Moderation of moderation

[lupi]

A previous thread was started with an OP requesting no spoilers and nef posts. Many chose not to abide by that request. That was locked and other susequent threads have been locked.
Does this now mean when any person creates a thread and states posting rules for the thread that a user not abiding my those self created rules will also result in moderation action, or are we now in some theater of absurdity where enforcement only applies for a select few.
To continue, a thread being locked with a title "Harry Potter Spoilers" of which absolutely nothing is revealed without the end user opening the thread themselves and of which the OP of the aforementioned thread himself posted in, is performed for what constructive reason?
Are we now going to established some type of voting or judgment process for every book or movie to be released to follow the same now established guidelines.

 

[lupi]

I found your post hard to read and I am not sure I understand it but I'll try to respond.

 Does this now mean when any person creates a thread and states posting rules for the thread that a user not abiding my those self created rules will also result in moderation action, or are we now in some theater of absurdity where enforcement only applies for a select few.

A user can post whatever rules they want in a thread but it doesn't mean anything. By posting the thread they are inviting others to post in it and as long as those posters don't violate the guidelines, they are fine. 

That sounds reasonable, and in total disagreement with the moderation action taken of A previous thread was started with an OP requesting no spoilers and nef posts. Many chose not to abide by that request. That was locked and other susequent threads have been locked.

To continue, a thread being locked with a title "Harry Potter Spoilers"...
This is only a semi-educated guess as I wasn't the moderator who locked it but it may have been locked because of the stickied harry Potter thread at the top of Off Topic. 

The thread labeled spoilers existed prior to the stickied thread, created up to a day before I believe without looking at actual timestamps.

 

[Jeffwo]

Yeah...it's "Moderators Gone Wild" around here right now. Don't worry, they will step on the wrong toes sooner or later and get themselves settled down.

They are doing their best, it's just volunteers anyway, right?

 

[lupi]

Hmm, a mod post with a response that seems to go along with the reason I started this thread, and then his post dissapears.

Maybe I should start worrying about that hellicopter that followed me this morning from the parking log to my building.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: lupi
Hmm, a mod post with a response that seems to go along with the reason I started this thread, and then his post dissapears.

Maybe I should start worrying about that hellicopter that followed me this morning from the parking log to my building.

Nah, I decided to talk to the Mod that took the action and deleted my thread as I didn't think anyone had seen it yet.
I wanted more info because my response seemed to step on his toes.

 

[DrPizza]

Just a for what it's worth:

In response to the first post about the OP asking for no spoilers to be posted: he shouldn't have even had to request that. It's not a rule that he made up - it's a matter of common courtesy. There are a *lot* of Harry Potter fans, anyone not living in a closet should realize this. The only purpose to posting spoilers without alerting someone that there are going to be spoilers is to be a jerk. I can almost imagine those same people running around a mall a few days before Christmas and telling all the little kids in line to sit on Santa's lap that Santa isn't real and there's no such thing as Santa Claus.

The thread title "Harry Potter Spoilers" may have been locked in response to the stickied thread; I never noticed that it was locked. Regardless, it's no longer locked - feel free to post all the spoilers you want in it.

And finally: I agree that Harry Potter appeals to people of all ages, not just children. But quite a few people have been behaving like mean-spirited children in these HP threads.

 

[lupi]

Just a for what it's worth:
In response to the first post about the OP asking for no spoilers to be posted: he shouldn't have even had to request that. It's not a rule that he made up - it's a matter of common courtesy.

No disagreement, but the comment was about the totalitarian way in which the resultant moderation effect was stated as you did not follow the other users stated rules and this is the punishment for it. To say that smelled just a wee bit of bias/favoritism would be somewhat of an understatement.

 There are a *lot* of Harry Potter fans, anyone not living in a closet should realize this. The only purpose to posting spoilers without alerting someone that there are going to be spoilers is to be a jerk. I can almost imagine those same people running around a mall a few days before Christmas and telling all the little kids in line to sit on Santa's lap that Santa isn't real and there's no such thing as Santa Claus. 

Another common sense answer, and perhaps the better solution would have been to clean up the aforementioned thread and post it as a spoiler free zone. But simply banning/locking based solely on the jerk factor of a post will leave someone's button finger awfully sore after a couple hours in the OT area 

And finally: I agree that Harry Potter appeals to people of all ages, not just children. But quite a few people have been behaving like mean-spirited children in these HP threads. 

