Discussion of hsquizbowl.org's rules

[Grams's Go-Go Boots]

Hello,

The members of the board staff have discussed setting this up for a couple of months now. I hope that this opportunity is taken seriously.

This thread is meant for posters to discuss the rules of the forums. If you believe that there is room for improvement in any manner, please post here. Additionally, I'd be happy to respond to any questions you have at all about why decisions were made, what happens when a post is reported, etc.

Obviously, the whole "discussion of moderating decisions" rule is suspended in this thread for the purpose of this discussion. That said, I'd rather see this thread not get turned into a fight about "was moderating decision X fair?" as much as a "was rule X used properly?" angle, if that makes any sense at all.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Over the past few years, I've been routinely disappointed by the immaturity of HSQB moderation. People the moderators don't like have their usernames changed, have their pet subjects word-filtered. There seems to be a "haha, we have the power and you don't vibe" among the staff, which I think is evident in things like moderators posting supposedly witty things in closed threads or in the corpse of AHAN. Moderator decisions often seem to be announced obliquely rather than through actions, e.g. the (re) shut down of AHAN.

ACF, PACE, HSAPQ, and other organizations in quizbowl are all going through a process of "professionalization" right now; I think the HSQB moderator staff should follow.

Also, some of the rules just seem silly. I don't think there is any harm in a non-moderator telling somebody "hey, you should put your school in your signature", yet this is now a warnable offense that could in theory get somebody banned. Surely we don't want people masquerading as moderators and ordering people to edit their posts or whatever, but the color coding makes it clear who is a moderator and not. And does the rule of "don't tell people how to post" have any basis other than the fact that Matt Weiner one day got sick of people asking him to be civil? I fully agree that attacking the tone rather than substance of somebody's post is a logical fallacy that doesn't foster good discussion. But there are tons of logical fallacies posted on HSQB every day, none of which foster good discussion, and we don't ban those. The punishment for posting dumb things should be a loss of respect by your peers, not moderator action. I think the HSQB staff is too focused on penalizing acts which quizbowl civil society already does a good job of penalizing.

[Cheynem]

I think the "don't tell people how to post" thing is used injudiciously. There is a difference between actively working to stifle discussion and making defensive (admittedly illogical) statements that could be interpreted as that. I feel like a broad usage of "don't tell people how to post" would effectively result in many, many posts being dumped and users being banned.

[Kenneth Widmerpool]

I can't shake off the feeling that certain moderators and administrators were chosen because they're friends of previous mods and administrators.

[jonah]

I agree with Bruce and Mike, and add that some rules do not seem to be enforced with a blind eye to who may have violated them. The most notable case of this seems to be rule 4's proscription of ad hominem attacks, which I have seldom seen enforced at all (and have frequently seen violated) but especially seems to be disregarded when the post in question is made by a widely respected figure in the community. A particular case of this is that some moderators/admins seem to violate that rule habitually; while it certainly makes sense for some rules not to apply to board staff, in my opinion that rule isn't one of them.

[Mechanical Beasts]

One thing I just thought of (inspired by Mike's point about metaposting rules) is this:

1. Do not make illogical or fallacious arguments is a rule.
2. Pointing out rule violations is backseat modding.
3. No backseat modding is a rule.
4. Pointing out illogical or fallacious arguments is backseat modding.
5. Failing to point out illogical or fallacious arguments, and thereby tacitly permitting them to remain unchallenged, is itself illogical or fallacious. At the very least, arguers should not be forbidden from pointing out illogical or fallacious arguments. The fact that this rule is implied unevenly has made this largely a non-issue, but the point of rules is not to apply them unevenly or with undocumented exceptions.

[vcuEvan]

One thing I just thought of (inspired by Mike's point about metaposting rules) is this:
1. Do not make illogical or fallacious arguments is a rule.
4. Pointing out illogical or fallacious arguments is backseat modding.

I don't think either of these premises is true.

Also, I hope that whatever rule changes are enacted leave the moderators with enough leeway to remove or correct objectionable material that isn't explicitly forbidden by the rules.

[cvdwightw]

1. Does there need to be an explicit rule about bringing intra-team baggage onto the forums, or is this sufficiently covered implicitly by the other rules?
2. In the staff's (or just your) opinion, has the shutdown of AHAN Jr. produced a net positive effect on the (other sections of the) boards, specifically with respect to the quality of quizbowl discussion and the in-crowdyness of the community?

