Passive-Aggressive Modding

[telecom_goddess]

OK I admit that it's probably rare that a profile of a banned user gets checked at all frequently....but the point is it is there and it is possible. The mods don't like to be insulted in the forum and I can respect that. BUT I don't think it's fair for them to be able to insult people directly via their profile. That to me is an abuse of power.

I'm glad that edits have been removed but really they shouldn't be there in the first place. Not cool.

[Ree]

In fact, how often does anyone ever really check an established member's profile?

Fairly often, actually, heh >.> FA obviously did.

Fair enough, but in this case, it was a member person who has been banned for over a year.

I think I recall seeing it with the Line of Doom through it. Which I suppose could actually lead to someone curiously looking at his profile perhaps?

Perhaps, but, as I mentioned, his posts are over a year old now, so the possibility may have seemed remote to the mod at the time of the edit.

[fireheart17]

To be fair, the ONLY profile I will check that has the Line O'Doom through it, is edible_hat because some of his stories I tend to repeat to customers at work (work-safe obviously and not mentioning this site, more a "a friend who works at a petrol station once told me..."). That's it

I actually wasn't made aware that ANYTHING had happened until this came up. (the profile I mean, not Ree's loss, I was aware of that on the boards).

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Well, as someone who looks very, very hard at "coincidences" I think it's very interesting that all this has come up right about the time Hobbs decided to kick Ree while she was down and start contacting her again.

[Peppergirl]

The mods don't like to be insulted in the forum and I can respect that.

Actually, that's not the case.

The edit of the profile was done *after* Ree was harassed off the forum. And under the pretense of offering an olive branch in the form of a condolence email.

I am not saying it was right, or 'cool' of the person to have made the edit. But I think what's being missed here is that this particular person was obscenely cruel toward someone that most of us care a great deal for.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

True.

However, what is ironic here is that if someone had treated Hobbs the way he has treated Ree, I would be angry about that as well. It is true I have a great fondness and respect for Ree. And I will out and say now that I don't hold Hobbs in the same regard. But personal feelings aside, what happened to her was just flat out obscene and it wouldn't be right no matter who it happened to.

[telecom_goddess]

Actually, that's not the case.

The edit of the profile was done *after* Ree was harassed off the forum. And under the pretense of offering an olive branch in the form of a condolence email.

I am not saying it was right, or 'cool' of the person to have made the edit. But I think what's being missed here is that this particular person was obscenely cruel toward someone that most of us care a great deal for.

I agree with you on this point. I meant in a more general sense if the mods don't want to be insulted to picked on in a public manner then they shouldn't do the same to someone else in a public manner such as profile edits is all.

[Aethian]

Honestly the first message that Hobbs sent to Ree about the loss of her Mother I turned it around. I put it as some cowirker had come up and offered sympathies. The thing to do there I's to take the offered sympathy and drop it. Not question back why someone likes/ doesnt like, respects/doesn't respect another.

This was ill timed done by both party's in my view. And honestly not something that should be passed about to others. As for others taken revenge for another? That was also something that was done in bad taste, since two wrongs NEVER make a right.

Put yourselves in a work situation, would it be acceptable there to mock one who can't defend themselves against the mocking? I've been the mocked before it's not fun to be basically told, "Look what i can do to you and you can't do a thing about it. Nyneer, nyneer."

[Ree]

I don't think it's fair for them to be able to insult people directly via their profile. That to me is an abuse of power.

While I may personally feel that a profile edit is just lowering one's self to the same level, I really don't see it as an abuse of power.

What some people don't seem to grasp is that this was an isolated incident of a profile edit to a banned member.

Banned members are people who have already shown they can't play by the rules. In some cases, people have been banned because they, themselves have hurled insults and abuse at the mods. Of course, the point has been made that the membership has not seen the behind the scenes stuff, so, yes, even if it may be justified, a profile edit does make the mods look bad.

I think this incident has gathered attention because it is so totally out of character for the mods to edit banned profiles.
As I mentioned, many sites do mess with the profiles of banned former members.
We do not have a policy of doing that.
We prefer to keep the same standards of respect that we expect the members to adhere to. It's a slippery slope when public lack of respect towards banned members is allowed to happen.

So, with that in mind, what is also being missed is that this edit was done a year after the banning.

picking on a dude that isn't even able to defend himself, simply because somebody in charge has got a gripe and wishes to keep on pushing it no matter how dead the issue is.

On a forum where this type of thing is not the norm, rather than jump to the attack of the mods and make all kinds of assumptions about their character, why wouldn't someone question what suddenly caused the change?

I think we can all agree, now that the reason is out there, this mod truly felt it was justified in this case, and it was not the norm.
I can understand that it did look bad to others.

As I said earlier, I don't want this to turn into a Hobbs bashing thread.

