I took a look at some of those. Which posts did you report to admin?


You just called it "malicious misquotation" in the opening post title and in the intro, referred to it as "silliness".

Pick a spot and land on it. It's either malicious or silly. It can't be both.


Is holding your hand in group therapy something we want to see happen here when you create yet another thread to draw attention to yourself instead of using the...report button?


I say you use the...report button.


I'd use the...report button.


You should take that up with admin by using the...report button.


If you don't feel safe (whatever that means in practice) then let admin know by using the...report button.

Stop posting these drama threads of yours. Use the...report button.

Tator, that's a badge you should wear with pride and honor.

You did catch why I picked Christofferson for you among all 15, right?

MG you should already know how the board works. In case you've been posting here for years and ignored the fact that we have measures in place that you can take to address board issues and mediate conflict without creating personal drama post after personal drama post, boring us all out of our flippin' minds, here's the deal:

The board rules can be accessed from every forum here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26

If you believe that a rule has been violated, you use the...report button (red exclamation mark icon) in the lower right corner of the post in question to make a report to moderators.

Our current mod team is Dr. Shades and EAllusion.

And then you let them handle it.

It's that simple.

Mentalgymnast, sometimes posters here do take upon themselves the role of Mean Girls. I suspect they would find themselves deploring that same behavior on the old MAD board and would disagree with the piling on behavior that occurred there. That is why it seems both quizzical and ironic when it occurs here.

You should quote them that line for the Desiderata where it says, "Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story... there will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself". The Golden Rule is desirable on message boards.

The first post on the Shades board should have started, "Give me your poor huddled masses yearning to breath free...".

This.

Amen, Jersey Girl. It's this kind of crap that makes me glad I'm not a Mod here anymore.

But, as far as I can tell, MG doesn’t want the issue he has with one single poster resolved. If he did, as you rightly point out, there is a board mechanism (a very effective one) for dealing with it. So the only conclusion I can come to is that, once again, MG is seeking to suck the whole board into a self induced drama at which he is the victimised centre of attention. It’s Trolling For Dummies.

The simplest thing he could do, is place Grindael on ‘ignore’. End of problem for MG. But no, instead let’s start a drama thread.

Let me also add..since I have been a Mod, and so has Jersey Girl..Mods have lives. So after you do report a post, give Shades and EAllusion an actual chance to respond. It might take them a couple of days to study the situation and decide what they are going to do. Plus, they both have full time jobs. This board is volunteer.

If you don't get a response after about 3 days, politely PM them. They are both very good about responding to a PM.

and unfortunately, it seems to be an Unlimited Edition.

I'd like to remind anyone who is currently butthurt that there's a Celestial forum that is heavily moderated toward polite discourse. You're always free to post content there and try to make that the go-to place for discussion that aligns with your worldview.

- Doc

Yet you spend so much time responding to it while at the same time avoiding the substance. It's hard to have sympathy for you.

Bull's eye!

OK. There have been some helpful posts. I suppose that this is pretty much an issue between one other poster...in the main...and myself. With the last 'go around' I did report to Shades and he responded appropriately...in the main...to that situation. I told him that I would just as well leave him alone and not bug him too often. Yes, I know he has a life.

I felt like it was appropriate to bring the issue of misquotation before the whole board to see what the opinions were in regards to posters misrepresenting what others are saying. I see that as a form of lying. And I was curious as to whether or not others viewed this sort of things as wrong. I haven't seen much at all in response to that question. That is the main purpose I created this thread.

At this point, I guess it may be a safe assumption to make that misquotation and misrepresentation of what another person is actually saying on this board and doing so in a mocking tone/manner is good to go. If so, I must strongly disagree with that group consensus. Although, truth be told, since that particular issue that the opening post is specifically referring to hasn't really been addressed, I can't be sure whether or not others believe this practice of misquotation is inappropriate or not.

It is THAT issue that I think has ramifications for the civil discourse and future of this board in which active members feel free to enter into discussions without fear of being misrepresented and lied about.

But then again, maybe misquotation such as we can see in the four recent threads I linked to isn't a form of lying?

The potty mouth stuff is pretty much par for the course from the poster I am referring to. I've basically come to realize that this is just who he is and what's inside him. But it's the topic of this opening post that I'm mainly concerned with at this point. Thus the opening post title.