[Cheynem]

In my personal opinion, I like the shutting down of AHAN. The "better" type stuff that got posted in AHAN found its way to Off Topic, while it prevented people from just hitting the "post" button to post inane stuff.

[Horned Screamer]

Closing down ahan was the best thing that's ever happened to the board.

[theMoMA]

My preference is for there to be as few rules as possible and for people to police themselves better. That said, we the moderators have a responsibility to create an environment in which free and effective discussion can thrive. I think we have done a good job structurally: shutting down AHAN, providing private fora to groups in need, and creating new subfora like the history and new teams sections are all feathers in our cap.

I do call for us to better enforce the rules (and perhaps redraft some of them to promote better enforcement). But I'd also like to challenge people to do a better job upholding the kind of discourse that the rules promote. We have rules against various illogical arguments because people use those arguments a lot. We have rules against tone policing and stifling discussion because these are tactics that people resort to instead of engaging in discussion. There would be less griping about these rules if people simply stopped brushing up against them.

Read the rules, take part in this discussion, but most importantly, think about the reasons that the rules exist. It's to promote discussion of quizbowl in a way that's logical, open, free, readable, relevant, useful, etc. If your post doesn't fit one or more of those categories, think about why you're making it. If it runs afoul of one of those categories, expect a moderator to take action, because you're probably breaking one of the rules.

[ether a go-go]

Since it's common for new posters, or people who haven't posted in a long time, to be warned about the lack of a signature, is there any way to address that systematically? Is there a way for the registration process to require a signature before they post or to make that rule more obvious? I think some people follow a link here because of a tournament announcement or somebody telling them about a particular discussion, grudgingly create a username and/or password, don't read a bunch of rules because they want to say or ask something very simple, and then are hit with a warning as though they did something wrong. If it is technically difficult to make it obvious to new registrants that they need a signature, perhaps just rewording the warning as encouragement or informing would make the site more welcoming to new users.

[Grams's Go-Go Boots]

Is there a way for the registration process to require a signature before they post

Not to my knowledge.

or to make that rule more obvious?

I'll look into this, but presently there's a thread stickied in every forum with the subject "Don't forget your signature!" soooo...

[Bartleby]

Yes, but not everyone is necessarily observant enough to notice it, otherwise there wouldn't be people who don't do it. I agree that perhaps instead of using the term "warning", which carries a negative stigma with it, a "reminder" or some other such term might be better. You want people who come here to remain a part of the community, and I don't see as how giving them a "warning" after one post will necessarily help foster a community environment. Of course, I say this having not received such a warning myself, so my thoughts are purely speculative.

[in on these shenanigans]

I've also thought that the connotations of "User was warned for lacking a signature" was a little harsher than need be. It's a piddling semantic thing to nitpick about, but on a first post it should probably say "reminded." It's hard enough to keep new posters engaged and involved with the forum on a regular basis; let's not make it harder unnecessarily.

[Alliance in the Alps]

I thought the warn thing was a phpbb feature that moderators can use to inform people what they're doing wrong. I don't see the necessity of making such a warning public, though. A private message would work better.

[Susan]

I thought the warn thing was a phpbb feature that moderators can use to inform people what they're doing wrong. I don't see the necessity of making such a warning public, though. A private message would work better.

I started adding the "user was warned for lacking a signature" notes to try to avoid receiving multiple warnings about the same signatureless posts (we had a case or two where this led to people being warned multiple times for the same post, which is surely not ideal). Additionally, I've found that some people do not respond at all to board warnings (possibly because the email they've used to sign up for the board is not one they check very often?), and--this is purely anecdotal, I have no numbers for this--I've found that people have more often and more quickly added a signature after a single warning with a note edited into their post than they did when I just warned them without editing their post. Therefore, I think editing posts to note that the user needs a signature results in somewhat less hassle for the staff in terms of time spent repeatedly hounding people to add signatures.

If people think that "user was warned..." is sounds off-putting, I'd be happy to say "user was reminded to add a signature,"or something similar, as Brad suggests.

[magin]

I'm also going to agree with Bruce and Mike about the problem being the enforcement of the rules, especially rules 3, 4, and 9.

