thread origination derail

(and here's a hint, when I declined to be your copy-editor, you got pissed at me, and when I told you exactly what to change to get a post approved, you got pissed at me. there is no winning move, and I refuse to feel guilty over your anger when you try to make my only path forward complete and total surrender to whatever you want to do)

 

You don't get to just start over with everyone pretending like they never ever saw anything. No matter who started anything, you have directly hurt a lot of people here. It was lashing out or it was accidental? Tough, it was still YOU. Mods aren't going to step in to take away your responsibility for your own posts, and the forum isn't just going to collectively pretend like your history never happened. You have responsibility for your own actions.

You've been trying to argue that your post attacking another user completely out of the blue really should have been approved for the main forum.

I was going to go into more depth, but it just... doesn't matter. I'm sick of writing long, thoughtful posts for someone who won't read them. Here and in the wiggler. You want explanations? Look at your older wiggler posts. They're there. You ignored them. People have tried so, so many times.

There's no explanation that will make you happy besides a mod saying 'wow, I was completely wrong and everything you said was actually totally fine to post in the forum.'

 

To be fair, I think they're more likely delusions than lies. So far as I can tell, at any given time, what Athol reports is accurately what Athol feels should be true. It just doesn't seem to connect in any way to prior events.

 

That's a valid criticism. On the other hand, what other option do we have? People other than her exist and have emotional states, so we are eventually stuck with having the conversations people need to have to deal with the after-effects of her behavior. If we address her or talk to her, she reacts negatively at best, and does not respond substantively to the things people actually said, so... I'm not sure what else to do. If she's not going to respond to the things I actually say, does it matter whether I address her or not?

I have not yet gotten a single actual acknowledgement from her of a thing that is actually the thing I said, as opposed to something else she decided to substitute for it, so far as I can tell. After a number of rounds of this:

Seebs: You are, by your own words, being cruel to people in order to hurt them, and I think that is a bad plan.
Athol: I'm sorry I was wrong to think I ever deserved happiness.

I have basically admitted that it is at this time beyond my power to communicate with her. As I've said: If she can successfully articulate, in her own words, even one criticism that I have actually offered of her behavior, I will revisit this conclusion. But I don't think she can do it. I think it's genuinely not possible. At which point... I don't see what we can do, exactly?

 

I do not think Athol portrays events accurately and in order. (And she is welcome to respond to this post.)

For example, she says she came here intending to be nice and we attacked her until she lashed out and labeled her the bad guy. I don't quite agree with this sentiment, but I'll also grant that it's not entirely wrong.

My perception of the racist discussion thread (which I think can be extrapolated to the forum at whole and other infractions) is as follows:

Athol started the thread looking for some discussion on what racism is. I assume because she wanted to understand it better, and even not do the thing. She was polite and nice enough, definitely.

People were unsure of the point of the thread, asked for clarification. Athol tried to clarify but in the process said some really racist stuff.​

People went "whoa back up that's not cool." Some people might've been a little rude about it, maybe? But no one was attacking at this point.

Then Athol continued to clarify and (accidentally?) make more racist statements. At this point people got frustrated. While some people were still trying to explain the matter calmly, other people gave up and got angry.

Especially when it seemed like Athol was saying "no really these are good and fine statements to be making" despite multiple people in multiple tones telling her they were not.

At this point Athol started being mean and attacking the people being angry at her, while completely ignoring the people still trying to calmly help.​

That is not at all the same narrative that she is going by.

So when she says the mods are being mean to her in the wiggler, we very well might be. I know personally I'm trying to avoid being mean, but I'm also not taking any steps to cover up my frustration.

She's not communicating the threads and threads where we were still earnestly trying to help her. We got ignored and yelled at in turn, so we gave up trying to help.

We try to say why a post is wiggled, but it's hard because we collectively don't have any more spoons to have a back and forth conversation about some of the things that we've repeatedly told her will not go through.

Edit typo

 

Wow, that sure is a lot of demands for how people shall be commanded to interact with you. Mmmmmnope.

Also. I'll keep approving these posts where you say things about me that aren't true, but I'm not just going to sit back and take it.

(bolding from original post)

Mhmm, I wasn't very descriptive at first, because I've repeated that bolded point a painful number of times. I was able to dig up the source in like thirty seconds in the wiggler, because there was a big long thread in the wiggler full of attempted explanations.

That last quote is a PARTIAL EXCERPT from my FIRST attempt at explaining what was wrong with that one post.

So whether it's deliberate lies or just plain inability to remember the truth, I'll ask you to stop. fucking. lying. about our private interactions when the original material is fully archived and easy to fucking check.

