for moderators, though I do question that all threads have to be so tidy and no duplication can be allowed. But I'm not a policy maker, and haven't been asked to be one, and in the future I'll try to keep my opinions of these things to myself.

My apologies if I've offended anyone here and I shall continue to strive to get along with everyone. . . in an improved fashion. In honor of RK.

Edited June 19, 2012 by jazzbo

[Larry Kart]

Surely "flounce" is one of the less-commonly used words here on the O-Board.

That's kinda like a Johnny Richards piccolo part!

I love Richards' piccolo parts. Among other things, the man was an imp. Also love for some strange reason the guy who played a good many of those piccolo parts with great skill and zest -- Billy Slapin. Not true, BTW, that he was related to Spanky DeBrest.

I can't find the Slate article to link to it, but the columnist claimed that everyone could be sorted into a chaos Muppet/puppet (Cookie Monster) or an order Muppet/puppet (Bert). Same things play themselves out everywhere (Wiki moderators going around closing down stubs and claiming some articles aren't worth the pixels it takes to put on your screen).

The great Dahlia Lithwick.

I'm not going to rant again about what I think our moderators should be prioritizing when they moderate, but I will say this: Larry, if you can't be bothered to think about the technical implications that stem from a decision of THREAD SMASH...you really need to find something else to be doing. Caring about how users experience your systems = Intertubes cardinal rule.

What technical implications? Did I miss something here? Seriously.

[Larry Kart]

Again, while I can't speak for Hans here, only for myself, you guys see only the visible hassling of moderators, not the PM stuff. It gets you down, in particular the common assumption that I/we have nothing much to do but sit around and cook up nasty ways of bugging people. Further, while I don't hang around other jazz boards these days, I did at one time and was stunned by the Gestapo tactics that often were the norm on several of them -- an experience that has been amply testified to by other Organissimo habitues from time to time. You're certainly free to be annoyed by/complain about any decision that I or any other moderator might make, but comparatively speaking, and even from a Libertarian point of view, is this place not close to paradise?

[J.A.W.]

Again, while I can't speak for Hans here, only for myself, you guys see only the visible hassling of moderators, not the PM stuff. It gets you down, in particular the common assumption that I/we have nothing much to do but sit around and cook up nasty ways of bugging people. Further, while I don't hang around other jazz boards these days, I did at one time and was stunned by the Gestapo tactics that often were the norm on several of them -- an experience that has been amply testified to by other Organissimo habitues from time to time. You're certainly free to be annoyed by/complain about any decision that I or any other moderator might make, but comparatively speaking, and even from a Libertarian point of view, is this place not close to paradise?

Larry did speak for me too here.

I've replied by PM to Lon's last post.

[jazzbo]

Again, while I can't speak for Hans here, only for myself, you guys see only the visible hassling of moderators, not the PM stuff. It gets you down, in particular the common assumption that I/we have nothing much to do but sit around and cook up nasty ways of bugging people. Further, while I don't hang around other jazz boards these days, I did at one time and was stunned by the Gestapo tactics that often were the norm on several of them -- an experience that has been amply testified to by other Organissimo habitues from time to time. You're certainly free to be annoyed by/complain about any decision that I or any other moderator might make, but comparatively speaking, and even from a Libertarian point of view, is this place not close to paradise?

I don't view this place as close to paradise at all, actually. I'll just bow out of these kind of threads in the future. I know there's lots of behind the scenes venom. And I know that a lot of attitude I see from moderators stems from that and also sometimes by humor that doesn't come across to me that way. I'll keep my complaints and annoyances to myself as best I can.

[J.A.W.]

Again, while I can't speak for Hans here, only for myself, you guys see only the visible hassling of moderators, not the PM stuff. It gets you down, in particular the common assumption that I/we have nothing much to do but sit around and cook up nasty ways of bugging people. Further, while I don't hang around other jazz boards these days, I did at one time and was stunned by the Gestapo tactics that often were the norm on several of them -- an experience that has been amply testified to by other Organissimo habitues from time to time. You're certainly free to be annoyed by/complain about any decision that I or any other moderator might make, but comparatively speaking, and even from a Libertarian point of view, is this place not close to paradise?

I don't view this place as close to paradise at all, actually. I'll just bow out of these kind of threads in the future. I know there's lots of behind the scenes venom. And I know that a lot of attitude I see from moderators stems from that and also sometimes by humor that doesn't come across to me that way. I'll keep my complaints and annoyances to myself as best I can.

Not paradise in an absolute sense (on the contrary, there's indeed a lot of venom), but paradise compared to the moderation on many other boards.

Edited June 19, 2012 by J.A.W.

[Big Wheel]

This isn't "users" experiencing Larry's "systems", this is a small-scale collective venture with a few volunteers in key positions doing essential work, and just one person acting as, in effect, treasurer.

It's both.

Larry, in industry jargon this is what's referred to as an edge case: SS1 had his thread locked and was promptly referred to a thread in the political forum, which he cannot read, so all URLs to threads there appear as broken links to him (also to users who are not logged in). It also does not show up when that user does searches. An unusual occurrence, but one that someone who's taken it upon themselves to steward the site should be aware of beforehand. Let's recap:

1. You reacted with "some search you did there" even though SS1 claimed he did a search. Which means you didn't check to confirm that SS1 can't view the politics forum or were unaware that that's how the system behaves. Wrong.