I've read many posts that did not follow "the basic rules of polite conversation" (e.g., filled with fairly scathing, often times ad hominem attacks) or "the basic rules of logical argumentation" (e.g., just posting variations on "you're wrong" without any accompanying reasons why); off the top of my head, if those posts were made by in-group defenders of good quizbowl against non in-group members, they resulted in no penalties or warnings, despite being in violation of the stated rules of this board. Since the moderators haven't been enforcing these rules, posters on the receiving end of violations of rules 3 and 4 have sometimes spoken up to ask, in effect, that they be treated with "the basic rules of polite conversation" and "logical argumentation," only to often get banned by the same moderators for violating rule 9.

That seems pretty silly to me, and I think it's the biggest problem with the current rules. As written, I think they're fine (if a little vague), but their enforcement isn't consistent. It reminds me a little of the NCAA not punishing USC, Cam Newton, and (probably) Jim Tressel, while repeatedly busting smaller and less powerful programs for small violations. I'd like to have more confidence in the moderators of this board, who are pretty logical/smart people, to act fairly than I have in the NCAA, but, well, they could absolutely do a better job at being just.

[bt_green_warbler]

What Susan said: the public note is there to prevent a pileon of many people reporting the same unidentified poster. I would be fine with rewording to "User was reminded to enable a signature" or similar.

[ether a go-go]

Thanks for making the change, Susan. I don't think it's a huge deal, but it's probably a little better the new way.

The fact is that the moderators do a good job policing these boards. I just tried a quick search to find examples of users being banned for minor violations, and about the worst I came up with was this, and it's actually fairly reasonable. There aren't too many bans on this board, and that's a good thing which reflects well on the community and the staff. I could find more examples if I was looking for warnings, though those are just warnings and the ones I found involved people breaking board rules.

I hate to bring up the failings of board staff, because they are few and far between. However, since we have several people making the claim that people in the community are treated better than people outside or new to the community, we might as well look at the worst examples. As far as I can tell, these examples are the exception rather than the rule, and I think the common perception stated by a few posters above generally is based on a small number of incidents that happened over a year ago.

There are at least two posts within the past year where I was disappointed by the lack of response by board staff, though in both cases I can see why they were put in a difficult position. The first one was this one, where a PACE Officer who is not a moderator, who was speaking on behalf of PACE, told somebody what topics they are not allowed to post on. I get the idea that this places the board staff in a bind, but their claim that the statement "comes extremely close" to telling people how to post isn't true--it clearly was telling a person how to post. It also is inappropriate for an organization to say in polite conversation--an organization can close an investigation into a certain matter when they feel it has been dealt with, but they are in no position to tell people to stop talking about it or questioning their decision. It's fine to attempt to explain why your critics are wrong, but that's not what was done.

The other one, which happened recently and for all I know may or may not have prompted this thread, was this one, specifically the second to last paragraph. I didn't want to reply to it, because the last thing this board needs is another argument between me and Weiner, but it looks to me like a clear violation of Rule #4. If it's not, then perhaps there should be a new rule against posts that are both stupid and inflammatory. If the moderators are not going to correct people who make stupid and inflammatory posts, then they should allow users to tell people how to post in such cases.

[ScoBo]

Is there a way for the registration process to require a signature before they post

Not to my knowledge.

One of the first things I did after migrating the Missouri boards to phpBB was hack up the registration page to request name and affiliation so that it could be added to the signature when someone registers, which has worked very well; I can't think of the last time someone registered and subsequently didn't have a signature. If that's something you'd be interested in I can look at the source and figure out what all I changed to make that work.

[Howard]

I'm also going to agree with Bruce and Mike about the problem being the enforcement of the rules, especially rules 3, 4, and 9.

I've read many posts that did not follow "the basic rules of polite conversation" (e.g., filled with fairly scathing, often times ad hominem attacks) or "the basic rules of logical argumentation" (e.g., just posting variations on "you're wrong" without any accompanying reasons why); off the top of my head, if those posts were made by in-group defenders of good quizbowl against non in-group members, they resulted in no penalties or warnings, despite being in violation of the stated rules of this board. Since the moderators haven't been enforcing these rules, posters on the receiving end of violations of rules 3 and 4 have sometimes spoken up to ask, in effect, that they be treated with "the basic rules of polite conversation" and "logical argumentation," only to often get banned by the same moderators for violating rule 9.