He behaved badly and allowed a message of condolence to turn into an attack against me.
He sent me an apology message via Facebook.
I think he is aware now that it was a pretty bad time for me, and I was really hurt by what he did.
I think he regrets his actions.

[Aethian]

As I said earlier, I don't want this to turn into a Hobbs bashing thread.

But it already did.

[iradney]

Hang on Aethian - are you saying that Ree asked for Hobbes to be a douche towards her?

If I'm wrong then I apologise, but your first paragraph sounds an awful lot like that.

As for the coworker analogy, it's more like an excoworker that was fired by the owner of the company a while ago, approaching one of the Supervisors that they regularly used to needle and make PA comments about, under the guise of offering condolences.

It's also turned into a bit of a Mod bashing thread.

[Aethian]

Hang on Aethian - are you saying that Ree asked for Hobbes to be a douche towards her?

No. But it's something that should have never gone past "I'm sorry for your loss" and "Thank you for your sympathy" it should have ended there. And on both accounts there were things said that shouldn't have been said. I know for a fact that Hobb's got reamed out by his girlfriend when she found out that he had responded how he did respond. And was told to send apologies again, for being thick headed, the fact he didn't shows bad judgment on his part. And I'm sure something that he then got reamed for again.

But for this to turn into a "Well we had good reason" argument doesn't look good to me. It looks more like a abuse of power. And I KNOW the mods around here are normally better then falling to abuse of power and it saddens me to find that someone did lose better judgment and do what they did.

The fact that whomever did that has now erased what has been done speaks to being better then the vengeful level of mentality that caused the change.

[Ree]

Honestly the first message that Hobbs sent to Ree about the loss of her Mother I turned it around. I put it as some cowirker had come up and offered sympathies. The thing to do there I's to take the offered sympathy and drop it. Not question back why someone likes/ doesnt like, respects/doesn't respect another.

Are you serious?
I brought it on myself because I thanked him for the condolence message and then offered an apology in an attempt to clear up a wrong impression that I didn't like him???

I guess I just have a different style than you, but even if a coworker started out with, "I know you don't like me, but..." and they are totally wrong in that assumption, I'm going to try to set it right.

FYI, I think it's apples and oranges to compare this to a coworker dynamic.
It's not the same at all.

This was ill timed done by both party's in my view. And honestly not something that should be passed about to others.

It wasn't passed about on my part. Until I posted what had happened behind the scenes, nobody was aware of anything.
If this thread had not been started, nobody would know even now.

As I said earlier, I don't want this to turn into a Hobbs bashing thread.

But it already did.

Well, since he was the topic of the thread, which, BTW, was started by a member, and not by a mod, it was pretty difficult not to address his past behaviour, since that caused the edit to be made.

[Aethian]

Are you serious?
I brought it on myself because I thanked him for the condolence message and then offered an apology in an attempt to clear up a wrong impression that I didn't like him???

I guess I just have a different style than you, but even if a coworker started out with, "I know you don't like me, but..." and they are totally wrong in that assumption, I'm going to try to set it right.

I have been approached by the "We don't see eye to eye" or "I know we don't get along" when my Mom went to the hospital after a big heart attack that also started a series of mini strokes. I thanked the person for their words, I was in no way in a state of mind to try and find out why someone thought we didn't get along or why I may or may not have liked them.

All I'm saying is that it was a ill time to try and hash something like that out. Offering sympathies is sometimes not a easy thing to do when someone doesn't know if they are going to be accepted or not.

FYI, I think it's apples and oranges to compare this to a coworker dynamic.
It's not the same at all.
It wasn't passed about on my part. Until I posted what had happened behind the scenes, nobody was aware of anything.
If this thread had not been started, nobody would know even now.
Well, since he was the topic of the thread, which, BTW, was started by a member, and not by a mod, it was pretty difficult not to address his past behaviour, since that caused the edit to be made.

But it was passed about, you said that you shared the messages with other mod's. Which means that others were aware of what had happened. And the change was only made after those four messages were passed.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

No. But it's something that should have never gone past "I'm sorry for your loss" and "Thank you for your sympathy" it should have ended there.

Yeah, no kidding. He didn't need to bring the past squabble into it. If he wanted to discuss that further maybe he didn't need to wrap it in the pretense that he was offering condolences for the loss of her mother. I mean, :WTF:

I don't know how saying that she didn't dislike him was a provocative statement. That's what you say when you're trying to clear the air. I don't know what she could have done different with that comment, any conversation that starts out "I know you don't like me" is bound to be awkward.

So yeah. It should have ended there. That it didn't is why someone lost their shit and their temper and did something regrettable.

Glad to hear the girlfriend, at least, has some modicum of decency and made him do the right thing since so far, he wasn't doing the right thing on his own.