dart-marg-JAK

[_Sam Harris]

S. H.:

- It must be located in that left pinky that's always proverbially held in the air as she (marg) discourses with us little people here on the board. My brain would hurt too, being held aloft like that all the time.

- Why don't you stop being a snarky little bitch and thinking that your endless rants are actually educated discussion? And no, I'm not speaking as a mod, I'm speaking as someone who really doesn't have much patience for Your Grace. To me, an educated discussion comes to a point, has a conclusion, and though not all parties may agree, there is a general point reached. You just type because apparently your fingers mirror that restless mind...and I guess no one else on your side of cyberspace is listening to Her Grace, so we here have to suffer.

So, now that my rant is over, let me back out of your presence, because I wouldn't dare turn my face from such blatant wit and intelligence as Marg. My butt has touched the doorknob. I'll exit now.

Jersey Girl didn't do a damn thing. You just didn't have the spotlight for 2 seconds. Who else needs to lose their head, Your Grace?

by the way...the recent ad hom posts by S.H. is an example of what happens in more lax forums and the reason Celestial threads should not be moved. She is an example of the reason why I wouldn't bother investing time in a supposed highly moderated thread, only to have it moved to an area where it is open season.

Oh, should I beg for forgiveness, your grace? Notice that I didn't participate in the thread for many reasons. ONE BEING that I do not have the luxury of time to waste on rediculous prattle and BOLDED words. You see, I must juggle each day to get in meaningful activities, because unlike I'm sure, 95% of this board, I have my imminent mortality to face.

If such a discussion were school-related, or I felt someone like you were HUMBLE enough to teach instead of making sure that the steel in her soapbox was always fully supporting her, I might have engaged, but I have neither the time nor energy these days.

The very first discussion I had with you was about the behavior of TBMs. You just came in to preach and teach about generalizations, not stopping to think about why anyone created the label of TBM. Marg, you just like to hear yourself speak, and when that doesn't go the way HER GRACE thinks it should, she turns up her nose and complains.

I look through Celestial for excessive swearing, pics the likes of our buddies B&L and Merc might post, and anything that might be offensive of that sort. Do I care that someone offends your nostrils?

Um, no.

[_Sam Harris]

And one more thought Marg, if you had more respect for the people you "dialogue" with instead of seeing yourself as being so vastly above them, you wouldn't need the protection of what you think the Celestial board is. I think you are honestly misreading the purpose of that board anyway.

You want a place where you can preach and teach, and when you can't speak your pimp JAK can do it for you. We're all supposed to gather around like good little children in a circle and drink in your copious wisdom. That's not what the Celestial board is for. It is there for an exchange of ideas. You don't want to exchange ideas, you have drawn your conclusions prior to even typing a word, and you think that by bombarding threads with endless posts about why this particular hair on this particular horse is not brown, rather a slight reddish nutmeg, you can derail the ultimate purpose of true dialogue, which is to have all parties discuss and learn something from one another.

You think that you and JAK have something to teach us ignorant minions here on MormonDiscussions. I assure you, there are minds far greater than yours, but perhaps they posess something that you do not: an assurance of their ability. You come across as someone who just needs to prove that she can have the last word. That's your mission on here. What's the point? So you think that Celestial is supposed to be some sort of FAIR-type board where you can go and be your own little Juliann?

When you get down to the point for once in any given discussion, when you can say what you need to say in three posts or less, I'll have a lot more respect for you, Your Grace. Have a lovely Easter. As for me, Her Royal Sexiness has to get up and get ready for my day.

[_Sam Harris]

Like I said I'm not going to take the Celestial level seriously, if it means threads will get moved. I would hope that people who use excessive ad homs in the Celestial could perhaps be embarrassed into stopping. That is if a mod points it out, it should be somewhat embarrassing.

You cannot control this board. Who are you? Forgive me for asking, Your Grace...but I'm a bit curious. What is an ad hom to you, someone daring to disagree with you? Sure, it can be admitted that Dart scoffed quite a bit on that thread, but is that no different than your snobbery?

[_Jersey Girl]

Perhaps I've missed it, but I still don't know what the problem was with the thread. J.G...what did you complain to the moderators about regarding that thread?. Why did you want them to intervene? What did you want them to do? You didn't moderate but as a moderator what would you have done regarding whatever it was you had an issue with?

Here is a sample of what my remarks to Shades resemble,goes something like this:

Would you take a look at this post by Kevin. Kosher or not kosher? I'm on the thread so I won't touch it.