That seems pretty silly to me, and I think it's the biggest problem with the current rules. As written, I think they're fine (if a little vague), but their enforcement isn't consistent. It reminds me a little of the NCAA not punishing USC, Cam Newton, and (probably) Jim Tressel, while repeatedly busting smaller and less powerful programs for small violations. I'd like to have more confidence in the moderators of this board, who are pretty logical/smart people, to act fairly than I have in the NCAA, but, well, they could absolutely do a better job at being just.

I brought this point up a couple years ago-- I cannot recall whether it was in a post or via e-mail to Fred-- but was basically told that board management didn't see any evidence of such an issue. You can have rules about no backseat modding all you want, but if the board staff refuses to enforce the rules, the backseat modding will continue to occur.

[Grams's Go-Go Boots]

I brought this point up a couple years ago-- I cannot recall whether it was in a post or via e-mail to Fred-- but was basically told that board management didn't see any evidence of such an issue. You can have rules about no backseat modding all you want, but if the board staff refuses to enforce the rules, the backseat modding will continue to occur.

Well, I certainly don't see an email in my account that's along these lines.

[Howard]

I had a look through my posts and found it.

http://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5099&p=71240&#p71240

Just a little over three years ago. And in fairness, Fred's response isn't exactly as I characterized it, as there was no explicit reference to there being no real issue. By the same token, there was no acknowledgement of a problem, either.

From my perspective, it's clear. I've been the subject of very obvious ad hominem attacks on this board by an admin. No notification was ever made that there was any sort of warning or action taken. Nor was this attack prompted by anything other than logical discussion. The justification for these attacks: I've brought up the civility issue too many times.

If rule 4

4) Your posts must follow the basic rules of polite conversation. Especially, do not utilize ad hominem attacks in your posts. When you're posting to disagree with someone, make sure someone hasn't already made the same post that you're intending to post.

were followed and enforced on those that did not follow, there would be no posts about civility and there would be no ad hominem attacks.

As it stands, when board staff refuses to acknowledge such posts and take appropriate action against them, the board is left with the posters themselves complaining about the behavior, something that the board staff has made clear they do not want. It's a simple idea: if the rules are enforced, there will be no reason for people to complain about those breaking the rules.

[DumbJaques]

I can't shake off the feeling that certain moderators and administrators were chosen because they're friends of previous mods and administrators.

Really? I'd be interested to hear what you mean by this (or really, who you mean, I suppose). This is kind of a lame way to raise this issue, because it's so hopelessly ambiguous as to preclude constructive discussion, and if you really think there's a problem worth talking about here it seems a rather passive-aggressive way of handling it.

To illustrate what I mean, I looked over looked over our current staff roster and even with the wildest of speculation I just have no idea where you're coming from. Fred had to be begged to return as interim Chief Admin against his desperate pleas for mercy. Aside from universally-acknowledged heir to Teitlerian Archvillainy Rob Carson, our administrators have pretty much been around since the primordial cow (literally), and are by definition "the previous mods and administrators." Somehow I can't envision Jeff or Susan cackling in delight as their years of internet favor-currying with Mike Sorice finally pay off. I rather sincerely hope you're referencing the staffers like me, mainly for the comedy value. No less than four current or former board staffers have actually thrown things at my head, like in real life!* I think I might still have unresolved blood feuds with some of them, but honestly I've got so many on the books by this point I can't remember for sure. Whenever it was that I first became a moderator, I'm sure they all hated me then and presumably that hate has only seethed and festered in the intervening years.

*Technically one of these things was an aerosol, but it tasted really bad.

Seriously though, if Auroni or others have concerns about this, I hope you'll air them; I'm pretty confident this issue, at least, will be easy to address.

[cvdwightw]

I can't shake off the feeling that certain moderators and administrators were chosen because they're friends of previous mods and administrators.

Seriously though, if Auroni or others have concerns about this, I hope you'll air them; I'm pretty confident this issue, at least, will be easy to address.

Actually, I heard this very accusation during the whole Matt-Trygve flapfest eight months ago, but then again, I heard a lot from both sides during that mess. I assumed the problems stemming from those accusations would have been cleaned up internally by the board staff by now, and thus not an issue.