True, but the extent at which others are dictating the terms so they won't be spoiled can also be seen as a little overbearing. At this point the release of the final book will be akin to Olympic event scores; within hours of the books release all types of media entities will be covering the plot points of the book. That's the downside of our all electronic age. Just look at the leaked pages from yesterday; items or discussion of them appeared on hundreds of webpages and on several network TV shows. One whom would like to avoid spoilers had best avoid all print media, TV, and internet from the time the book is out till you've read your fill.

 

[esquared]

Lupi:
I am the mod that started the stickied HP thread. It was started with input from others mods and it was not decided by me alone. It was not meant to show favoritism to the OP from the previous locked thread (at his request), but to enable the Harry Potter fans to have a place away from others intent on spoiling just because they can. This will not become a place where the OP can dictate rules and conditions for their threads. There are already guidelines in place for that. An exception was made for the stickied HP thread only. The way is was worded was a little overbrearing and I have changed that.

I locked the spoiler threads and it was pointed out to me that even the spoilers need to have their threads. I edited the original post to show that spoiler threads can exist but just label them as such so people that don't want to know that info can avoid it. I also unlocked the previous two spoiler labeled threads.

And you are correct, no mod wants to keep their finger on the edit button because of the potential for abuse. Common sense and courtesy should prevail in these instances.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: lupi
Just a for what it's worth:
In response to the first post about the OP asking for no spoilers to be posted: he shouldn't have even had to request that. It's not a rule that he made up - it's a matter of common courtesy.

No disagreement, but the comment was about the totalitarian way in which the resultant moderation effect was stated as you did not follow the other users stated rules and this is the punishment for it. To say that smelled just a wee bit of bias/favoritism would be somewhat of an understatement.

Lupi, what you missed was a number of users posting threads who's title said "a dies, by dies, c dies, d dies, e lives, g lives, h dies etc" in a clear attempt to ruin the book for anyone who even came into OT. The OT mod vacationed those people and the post you saw was a firm stand to make sure others knocked it off. Was it reasonable, dunno, it was done with the intentions of making sure a handful of rude people didn't purposely ruin something many others where waiting for. In that spirit I hope you see what I personally think it was the right action to take (even more so with esquared updates above)

Bill

 

[SVT Cobra]

Lupi I was the one obviously who asked the mods to lock the thread and create another one with no spoilers. At no time did I ask them to get rid of all spoiler threads, and they corrected it.

The point of my original thread and the new stickied one is a thread to discuss the new book without people coming in and posting leaked spoilers before the book even came out, which happened in my original thread. I said in the original thread, "no spoilers for the time being," obviously because no one has read the book yet, and once they have it would probably be acceptable in a day or two to post spoilers, but with a warning, as members who are participating in a courteous fashion would, and not jerks trying to spoil everyones read.


I never meant to cause any trouble at all, but this is how we did it for the last book that came out (I know you weren't around then) and how other threads about new movies etc are done. Also the fact that you said I posted in the spoiler thread is true, but at that point what did it matter? Jpeyton had already ruined it for me by posting the spoiler in my original thread without warning. So I was just hoping to prevent it from others ruining it.

Does it seem like a bit much just for a book? Yes, but like Dr Pizza said, the only members that wanted to ruin it are ruining it to be jerks, which is not what this forum (used) tolerates after repeat offenses.

 

[simondedalus]

i support it too..........

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: bsobel


Lupi, what you missed was a number of users posting threads who's title said "a dies, by dies, c dies, d dies, e lives, g lives, h dies etc" in a clear attempt to ruin the book for anyone who even came into OT. The OT mod vacationed those people and the post you saw was a firm stand to make sure others knocked it off. Was it reasonable, dunno, it was done with the intentions of making sure a handful of rude people didn't purposely ruin something many others where waiting for. In that spirit I hope you see what I personally think it was the right action to take (even more so with esquared updates above)

Bill

My post was strictly in regard to how it was handled with the new rules for operation of the forum. As stated in several post above, I found conflict with how things were pre-editing; post-edit was about what I would have expected originally, so we're all good.