As a moderator, I would have done exactly what Shades chose to do: offer cautions.

Much later in the thread, I would have done exactly what Liz chose to do: jettisoned it to the Terrestrial.

[_Jersey Girl]

by the way...the recent ad hom posts by S.H. is an example of what happens in more lax forums and the reason Celestial threads should not be moved. She is an example of the reason why I wouldn't bother investing time in a supposed highly moderated thread, only to have it moved to an area where it is open season.

And the point I've made on this thread and which you choose to ignore is that for this board at this time, there are no other method options than those that were utilized.

Do you get that yet?

[_Jersey Girl]

I'm going to comment in a color this time.

My comments will be in bold and I'm giving no effort to cleaning up the post to make it more readable than that.

Back up the truck and don't you worry, sis, I'm right here as promised.

What, in your view, should have happened instead of moving the thread to the Terrestrial?

Frankly from the time I posted that Kevin had said "all historians agree Jesus existed" I didn't follow closely the discussion between JAK and Kevin. I'm not aware of a problem with tone, which apparently is the issue. I don't know what that complaint is all about.

If you don't know what the complaint is about, why are you complaining?

J.G, is wasn't me complaining to moderators, it was you.

I didn't complain to moderators, marg. I asked Shades to review posts that contained possible ad hom. As a moderator I'm supposed to heavily police the Celestial. In this case, I was a thread participant and I chose going in to mod duties a personal policy of never taking action in a thread on which I am a participant. Just as I stated in the OP here and I don't plan to spend hours helping you connect the dots when it's already stated in black and white in the OP.

But if tone is the issue and that needs to be improved then generally ad homs are what need to be curtailed. And the way to handle those is to write a mod warning..indicating they have been noted and it's not acceptable.

And that's exactly what happened, marg. Two cautions were given to Kevin.

Ok fine..I don't have a problem with that. That's good.

Wonderful.

If the entire post is just one big personal attack and nothing of substance in it and it's pretty consistent from a person, then probably move it.

And therein lies the problem. I agree with you in principle that entire threads shouldn't be moved to a lower forum because it's a virtual guarantee that the quality of discussion will deteriorate. I've stated that publicly and privately in mod communication. What you fail to understand and Shades pointed this out in one of his public mod comments, it's nearly impossible to do what you're suggesting because the non-Celestial remarks are embedded in topical posts. The only option there would be to edit out remarks from within existing posts and if that's done the next thing we'll have here is people complaining that their posts are being censored or suspecting that their posts will be censored which will in turn, reduce their participation on account of losing faith that the integrity of their posts will be lost. Once you begin editing posts from within, there is no guarantee that someone who is able to do that won't at some point misuse the privilege of moderating. Gawd, I just said privilege. It's a royal pain in the ass to look at a thread and try to determine where to cut, split or move. The thread in question is a prime example of that. Had anyone attempted to move posts out of the thread, the thread itself would have been cannibalized to the point of making the thread incoherent to read. I challenge you to look at that thread and tell me where you yourself would make the splits.

Well I didn't see much of a problem. I don't ask for mod intervention. I only did once after
Shades had gone into an old thread and deleted a few words of JAK's. Generally I just point out when someone is writing ad homs in lieu of substance and if they don't stop I'll discontinue replying to them. If mods can't delete, then a mod note asking someone to refrain is all that can be done. It's quite possible they won't stop. And so what you then have is a forum which can't be moderated effectively as far as curtailing ad homs.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying to you here. All that was done was all that COULD have been done. Show me a forum that can effectively moderate ad homs withing capping, banning, and blocking posters from posting in specific areas. It's called FAIR/MAD, marg.

If a person can not post without lacing their posts with attacks on whomever they are conversing with then they shouldn't be posting in the Celestial. When people catch on that gameplaying is not acceptable they will eventually stop. A few ad homs are no big deal, it's when it is pervasive, consistent that sort of thing that the discussion turns into a game by the gameplayer employing them. So anything which curtails them without penalizing the honest participants is the way to go, if one wants to raise the level of discussion and keep it honest.

This has been discussed publicly on the board. What you're suggesting is that people lose the ability to post in the Celestial which is reminiscent of FAIR's pundit forum. I don't know if people can be locked out of a forum or not. You can make that suggestion to Shades and see if it's do-able.

