Initiative to Establish a Rule Regulating Moderation in the Debate Forum

[AlbinoClock]

Corpsegrinder has been, in my opinion, abusing his powers in the debate forum by threatening with bans for pointing out pedantry. This is completely against the spirit of open and meaningful discussion, so I propose the following rule.

No moderator shall henceforth be permitted to mention their status as a member of the staff or their ability to hand out bans in the course of a Debate Forum discussion in which they are themselves partaking. If they think an individual in said discussion is out of line, they will contact another moderator who is not involved in the debate to police the thread.

This should ensure that no moderator ever abuses their power in the course of an argument again.

[Topcatyo]

From the way I've seen it, Corpsegrinder has been telling people he would ban them if they continue to make personal attacks in the debate forum, not so much because he disagrees with them.

It's just going to make more work unnecessary work for the mods if we have to message somebody else and ask them to moderate a thread when we ourselves are perfectly capable of doing it.

We see everything our fellow mods do, and I check the debate forum.  If a mod's out of line we'll act accordingly, but so far as I have seen the worst I have seen Corpsegrinder do is warn people against using Ad Hominems (which contribute nothing to an argument and just cause more angry bickering), which is no different than it ever has been.

If enough people vote yes there's nothing I can do about it, but those are my two cents.

[AlbinoClock]

From the way I've seen it, Corpsegrinder has been telling people he would ban them if they continue to make personal attacks in the debate forum, not so much because he disagrees with them.

It's just going to make more work unnecessary work for the mods if we have to message somebody else and ask them to moderate a thread when we ourselves are perfectly capable of doing it.

We see everything our fellow mods do, and I check the debate forum.  If a mod's out of line we'll act accordingly, but so far as I have seen the worst I have seen Corpsegrinder do is warn people against using Ad Hominems (which contribute nothing to an argument and just cause more angry bickering), which is no different than it ever has been.

If enough people vote yes there's nothing I can do about it, but those are my two cents.

Corpsegrinder is assuming there to be personal attacks where they do not exist. These threats, combined with the way he uses language, makes it very difficult to tell what is a direction from a moderator of the board and what is part of his argument. For example:

Slippery slope fallacy. This is nonsense. Clearly a human, once out of the womb, has been born. There is absolutely no question about that. Have your opinions but don't be willfully ignorant to the point of being disingenuous.

 I'd ask that you don't toss around fallacy terminology unless you're going to critically examine your own assertions with the same fine-toothed comb

This is based on his own opinion that the slippery slope is a legitimate argument, which I strongly disagree with. Is this a direction from a moderator, which would be quite an inappropriate one, or is this a suggestion from a fellow debater? There is no way of knowing, and it interferes with the conversation.

Then there's this:

Originally Posted by AlbinoClock  
I'm not reading that because you're being pedantic.

Again, this is the debate forum: "tl;dr" or "your gay" or "ur so stupid" isn't acceptable here, debate the argument or don't, those are your options.

I did not say tl;dr. I did not make a personal attack. I dismissed a paragraph, pointing out that it was irrelevant to the point. That's a legitimate thing to do in the course of an argument, and yet he threatens me.

This is a clear conflict of interest.

At any rate, if this doesn't pass, or if a member of the staff doesn't step in and do something about it. You certainly won't see me in the debate forum again. Hell, without the debate forum I might as well just leave again.

[AlbinoClock]

How about instead of changing the rule to keep mods from abusing their position vote mods out of office if they are abusing their position and/or report it to the administrators who exist by-in-large to keep this in check?

Don't think I didn't contact them too, but I think this is an additional measure to avoid wasting their time.

Seems like a silly rule to say you can't warn people about bans when part of this whole new charter was you're typically supposed to warn them first.

It doesn't say you can't warn people about bans, it says you can't warn people about bans if you're participating in the discussion. What debate have you ever seen being moderated by someone on one of the teams? Nobody is that devoid of bias. It's inappropriate.

Also for the record you said something along the lines of "I'm not even reading this because you're being pedantic" which, ostentatious terminology notwithstanding, is exactly the sort of argument tactic that keeps making us get rid of the debate forum in the first place, it's literally a refusal to address the argument in favor of attacking the arguer and we all agreed that's the sort of thing we wouldn't allow.

I quoted what I said, and I said it because you were trying to derail the argument by being pedantic, and then you backed it up by threatening to ban me. Do you see why you shouldn't be moderating the same debate you're trying to take part in? If not, that's a big part of the problem.

It was, in fact, largely in part due to the fact that I was in the conversation that I offered such ample warnings rather than simply banning you on the spot for that.

In which case this would have been a different poll, and my message to Absinthe would have been quite different as well. Even now you're still threatening me subtly. It's starting to piss me off.

[patriotclock]

But what if every single staff member is involved in a debate. Then what

[AlbinoClock]

But what if every single staff member is involved in a debate. Then what

Then there is a conflict of interest all around and it's not appropriate for any of them to moderate the content of the discussion beyond the normal site rules, such as preventing flooding and discussion of piracy. Luckily this is wildly improbable.

[Sinister Clock]

From the way I've seen it, Corpsegrinder has been telling people he would ban them if they continue to make personal attacks in the debate forum, not so much because he disagrees with them.

It's just going to make more work unnecessary work for the mods if we have to message somebody else and ask them to moderate a thread when we ourselves are perfectly capable of doing it.

