Steve, see the last sentence of my post just two above yours.
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Summer is over - YAY!
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Actually, there are rules. They're called the User Agreement, but they don't seem to be worth the pixels they're printed on. There are also the list of rules you get when you sign up (written by Diver?).When things are run by gut feeling, people will disagree. You also wind up with political issues among moderators, and who likes whom sometimes trumps who does what to whom. That, in a nutshell, is why rules exist. A democracy (a nation of laws) is different from a dictatorship (even a benevolent one), although I am well aware that this Web site is a private enterprise, and can be run however the owner and his agents want to run it.JB> I the only one who can't help thinking of the Wizard of Oz...OK, that was pretty funny.
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If each poster takes care to write so as not to offend other people unnecessarily, and at the same time tries hard not to be offended by what others write, rules will be needed only rarely. Nearly all disputes are over simple things that could be prevented by good manners on one side and tolerance on the other; in short, by simple humility.
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Would that anarchy were a success. It worked pretty well on the Internet in the old days, when access was pretty restricted. But even then, Usenet flame wars were legion. Once there's anonymity, anything goes.Most or all humans have sociopathic tendencies. It just takes the right stimuli and environment to unmask them, as Philip Zimbardo found in his prison experiments -- and anonymity wasn't even an issue. There were also Stanley Milgram's "shocking" experiments at Yale.
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I don't agree with anarchy. We don't even need psychological experiments - there are plenty of recent examples that show what humans can do if law breaks down and they think they can get away with anything.But though laws are necessary, they are a necessary evil and should be kept to the minimum needed. And good people should seek first the spirit of the laws.
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They certanly are / they certainly should. But this might be a nicer neighborhood if people didn't freely get away with telling each other to go **** themselves (or equivalent). I mean, you wouldn't idly stand by while your own kids treated each other that way, would you?
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I have a special responsibility to my kids. But if it were the neighbour's kids - yes, I would stand idly by. Sometimes it's better to do nothing than to be an interfering busybody.The point I am trying to make is that what we have most responsibility for and control over is our own actions. If we don't like certain language, we should take care not to use it ourselves - and take care that we don't create meaner language in politer words. At the same time we can recognise that other people have different views, and try to take what they say in the best spirit we can muster.And don't assume that people never get rebuked for what they say, just because you don't see it. Such things are usually better done privately.
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The things you say about self-conrol are fair and good, but when that fails...then what?I wouldn't expect the moderators of this site to do anything if people on another site beat each other over the head. But when people on this site do it...what purpose does a moderator serve anyway?
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Well I don't expect moderators to be in loco parentis.
There will always be differences in opinion, Steve, as to how heavy moderation should be. But would you really want it heavier? Or just more in tune with your own tastes?
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In loco parentis verus non compos mentis? Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Audi et alteram partem. I realize that moderators are often in the position of a fronte praecipitium, a tergo lupi, and this argumentum is going ad absurum, but we're not talking about advanced topics in molecular biology. The line is obviously drawn somewhere, because people do get banned. The qestion is does it at least get drawn where people say futue te ipsum et caballum tuum (yes, the horse too) to each other.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The site owner, from time to time.
To those who would disagree: vescere bracis meis. Et caballum tuum.
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I LOVE the Wizard of OZhums songs
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It depends how you argue (ad hominem or not), where you argue (is it completely tangential to the thread), and the state of mind of a given moderator at the time.If you bicker about something after having done it several times that day, the moderators will be primed to pounce. Think about the cop in town watching you drive erratically all day, and then in the evening you go a bit over the speed limit. He'll likely pull you over and give you a hard time.
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Je pense que ce fil a été détourné. Les gens vagabondent maintenant et attaquer 1 personne et interdire. Je ne pense pas les Jeunes soins de Garçon Sanglant beaucoup de ceci. Peux-je suggérer verrouiller il?--------------------------------@SYL: Félicitation ! ! ! Meilleur de chance à vous à l'avenir ! I don't know how your topic got to be this way. Good luck! College life is great!
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The mods don't like to go around locking thread just because they go off topic, or a lot of threads would be locked after the second post. Also, more lattitude is given when a thread has already, in effect, run its course.
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:O You speak, French! Cool!!I know, Inelgible does. It's why I said it to him!
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I'm not suggesting that people be banned willy-nilly. But how many chances does a spamming telemarketer need? It's like someone shooting up your house with and AK-47, and then telling them that you'll call the police if they do it again.The issue is that the moderators think its a virtue to tell people to straigten up and fly right in the form of PMs; they'll rarely tell someone to STFU on a public forum. I'm not really sure what the virtue of that is. To save people embarrassment? To keep down clutter in the threads? The downside is that it gives everyone but the recipient of the PM the idea that the obnoxious post that they saw is acceptable. It appears to all the world that there is no consequence. I'm not talking about banning here.It appears that you can get away with a lot on the open forum, but if someone complains to a moderator about a poster, that poster will get a rebuke from a mod, even if what he said was mild compared to the post above his.On top of that, sometimes mods get away with some pretty...interesting...stuff.
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Radeckl and Steve, mods are not parents, and they are not policemen. If you have been misquoted, it's not a mod's job to pick that up and point it out - do it yourself.Steve, one very good reason for ticking off an errant poster in PMs rather than on the open board, apart from the very good ones you mentioned, is that on the board the person rebuked is more likely to try to defend himself, and a long pointless argument ensues. That you don't get knowledge about who is getting chastised and what for, is something you'll have to live with.It is not true that every complaint about a poster results in a rebuke. Many complaints do not merit such action.Mods and admin are ordinary people, doing their best to serve the community and keep it running well, with the minimum of interference. They do not always do everything right, just as you don't, but I think they are doing a very good job.
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That you don't get knowledge about who is getting chastised and what for, is something you'll have to live with.Sujunctively or otherwise, it's not something that I personally care much about. But a downside is that it appears to the world at large that nothing is happening. That can give license to folks to act out.
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That's pretty abstract and hard to defend ("Why are you so unfair?") without specifics. At some point, complaints about being treated unfairly start to sound a bit childish.
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Well, the reasons are fairly well known,Not so sure about that.> but it's pointless anyway, no?Yes it is.