[Cheynem]

So John Gilbert got banned for a week. It was a dumb post with a lot of bad arguments. I still maintain that the "don't tell people how to post" banhammer tends to basically prosecute bad posts and bad arguments instead of actual bannable offenses. Gilbert's post was (a poorly thought out) clarion call for the ever elusive civility. I have no problem with anyone ripping into this argument or chastising him for playing this card. Let me be clear: I think Gilbert was wrong. I am not calling for a "let's all hold hands and don't criticize anyone" approach. I just think there are better ways to take on the issues though than through banning. What do others think?

[Eccles cake]

The use of the not telling people how to post rule and trying to stop discussion rule have been applied so selectively that it almost always occurs when someone voices an unpopular opinion or when the person who is posting is someone who a lot of people don't like. John Gilbert's post is so minor compared to the flagrant disregard of the rules in the past that the one week ban is simply unfair. I can understand one day or even three days. But one whole week? The punishment does not seem to fit the crime there.

EDIT: to be clear, I don't agree with John Gilbert's post, but I still don't think it deserves such a long ban.

[ether a go-go]

I'm quick to defend new posters when they get defensive while being attacked, but I'm slow to defend somebody repeatedly violating board rules over a long time despite warnings. If you just look at the one post, a one week ban is an overreaction, but according to the explanation given, the ban was based on a pattern of not following board rules. At some point, people either need to follow the rules or accept the consequences. Matt was being pretty reasonable when he referred to tournaments that do not try to be pyramidal as fake--there are more accurate descriptions of such tournaments, but the more accurate they are, the more they insult the teams that participate.

[Matt Weiner]

Gilbert's post was (a poorly thought out) clarion call for the ever elusive civility.

Calling for "civility" is against the rules. I don't know why people have such a hard time understanding this.

Also, this thread is for discussing what the rules should be, not complaining that someone was banned. John Gilbert intentionally violated the rules, knowing what they were, after getting several years' worth of chances to stop doing so. We have a word for people who come to message boards with the express purpose of breaking the rules, stopping discussion, and calling attention to themselves as some sort of martyr for doing so. If people are going to run to this thread every time an obvious rule-breaking post is disciplined instead of using it to discuss the rules, then this thread serves no purpose and can be closed.

[Cheynem]

Fair enough. I'd like to see the civility rule dropped or revised, I guess, or maybe used more judiciously. I think the rule is great when like authority figures say things like "I think people should stop calling this tournament idiotic"--if a coach or a tournament editor were to say that, well, that's a clear attempt at stifling discussion and should be nipped in the bud. However, when Joe Blow in the midst of a personal argument/discussion says "Man, I wish people would stop calling my ideas idiotic," it strikes me as more of a nonsensical statement rather than an attempt to chill discussion or force people to post in a particular way. Now, I suppose for the sake of moderators, that using a "one size fits all" policy for civility is probably easiest, but I'm not sure it couldn't be more judicious.

[Howard]

Matt was being pretty reasonable when he referred to tournaments that do not try to be pyramidal as fake--there are more accurate descriptions of such tournaments, but the more accurate they are, the more they insult the teams that participate.

I can't recall the last time I attended a fake tournament. They've all advertised themselves as what they were. All of them required knowledge to answer questions. They gave out the announced prizes. They ranked the teams exactly as they said they would. So "nonpyramidal" or even "speed" would be more accurate. So using the words for what they actually mean, these tournaments were all quite real.

[Howard]

Calling for "civility" is against the rules. I don't know why people have such a hard time understanding this.

As I said above some time ago, it's because some of the board staff routinely violate the rules and/or choose to apply them in a manner that supports their own arguments and stifles discussion among arguments they disagree with. For the record, I do not believe this is a majority of the board staff.

Also, this thread is for discussing what the rules should be, not complaining that someone was banned.

Fred's post at the top of the thread seems to imply otherwise:

The members of the board staff have discussed setting this up for a couple of months now. I hope that this opportunity is taken seriously.

This thread is meant for posters to discuss the rules of the forums. If you believe that there is room for improvement in any manner, please post here. Additionally, I'd be happy to respond to any questions you have at all about why decisions were made, what happens when a post is reported, etc.

Obviously, the whole "discussion of moderating decisions" rule is suspended in this thread for the purpose of this discussion. That said, I'd rather see this thread not get turned into a fight about "was moderating decision X fair?" as much as a "was rule X used properly?" angle, if that makes any sense at all.