2. Then when SoaW confirmed that that is indeed how the system behaves - that users who cannot see the politics forum also won't see any thread in that forum in a search - your response was:

Don't know and don't really care. That's no excuse for flinging crap at the walls.

No. No no no. Posting duplicate threads is not "flinging crap at the walls" unless the user can easily see the other thread. If by "flinging crap" you mean that SS1 posted this thread and assumed Hans was the one who locked it, well...a) it's just a thread, so time to chillax, b) that assumption does not strike me as unreasonable, considering both that Hans appended the link sending SS1 to a thread he cannot see and that Hans was a moderator at one point. It is not SS1's responsibility to keep track of who is and is not an actual moderator at any given time. Unless you want to make that "The moderating team" link on the forum homepage extremely obvious by putting it in 20 point font and placing it above the fold rather than wedged in with a bunch of other rarely-noticed links at the bottom.

Also, if Hans really really doesn't want to be mistaken for a moderator, maybe he shouldn't be making the kind of tidying-up post that we usually associate with moderators. I'm sure he thought he was just saving you some time by chiming in, but obviously that backfired in this case.

3.

Besides, he is aware of the politics/religion forum, could reasonably assume that there might already be a King thread there, thus no mystery.

A pretty cavalier approach for a moderator to take. In general it's bad form to expect your users to assume the existence of stuff they can't see. Take the extra 30 seconds and make a post explaining it rather than dashing off a sarcastic response.

4.

if someone locks a thread I've started, the first thing I'd do is think what reasonable cause there might be for this rather than make accusations.

Leaving aside the question of whether SS1's post here constituted an "accusation", again, this claim has a built-in assumption that users should always be thinking about the possibility of there being stuff they can't see. Nope.

I'm sorry that moderators feel badgered and unappreciated, but trumpeting one's own ignorance of edge cases and putting a large burden of the due diligence on users even when that extends to weird cases of stuff they can't see or verify...it's not a good way to administrate a site.

Edited June 19, 2012 by Big Wheel

[Dan Gould]

yeah, just what we all need - a hammering from an "industry professional" that does nothing but encourage Larry to say "fuck it".

[Big Wheel]

Might be time to renew the Xanax prescription, Dan. I made that reply not to "hammer" Larry, but as constructive criticism. As for the "industry jargon" bit, I certainly wasn't trying to argue from a position of authority as some high-and-mighty industry insider but because the analogy to edge and corner cases seemed particularly apt here.

[Larry Kart]

This isn't "users" experiencing Larry's "systems", this is a small-scale collective venture with a few volunteers in key positions doing essential work, and just one person acting as, in effect, treasurer.

It's both.

Larry, in industry jargon this is what's referred to as an edge case: SS1 had his thread locked and was promptly referred to a thread in the political forum, which he cannot read, so all URLs to threads there appear as broken links to him (also to users who are not logged in). It also does not show up when that user does searches. An unusual occurrence, but one that someone who's taken it upon themselves to steward the site should be aware of beforehand. Let's recap:

1. You reacted with "some search you did there" even though SS1 claimed he did a search. Which means you didn't check to confirm that SS1 can't view the politics forum or were unaware that that's how the system behaves. Wrong.

2. Then when SoaW confirmed that that is indeed how the system behaves - that users who cannot see the politics forum also won't see any thread in that forum in a search - your response was:

Don't know and don't really care. That's no excuse for flinging crap at the walls.

No. No no no. Posting duplicate threads is not "flinging crap at the walls" unless the user can easily see the other thread. If by "flinging crap" you mean that SS1 posted this thread and assumed Hans was the one who locked it, well...a) it's just a thread, so time to chillax, b) that assumption does not strike me as unreasonable, considering both that Hans appended the link sending SS1 to a thread he cannot see and that Hans was a moderator at one point. It is not SS1's responsibility to keep track of who is and is not an actual moderator at any given time. Unless you want to make that "The moderating team" link on the forum homepage extremely obvious by putting it in 20 point font and placing it above the fold rather than wedged in with a bunch of other rarely-noticed links at the bottom.

Also, if Hans really really doesn't want to be mistaken for a moderator, maybe he shouldn't be making the kind of tidying-up post that we usually associate with moderators. I'm sure he thought he was just saving you some time by chiming in, but obviously that backfired in this case.

3.

Besides, he is aware of the politics/religion forum, could reasonably assume that there might already be a King thread there, thus no mystery.

A pretty cavalier approach for a moderator to take. In general it's bad form to expect your users to assume the existence of stuff they can't see. Take the extra 30 seconds and make a post explaining it rather than dashing off a sarcastic response.

4.

if someone locks a thread I've started, the first thing I'd do is think what reasonable cause there might be for this rather than make accusations.

Leaving aside the question of whether SS1's post here constituted an "accusation", again, this claim has a built-in assumption that users should always be thinking about the possibility of there being stuff they can't see. Nope.