I think that would have to be a very extreme case. I'm not really suggesting that. If there is no way to stop ad homs..then there is no way. If mod warning does nothing, if you can't move posts, if you don't want to delete then there isn't much that can be done. But it is a joke to move it to an area which is more lax just so the thread fits within a particular level. That just doesn't make sense, it doesn't accomplish anything.

Yes, there is no way to stop ad homs completely. If people don't stop, the only choices on this board at this time, is to offer cautions and then knock the thread to a lower forum. It is the only thing that CAN be accomplished on this board at this time.

I didn't see much ad homs, but then I wasn't looking for them or focussing on it. You guys are the ones complaining of tone, I would have done nothing. But if there were excessive disruptive ad homs then give a warning note to cease.

I haven't complained about the tone so leave me out of it. I infact, made no complaints at all until this thread. Warning notes were given twice on the thread.

Well in the OP you said you had to track down moderators...what for?

Holy crap. Did you READ the first line of my OP? I won't act on a thread on which I am a participant. Let's think with our brain, okay? Jersey Girl is a mod. As a mod she is supposed to heavily police the Celestial Forum. She sees possible actionable comments in a thread on which she is posting on and because she won't act on a thread where she is posting...she asks another moderator to review the comments and do with it what they will.

Really at this point in time I don't know what the problem was that you had or Liz had. "Tone" tells me little.

I've said nothing about "tone".

So why the need to track down a mod.

See the above blue comments. I'm not going to repeat myself 15 thousand times until it penetrates.

As far as the discussion between JAK and Kevin over what.. I said he said, you should let them argue it out. You don't need to do the thinking for others.

How many times have you intervened between Kevin and JAK?

Well Jersey Girl not only did you complain and reprimand but you said they were preventing you from posting and that you had to seek a mod. I've never complained that 2 people arguing was preventing me from expressing my point. You can give your opinion but you went beyond that by saying you also had to seek a mod.

Yes, see above blue bolded comments.

In sub argument tangensts, I would lean towards giving the benefit of doubt and assume someone isn't attempting to be dishonest or disruptive, unless it is blatantly obvious. It is better to err on that side than to interfere when people are attempting to work something out. And it may take many pages, a few days. So what..as long as they aren't personally attacking one another I don't see the problem. As you know with a threaded view, those sorts of sub argument tangents can be ignored by other participants, they don't disrupt a thread. But since that isn't available here, the best thing is to skim those posts if you aren't interested and post/reply to the ones you are interested in.

I have asked for a threaded view option on this board since I got here and prior to that in the first format. Shades is checking that out with keene.

It might solve some things because people can self moderate a little better with threaded and threads are less easily disrupted.

Yes, it would.

Now, a few random comments. You stated in a previous post that you have memories of me being a s*** disturber and shifting focus on to myself.

Were your memory at all accurate, you'd have memories of me being attacked by a s*** disturber for years on end. I make it a habit never to fire the first shot. I do however, almost always return fire when the situation warrants it. As for your claims of manipulation and conniving. I'll tell you what, on the other board there was definitely manipulation and conniving going on and not a damn bit of it was coming from me. This board isn't that board. This board is run by people of integrity who have the back bone to make a damn decision. So either you like open season on people or you will appreciate the job the moderators do on this board to make participation possible for a diverse community. Whether you agree with their decisions or not, at least they're on it.

Like I said I'm not going to take the Celestial level seriously, if it means threads will get moved. I would hope that people who use excessive ad homs in the Celestial could perhaps be embarrassed into stopping. That is if a mod points it out, it should be somewhat embarrassing.

Yup.

[_marg]

Jersey Girl:

As a moderator, I would have done exactly what Shades chose to do: offer cautions.

Agreed , because quite often people don't even realize they are doing it. Sometimes they are so used to arguing that way they don't see it themselves.

Much later in the thread, I would have done exactly what Liz chose to do: jettisoned it to the Terrestrial.

This is what I don't get.

First of all, what was the problem? Was the problem that Kevin was lacing posts with ad homs? JAK? How does moving it solve that problem?

At this point in time, I really do not understand why it was moved.

How about taking a few of the outrageous posts and quoting them here or even give the date time and poster and I'll look.

Actually I do think if something is that outrageous as to require moving it instead the offensive portion could be deleted and those words could even be added to a thread set up in outer limits. All that would require being done is a mod post saying the off topic or unacceptable words were moved and give the link to where. And that thread in outer limits could stay there for additional ones from anyone else in any thread.

But I find it interesting at this point in time that I don't know what the problem was that would warrant moving it.