And I don't particularly see complaining, just some discussion. And I'm not sure it's even worth that from an individual perspective. More, I suspect people are concerned that they will potentially find themselves on the wrong side of an argument and have a similar fate.

John Gilbert intentionally violated the rules, knowing what they were, after getting several years' worth of chances to stop doing so. We have a word for people who come to message boards with the express purpose of breaking the rules, stopping discussion, and calling attention to themselves as some sort of martyr for doing so.

While I did intend to make the post and I did intend to make all the points I made, I didn't do it with any intention of breaking the rules. And I agree I know what the rules are. You can pretend I come here to break the rules, but this requires you to fail to accept my stated purpose in my posts. You can pretend that discussion of attitudes and civility have no relationship to the number of teams participating in quiz events, when in fact these are important points to be discussed. And I did my best to limit mention of this to its relationship to the size of quiz bowl events. If that's worthy of a ban, fair enough.

Furthermore, I challenge you to find where I made even one post which had the purpose of stopping discussion.

And I also challenge you to find where I made any attempt at making myself a martyr. I certainly hope it's not the one time, in this thread, after written invitation, I made a point about your own ad hominem attacks specifically aimed at silencing my actual discussion of a tournament.

[Emily Krok]

I can't recall the last time I attended a fake tournament. They've all advertised themselves as what they were. All of them required knowledge to answer questions. They gave out the announced prizes. They ranked the teams exactly as they said they would. So "nonpyramidal" or even "speed" would be more accurate. So using the words for what they actually mean, these tournaments were all quite real.

If you prefer, we can start calling them "inferior."

[huff paste]

Is it just me, or does this seem very ad hominem and completely unproductive?

[Mechanical Beasts]

Is it just me, or does this seem very ad hominum and completely unproductive?

It appears to be satirical.

[Mr. Scogan]

Is it just me, or does this seem very ad hominum and completely unproductive?

It appears to be satirical.

It's calling out members of the of the board and coaches from across the country and making extreme accusations. I don't see any fulfilling purpose of it.

[Kenneth Widmerpool]

Is it just me, or does this seem very ad hominum and completely unproductive?

It appears to be satirical.

It's calling out members of the of the board and coaches from across the country and making extreme accusations. I don't see any fulfilling purpose of it.

I hope that you never have to write an essay about A Modest Proposal.

[Emily Krok]

Ha ha, yes, this post is indeed equivalent to A Modest Proposal.

[in on these shenanigans]

So, earlier today, this happened in the Excelsior Rankings thread.

It's 4 hours later and our "doppelganger's" statistics are still intertwined with ours. Further, we have somehow accumulated 2 more losses to phantom teams, changing our record to 17-18. If you take our publicized results of 7-5 at HSNCT and 5-9 at the NSC, our precise public record should be 12-14, not 17-18. The season is over, and it is not a big deal, but I would think that you would want your records and whatever rankings these might result in to accurately reflect the capabilities of your new ranking system.

Oh no, not four whole hours!

This is my official request as an administrator that people not use the board to hector people who are providing interesting services for free, outside of the bounds of reason. If you have a problem with someone's rankings, you may certainly post as much, but from here on out unreasonable "you didn't fix my problem within the running time of Gods and Generals" posting is not something I want to see.

Depending on how you interpret the word "request" and/or phrase "request as an administrator," this may or may not be a new HSQB rule; it was certainly applied as a rule to ban Ed Powers an hour later, pretty much for posting an Ed Powers post. Say what you will about administration's ability to create rules on the spur of the moment; say what you will for administration's ability to ban for tone. I'm simply going to note that, if it's a rule and not a request, then the rule as stated -- "people not use the board to hector people who are providing interesting services for free, outside of the bounds of reason." -- might want to be retroactively applied to ban Matt Weiner for his post hectoring Jonah for his maintenance of the QBWiki, as well as potentially many other posts by many other people.

[Matt Weiner]

That is not what this thread is for.

[in on these shenanigans]

That is not what this thread is for.

This thread is meant for posters to discuss the rules of the forums.

So...it's not a rule, then?

[Matt Weiner]

Don't play dumb. If you want to discuss the rule I put forth, do so; the endless Illinois obsession with the fact that I called Jonah Greenthal an idiot after he did a lot of idiotic things is, at best, suited for some other place.