We see everything our fellow mods do, and I check the debate forum.  If a mod's out of line we'll act accordingly, but so far as I have seen the worst I have seen Corpsegrinder do is warn people against using Ad Hominems (which contribute nothing to an argument and just cause more angry bickering), which is no different than it ever has been.

If enough people vote yes there's nothing I can do about it, but those are my two cents.

Just remove Corspegrinder from the equation and this is still a positive initiative. Anyone involved with a debate on any level will become biased, so having a mod not involved in the debate seems like it would remove any possible bias.

[AlbinoClock]

I'm willing to accept as plausible that you haven't considered that this wastes a lot more time for a lot more people, including them, and makes things more complicated to deal with for all the staff if it's passed.

Well, you chose to make that necessary by being an overbearing douche bag so it's on you.

No, you said you weren't reading it because "you're being pedantic". That's saying "You have this negative quality, henceforth regardless of whatever points your argument makes it is invalid". It's hard to find a clearer example of ad hominem. I could say "you're obfuscating the point by being I'm a edgy teen" or "you're distracting from the point by being a twat" and it wouldn't be any different except "pedantic" is a snobbier insult.

Wow, no, that's not it at all. This is exactly why you shouldn't be allowed to moderate the debate forum. Being pedantic is focusing on irrelevancies rather than the topic at hand. I was saying that you, in your making the argument, were focusing on things that didn't matter, so I wasn't going to waste my time on it. I didn't say that your argument was invalid because you're an idiot, I was saying that your argument was irrelevant so I wasn't going to address it. If you can't figure out the difference between that an an ad hominem, you have no place trying to police anyone's use of logic.

The conflict of interest thing might hold water if there weren't several forms of oversight, such as having democratic elections, such as having administrators who can ban mods for misconduct, such as a whole other panel of staff that can motion to have staff members removed if their conduct is abusive, such as the ability for regular members (even ones who can't be trusted not to abuse it for petty reasons, an argument which has been put forth against having this I might add) to put forth initiatives to remove a staff members if they are abusive.

Democracy and oversight don't eliminate the possibility of conflict of interest. You're trying to moderate something that you have an outside interest in, you can't possibly be neutral. All the oversight in the world won't make you neutral.

The fact of the matter is I didn't give you a big long abusive ban for your opinion, and I certainly haven't been displaying any bias against, say, Satellite (whose opinion I disagree with pretty strongly) all I did was warn you not to make personal attacks after a clear ad hominem.

You don't even know what a fucking ad hominem is. The fact of the matter is that in your complete ignorance of any of the things you're talking about right now, you used your power to threaten me. As a result, I felt as though I could no longer participate in the discussion safely. At no point did I tell anyone that their argument was wrong because they were stupid. You don't understand the words you're using, and you have no business moderating any debate.

Really, you're advocating a pretty stern rule considering there is one poorly formulated argument for one instance of negligible abuse because you feel "you're pedantic" isn't an attack on the arguer.

I'm not at all. What's stern about not banning people who aren't breaking site rules just because you don't like the way they formulated their point? There's no reason you should have a cudgel like that to make up for your intellectual shortcomings.

If that's the way things are going to be run here, I am the fuck out and not looking back.

[AlbinoClock]

Well, you chose to make that necessary by being an overbearing douche bag so it's on you.

By the way, this quote is also not an ad hominem, it's just an insult. An ad hominem is an attempt at explanation by insult, which is a fallacy.

[I1I1I1I1I1I1I11111I1I1I1IIIIIII1I1I1I1I11I]

i voted no because fuck you

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

I posted much more radical viewpoints in that thread. I didnt get banned. Why? Because I was being civil. And dont think it was because I'm a mod, I've been banned several times since I became mod. And speaking of Corpsegrinder discriminating against people he doesnt like, he is the one who called for some of my bans. If he can ban me, someone who he's been friends with for years, I dont think he's being discriminatory.

Also I'm twice the abusive mod corpsegrinder is where's MY drama thread? Maybe I just have more charisma so I can get away with posting autoplay on the front page and PMing people goatse. Man you guys are lucky we dont have a pager system or visible user notes anymore.

[Sinister Clock]

Can we all just ignore the abortion thread? I think the initiative is good regardless of any specific issues.

Also it's painfully obvious that Corpse is getting really angry and defensive in this thread.

[AbsintheClock]

Sounds to me like more sour grapes. How about complaining about all the other staff members that don't enforce the rules?

[Sinister Clock]

Sounds to me like more sour grapes. How about complaining about all the other staff members that don't enforce the rules?

That seems like a completely separate point for another thread.

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

Albino is pretty angry too though.

[AlbinoClock]

Albino is pretty angry too though.

Of course I'm angry. I enjoy the debate forum and Corpsegrinder has ruined it.

[Asshatclock]

Make flash not war.

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

Make flash into war. Instead of flaming on the forums, make fun of the opposition in flash. It results in a lot more fun and less drama.

[Kombucha]

I enjoy the debate forum

Why/how?

It's shit, it's always been shit, and I don't see a good chance of it improving whether or not this gets passed. The Clock Crew couldn't debate its way out of a paper bag.
 

Make flash into war. Instead of flaming on the forums, make fun of the opposition in flash. It results in a lot more fun

Yes.

and less drama.

No.

Remember when Grey made fun of Triangle and others in flash? It caused a fucking shitstorm.

[GreyClock]

Remember when Grey made fun of Triangle and others in flash? It caused a fucking shitstorm.

Shitstorm equals fun. I think we need to accept the fact that activity dwindles when we don't have some huge polarizing issue to rage about.