Just pre-emptively, here, I'm not trying to pick on Lenas with this post. I was considering PMing him this feedback (my usual course of action when I have feedback or input on moderation) when I saw the thread locked with no moderatorial ruling on the contents, but then saw the matter being discussed more generally and publically here. So I'm contributing in this avenue, instead.
Let me start off by quoting the board rules, as posted by Talya on November 9, 2009
Board rules, from the 'announcement-ized' post at the top of each forum, including General wrote:
Flaming
Any poster that openly attacks, insults, belittles, or abuses another poster will receive a warning or further disciplinary action. You can be critical of another poster's viewpoint in a debate, even going as far as to explain why you believe them to be mistaken and backing your points up with sources as appropriate, but the moment your criticism extends to the person who posted that viewpoint, it has crossed the line.
Specific things you cannot do on this message board:
...
Use passive-aggressive insults, such as "Anyone who believes that is an idiot," ... It's still not allowed.
Harassment of other posters, such as repeatedly following them from thread to thread to dispute them, personally.
Responding in kind to a poster who has flamed you. Please inform a Moderator via PM. Remember, the more they flame, the deeper a hole they dig for themselves, but don’t spur them on.
Belittling people for having different viewpoints than yourself.
...
Posting insults or slurs based on anyone's race, religion, ethnicity, age, gender, or sexual orientation
...
There is some wiggle-room here. ... Once again, these are guidelines. Use common sense and think about the spirit, rather than the letter of the law. If a post looks like its primary (or only) purpose is to cause strife, or is intended to "bait" flames, it can fall under this as well, at the discretion of the moderators.
I ellided some of the specific examples for (some) brevity, and emphasized sections I would apply to the behavior (or, in some cases, the implicit tone evident) in the thread in question.
Dash wrote:
I saw the thread literally as I was heading out the door to the gym. I saw Lenas appeal for everyone to calm down and I hoped that'd be the end of it.
For what it's worth, I get that it's frustrating. I dont know why people feel the need to do this either. Riov seems like he just couldnt help himself while Talya is who she is. I dont know if it's deliberate trolling, some sort of self aggrandizement, social retardation or what.
Personally, I don't care what the motivation was, that is, it doesn't matter to me whether it was "deliberate" trolling or not. If something's a flame, it's against the rules, and there should be action taken against it. Now, I wasn't refreshing to see the shitstorm brewing, so I wasn't able to either report posts or post a nice little image of the report button as a reminder for others to go ahead and do so if they were upset at the behavior in the thread. I had gone and copied the URL for the button's image already when I noticed it was locked, in fact. However, I think it's telling about the dissatisfaction with the action taken to uphold the purported standards that nobody else thought to report something. And, to be honest, Lenas' "unofficial" hey-let's-play-nice post is one of the reasons for that kind of thing, I think. He obviously felt that this had the potential to devolve, because he moved it. If you're going to move or lock a thread, your moderator hat's on. Come in and give warnings when you do. I know the temptation is to try to keep it off and plead for calmer heads, but if you're going to put it on, there really needs to be some judgement laid down on the contents of the thread, whether it's been reported or not. After all, it got moved without a report, and locked without one, too. So saying "but it wasn't reported" isn't an excuse -- there was moderation going on, but it was the typical, toothless moderation that really wears down people's patience, confidence, and faith in the impartiality and authority of the system. It's that erosion that leads to the unrest and hot tempers, as people see things as being unfair or the administration taking sides, so why not just take the gloves off if the cops are corrupt or lazy anyways?
Müs wrote:
See a problem, report it. The mods should mod from there.
They have *never* been proactive as far as I can remember on this incarnation of the boards. They're not going to police every thread. If there's a problem, tell them with the report post button.
Except, Lenas did police the thread. Twice. He moved it to Hellfire (which, holy crap! Moving a thread to Hellfire is a tacit encouragement for the thread to devolve further, is that really the best destination to send an originally inoffensive, celebratory religious thread on its way to?), and then locked it. IMO, if there's a lock going down, there should be warnings at the least, even if they're thrown at both sides. Locking a thread is a declaration that the thread is so rife with rules-breaking and violations that the original content and tone cannot be recovered. To declare this and then not take some action to condemn the behavior that put it in that state is flabbergasting to me. (I suppose that some exception could be made for locks to consolidate or the like, but even then, the moderatory judgement is "there's a thread already covering this over here, continue the discussion there" and no punishable actions were made by the other posters)
And, just for good measure, this is made more bothersome by the suggestion that Heckfire is "zero-tolerance." It never occurred to me to ask before now, does that apply to the rest of the non-Hellfire subforums (i.e., the ones in which free reign has not been declared)? If not, isn't it silly to hold our standard of respect and behavior to a
higher standard in one of the controversial, political forum than in the social lets-have-fun forums?
Finally, even with the moving and locking of the original thread, and more responses from moderators and administrators in this thread raising the question, it still hasn't been answered whether or not making jokes about other religions in their celebratory threads is acceptable and appropriate behavior on these boards. As always, I'm okay with "the reported post/content of the locked thread does not merit disciplinary action" as a response to a report or as the judgement in a thread-lock announcement. But it's your job as mods and admins to make that judgement, whichever way it falls, when you're doing something moderatory, so that we know what's okay and what's not.