[Mechanical Beasts]

That is not what this thread is for.

This thread is meant for posters to discuss the rules of the forums.

So...it's not a rule, then?

Anything that might apply the rules to moderators and administrators is antithetical to certain administrators' view of how the rules should work (at least with respect to certain administrators, or certain favored users). It's a rule that, like many, will be selectively enforced.

[in on these shenanigans]

Don't play dumb. If you want to discuss the rule I put forth, do so; the endless Illinois obsession with the fact that I called Jonah Greenthal an idiot after he did a lot of idiotic things is, at best, suited for some other place.

On the face of it, the spirit of the rule is a fair one. People do good things for the quizbowl community for free all the time, and we should appreciate the (usually) low-priority status it holds for the volunteer in terms of acknowledging feedback, etc. A request to ensure this happens is completely fair; given that Coach Powers' original posts sounded closer to hectoring than anything else, making that request is a good way to put the thread back on track.

My issues stem from:
A: the ability of administration to create new board rules on the spur of the moment and applying discipline immediately;
B: the ability of an administrator (chief or otherwise) to create new board rules without apparent deliberations among all administrators/moderators and without proper announcement in the rules forum*;
C: couching said rules in language like "request as an administrator," then applying discipline for breaking that "request" as though it had been a rule all along;
D: the note that Coach Powers was banned partially for an "all-caps freakout at board staff," which is, at best, a ban for "posting in the manner of Ed Powers," and at worst a ban for an uncivil tone towards a moderator.

*if such deliberation took place in the 83 minutes between Coach Powers' post and Matt's request, disregard this, although I'll note that it still would have been appropriate to at least cross-post something over to the rules forum

Now, of course, the role of a Chief Administrator is to do things like A from time to time -- to require a quorum of admins or the input and discussion of moderators and/or board members to do any little thing is absurd. But I do feel that the process by which the rule was created and applied is both unfair to Coach Powers in this specific case and unsettling for future discussions.

[Mechanical Beasts]

*if such deliberation took place in the 83 minutes between Coach Powers' post and Matt's request, disregard this, although I'll note that it still would have been appropriate to at least cross-post something over to the rules forum

It didn't. Sometimes it does, though, to be fair.

[huff paste]

Don't play dumb. If you want to discuss the rule I put forth, do so; the endless Illinois obsession with the fact that I called Jonah Greenthal an idiot after he did a lot of idiotic things is, at best, suited for some other place.

Which in itself is a violation of the rule against ad hominum attacks.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Don't play dumb. If you want to discuss the rule I put forth, do so; the endless Illinois obsession with the fact that I called Jonah Greenthal an idiot after he did a lot of idiotic things is, at best, suited for some other place.

Which in itself is a violation of the rule against ad hominum attacks.

Frequently, it appears (at least to me) that the rules do not affect moderators and administrators (in enforcement, if not in theory) the same way they affect typical board users. The most common rule infraction (perhaps tailing swearing in the high school section, but probably not) is of course backseat moderation, and a rule against backseat moderation is a great rule. That said, obviously moderators can't be backseat moderators because they are moderators. So I think sometimes the division necessitated by this most common rule is sometimes carried over, inappropriately, to other types of rules.

But, this is by no means a black and white issue. I was tempbanned for I think twenty-four hours for telling Billy Beyer to shut up while a moderator. I agreed with the moderation decision then, and I do now: I don't mean to air that tempban as a grievance but rather demonstrate that sometimes, the rules are correctly also applied to moderators.

[Matt Weiner]

Some clarifications:

1) The rules about post content do not apply, and never have applied, to board staff.

2) Andy Watkins was banned from the board once, in 2008, for backseat modding before he was on the staff. His claim that he was banned for any length of time for the "shut the [naughty word] up" incident while he was a moderator is untrue.

3) Ed Powers was not banned for violating the new rule prohibiting getting super upset about free services, he was banned for his subsequent post in which he called out board staff, accused me of not reading his post before responding to it, and dismissed the notion that the rules should apply to him.

[Ondes Martenot]

The rules about post content do not apply, and never have applied, to board staff.

What exactly does this mean? That staff can say whatever they want and get away with it or something more specific like "staff can tell users how to post, non-staff can't".