 

There is no agreement not to make people feel less of a person. There's an agreement that nothing anyone can do or say makes it okay to treat them like garbage. That's it. There is no requirement that people behave a certain way as a result of this information, just an acknowledgement of its truth. What you do with it is up to you.

 

Yeah, that's a hard no too.

Lov those shifting goalposts, remember back when your point was supposed to be that i didn't explain why that post was wiggled?

And if you weren't allowed to talk shit about other users, i wouldn't have personally approved so many posts where you were saying objectively, factually untrue things about me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

JUDICIAL REVIEW, oh my god XD

What you did was try to paste the exact text of a previously wiggled post into a shiny new post. I wiggled it and explained why. Any other mod is totally free to disagree, as usual.

Anyways, yeah, sure, whatever. I'll stop approving your posts if you really truly insist, though I can't tell you how much longer you'll be waiting for approval/wiggling on stuff. I've had the highest mod availability lately and have had the most energy to beat my head against this brick wall. If you really want me to stop approving your posts, just confirm, and I'll stop.

Considering that most of my non-wiggler engagement lately has been relating back to, again, those factually provably untrue things you've been saying about me..... no. I'm not going to sit back and let you lie about our private interactions. Even implying that you want me to do that is absolutely ridiculous and I categorically refuse.

 

Distinguish carefully between fact claims and opinion claims. The things spock was pointing out here are things which you can easily verify for yourself are false as a matter of fact, no need for opinions or judgment calls. The things you complain about people saying are frequently matters of opinion.

If you think a post is "harassment", report it. People are not, in general, "allowed to harass". But we may not always agree with you on what harassment is.

We don't really have "judicial review" or anything like that kind of formal structure. If you'd prefer that spock not mod your posts, I guess that's an option, but I don't think it'll help you any. Also, "citizen capacity" is not a thing. You are assuming some kind of "citizen" vs. "authority" model, and we don't have that to begin with. Need I remind you that I'm one of the people here on post moderation?

I don't know which "last message" you're referring to. I'm also not sure what you mean by "agree". Were there messages that we were keeping private because you did not give permission for them to be public? If not, "agree to more messages being open to public viewing" is not really a thing.

 

My last post was to point out that your perception of reality is different than ours.

You might think the things we say are not true, but to the rest of us they are.

I'm not trying to be judgemental when I say this. I am trying to point out a disconnect.

At some point I think that you should ask yourself if it really is that everyone else is wrong, or if maybe you might be wrong. (About perception of events. I'm not even touching opinion here)

*********************

I had another post for one of the other threads that I wrote up but haven't had time to post. I think I will post it here because it deals with why we may seem more strict with you then others.

The shortest answer is that we don't see every other post on the forum like we do yours. Just because something is posted by someone else, doesn't mean we would have necessarily let it through post mod

 

This is the post that I mentioned in my previous post.

Hey I think this is a fair question, so I will do my best to answer it here.

This got long, and I know long posts aren't great, but I'm wordy. I'll try to break it up some. Just in case, here is a quick summary:

I personally find this post borderline, and it's a toss up whether I would have approved it. Another mod might think differently. I have approved posts by you that were in a similar vein.​

The long answer is below if you want it.

The first thing to point out is that mods don't see every post on the forum. If you see something objectional, please report it, and we will look into it.

However that doesn't mean that we will necessarily take action. A lot of the time we don't.

The second thing is that we are not here to stop people from assholes or from being mean.

So with both of those things in mind, if that post had come through post moderation, from you, Greallan (I'm sorry I'm actually not sure if you want to go by a different name now or not?), and I was looking through the moderated posts, I would probably ask the other mods for opinions.

If I didn't get a response in a few hours to a day (we all have lives and can't always be caught up), I might approve this one. I keep flipping back and forth on it, so I can't say for sure.

Yes, it's an insult and it's mean, but that's where my second point comes in - we are not here to stop people from being mean. We just try to prevent as much harm from the forum at large as possible.

If we know something is triggering to the specific person the post is aimed at, we might take that into account.

I find this post borderline and so I would probably ask for help on it.

I do know that I have approved posts from you that I thought were mean.

It's very much not a defined rule. I know how hard that can be, so I'm sorry I can't define it more.

 

To piggy back on this, if you want to confront someone about a post that they made in their vent thread, even if it's just clarification, the protocol for that was to make a TCHGB thread.

Few things
1) no one is obligated to respond to such a thread

2) I strongly encourage that you(general) approach such a thread in as neutral manner as possible.

I don't know for sure, but it would hard to approve a thread meant for trying to work things out if the first post is an opening volley.

3) EVERY post in TCHGB is moderated, no matter who is posting.

 

I am not sure how to meaningfully respond to this post without going in circles again, so I just want to say that

1) I do see your response and
2) I appreciate you telling how you saw things from your end