Yes, I did refer to this board as an increasingly hostile place for believers through use of invective language and that sort of thing. I will stick to that. But I will repeat again, there have been and are folks here who I have enjoyed a civil/respectful conversation with. And so, yes, I know it is possible to do so.

I guess I was hoping beyond hope that the Terrestrial Forum could be a place where basic civility could be the norm among all members. I apologise if this thread seems like another "drama stage" for my concerns...but I was curious as to whether lying/misquoting/misrepresentation was an acceptable practice in this forum.

Regards,
MG

MG did you read the Bull's Eye post above? I don't think so.

What steps could you take which would resolve or improve the situation you are complaining about, which wouldn’t be dependant on action(s) from anybody else? (Remember, this is about what you alone could do, without requiring any action or change from anyone else, but which would make your situation outlined in the opening post better - which I’m assuming is what you want the outcome to be).

Ha. Now that's funny.

- Doc

That's a good question for which I don't have a ready answer. That's why I'm bringing up the issue to others. So far, basically crickets.

If I go the ignore route, that doesn't stop the poster from misquoting/lying. I am still being misrepresented. It is THAT issue that I think needs to be resolved.

Tator, I saw your post. Yes, I saw the "bullseye" post. Thanks for your question/input. And yes, Doc, I do read the posts. Thanks also for you contribution.

To both of you...do you have any concerns with continued and purposeful misquotation over a multiplicity of threads (see links in the opening post) of another person on this board...which is, in essence, a form of lying?

Regards,
MG

mentalgymnast's misrepresentation of the facts is ridiculous. He did his usual trolling, and picked at grindael repeatedly--see the 15 or so posts on grindael's inconsistency thread for just one example--- until grindael responded.

Re: his other self-righteous complaints, Mental's cleanflix-based "potty mouth" is as offensive as anyone else he is complaining about, and his lies about this situation are egregious. The fact that he repeatedly calls grindael a liar without acknowledging his own mocking, trolling, and provoking behavior is disingenuous and dishonest.

Dr. Shades has responded before to mentalgymnast's incessant trolling of grindael, and his assessment is STILL spot on:
[emphasis added]

I mentioned earlier that we have a fantastic opportunity here to observe a historian as he researches and develops his work, but mentalgymnast takes every opportunity to derail and disparage that, over and over and over. He seems to delight in provoking grindael, and his self-righteous victimhood stance after he does is about as dishonest as it is possible to be on this board.

I don't know enough about the mechanics of a board to know if this is possible, but given that mentalgymnast's repeated trolling of grindael is approaching Tobin levels, I would like to propose to Dr. Shades that mentalgymnast not be allowed to post on any thread grindael starts.

So what? Do you think people cannot see the adjustment made to your original posts when grindael decides to retire-write your words?

*From my understanding (and I stand to be corrected), I believe the Terrestrial forum allows for a posters words to be re-worded when quoting - providing the changes are explicitly made obvious to the reader.


I think the issue is much deeper than grindaels current penchant for amending your words. Perhaps, if you try really hard, you might be able to consider where it comes from originally and what you might have done to prompt it. Give it some thought. (Or just read Lemmies post above, where she nails it).

Deliberately Misquoting without making it clearly manifest that you are deliberately misquoting is wrong. As is stone throwing by people in glasshouses.

Fabulous idea.

Perhaps the genuine and reflective mentalgymnast could even volunteer to honour that suggestion and then watch as his much wailed about misquoting problem miraculously disappears....but I won’t hold my breath.

Various atypical methods of moderation have been used around here in the past to deal with specific situations. Your proposal is something that could be seen as feasible, however, it does circumvent free speech.

Wasn't it you in another comment that proposed MG be put on mod queue? If that is the case, I fully support that idea.

What you'll see time and time again is that when there is community conflict, that Shades will let the discussion develop and come in later if he sees fit to do so. He's also been known to ultimately create his own thread asking for community feedback. Recall that he did so with ldsfaqs.

It's hard to know if he's reading this thread because he hasn't commented. My guess is that he has and that he wants to see if the posters reach a consensus on their own.

The best way to deal with this is for MG to use the report button or shoot a PM to Shades to discuss. There doesn't need to be this kind of hand-holding disruption of the board.

MG calls for protection, he wants an environment where he's safe from uncivilized content.

I only hope he never makes it down to Paradise, where folks go toe to toe on a fairly regular basis.