I'm sorry that moderators feel badgered and unappreciated, but trumpeting one's own ignorance of edge cases and putting a large burden of the due diligence on users even when that extends to weird cases of stuff they can't see or verify...it's not a good way to administrate a site.

FWIW, one little factual glitch in your account of what went down: as you can see from the thread (which is among the reasons why thread coherence might matter) I said "some search you did there" to SS1 before I was informed by fellow (but more experienced) moderator Son-of-a-Weizen that if SS1 had the politics/religion forum blocked, he couldn't search there. My problem there (lack of experience again) is that I myself don't have that thread blocked and therefore had never encountered that situation before. Now I know.

Also, my "flinging crap at the walls" was not a reference to posting duplicate threads per se (I'd compare that to littering) but to the complaint that Hans had locked the thread, as though Hans were automatically a (or the) villain. As I said before, when Hans was a moderator, he was not the only moderator.

[Dan Gould]

Intent or not, you have hammered him, and if I were in his shoes I would be saying "fuck it".

Hell, if I were on your supposed xanax prescription, I'd still say "fuck it".

[JSngry]

I think we should all say "fuck it" and then get to lunch while we can still get a table!

[Larry Kart]

Also, I'm not going to say "f--- it."

And I just had lunch.

[Big Wheel]

FWIW, one little factual glitch in your account of what went down: as you can see from the thread (which is among the reasons why thread coherence might matter) I said "some search you did there" to SS1 before I was informed by fellow (but more experienced) moderator Son-of-a-Weizen that if SS1 had the politics/religion forum blocked, he couldn't search there. My problem there (lack of experience again) is that I myself don't have that thread blocked and therefore had never encountered that situation before. Now I know.

Not a glitch - I accounted for this possibility with the "unaware how the system behaves." All I'm suggesting is that moderators take it easy a little bit before jumping down our throats. Even if they feel like they've taken too much crap from us about moderating.

Also, my "flinging crap at the walls" was not a reference to posting duplicate threads per se (I'd compare that to littering) but to the complaint that Hans had locked the thread, as though Hans were automatically a (or the) villain. As I said before, when Hans was a moderator, he was not the only moderator.

Very true. But can you see how this kind of misunderstanding comes about when Hans is the one making the last post before the thread is locked and directing people where to go? It's much more natural to think that one person is doing both the locking and the directing rather than that there's a tag-team effort with a moderator doing the locking and a non-moderator doing the directing.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Once Larry exits the premises, somehow I manage to squeeze...

BTW, I'm going to throw a hissy fit if I get any more PMs or 'Report to Moderator' stuff about spelling errors (unless they are amazingly goofy....something like a thread titled 'Donaalde Bird the Trumphette Playr')

[JSngry]

I'm going to throw a hissy fit if I get any more PMs or 'Report to Moderator' stuff about spelling errors (unless they are amazingly goofy....something like a thread titled 'Donaalde Bird the Trumphette Playr')

If I were you, I'd just say "phuk itt".

[Aggie87]

BTW, I'm going to throw a hissy fit if I get any more PMs or 'Report to Moderator' stuff about spelling errors (unless they are amazingly goofy....something like a thread titled 'Donaalde Bird the Trumphette Playr')

You get PMs from Chewy?

[skeith]

This all just proves that Rodney King didn't really give a shit if we all get along!!!

[Dave Garrett]

I'm going to throw a hissy fit if I get any more PMs or 'Report to Moderator' stuff about spelling errors (unless they are amazingly goofy....something like a thread titled 'Donaalde Bird the Trumphette Playr')

If I were you, I'd just say "phuk itt".

[BERIGAN]

This all just proves that Rodney King didn't really give a shit if we all get along!!!

[.:.impossible]

Now wait a second here - this has turned into a thread about duplicate threads, and we've already got one of those:

I'd like to see a pure picture dictionary, where there's no words and everything's in photographic order.

I have an alphabetic memory.

[Pete C]

This long tail is wagging a very little dog.

[fasstrack]

This is getting kind of silly. I went and looked. The guy made a joke. Period. Was it in good taste? It certainly was not. But where's the trust in peoples' discernment? Why not leave it open for people to ignore, rail about, discuss sanely? Ultimately moving the action solves nothing of the real core speech/censorship issues-except for the problem of moving it here, and great job. I think this was an overly reactive moderation to a dumb joke that only served to draw undue attention to it. Most of all what gives one pause is not that it's censorship-I have to give that more thought-it's the lack of trust in board members' intelligence and moral compass. There IS an ignore button...

[king ubu]

Sheesh, the OP says in his topic title that he is regarding the Rodney King thread, so where the fegh is the problem?

This thread here is really superfluous.

Props to our volunteering mods from my side - they're doing a fine job, time to acknowledge that once in a while - and now everybody move on, there's nothing to see here.

Edited June 20, 2012 by king ubu

[Pete C]

if dictionaries were written in chronological order instead of alphabetical you wouldn't have to rewrite the whole thing all the time, just add new stuff on the end

And then some of our friends could just ignore the last 40%!