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First off I'll mention I'm not particularly thrilled to have to create this thread. To me, it would have made more sense to address the issue in the thread that it arose in, but that option was not open to me and I was directed by errinundra to take up the matter here. Since it may have application to other users and mods I have decided to discuss it publicly as opposed to via PM with errinundra alone.

The issue begins with this post:

animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=4513750#4513750

I'll have to provide some background first or else my question won't be understandable.

A few days ago Harleyquin posted some information in the Assassination Classroom anime discussion thread that was gleaned from the manga source material. He did not use spoiler tags. Some of you may be aware this is a tiny pet peeve of mine. I reported his post (which was promptly acted upon by some ANN mods) and let him know in no uncertain terms what I thought about his post. I was particularly incensed because I know he is no newb who inadvertently made a blunder - he knows full well that doing stuff like that isn't kosher, he just doesn't care.

Flash forward to today. A poster had asked in the Maria the Virgin Witch anime discussion thread how the anime had differed from the manga (at least, that's my interpretation of his question, he didn't word it terribly clearly). A few posts go by and then Harleyquin posts this (link to full post above):

Harleyquin wrote:

jroa wrote:

It's also easy to prove otherwise in an indirect manner. I don't speak Japanese, but I've looked at the original source. Galfa doesn't exist in the manga. Only one brief scene with the implied possibility of rape still occurs in both versions after Maria gets attacked by Ezekiel in spear form, when Artemis rushes to save her from an angry soldier. Yet the virginity restriction -and much of the other core story material in the series, especially almost everything related to Michael and Ezekiel- does come from there.

Easy to miss posts like these in the long theological argument between the distinguished religious scholars on this forum.

Funny, no adverse reaction from unspecified critics when "spoiler" material isn't covered by tags in this instance. No capital letters, nothing highlighted in bold font, no attempts to bypass the swearing filter...

The bolded part was an obvious dig at me and my reaction to his post in the Assassination Classroom discussion thread. What he was saying, in effect, was hey, why didn't Blood- react to jroa's post the way he did to mine?

Now, if you have an IQ above room temperature (and I'm talking Celsius here, not Fahrenheit) the answer is probably pretty obvious: I didn't see jroa's post. But since I can't say that intellectual honesty is a burning preoccupation with Harleyquin, he decided to try and score a cheap point.

I responded, with snark, that I hadn't read jroa's post. That prompted a snarky reply from him which - KUMA SHOCK! - prompted a snarky reply from me.

At this point errinundra steps in and deleted three out of the four snarky posts but leaves in the one that started the off topic line of snark in the first place. So my question is, why? Keep in mind that I am not disputing the correctness of deleting the offending conversation strand, I'm questioning why some of it was left in place.

Thanks for your post, Blood-. I'm happy to justify my actions and will argue that there is hard-to-pin-down line between being provocative and flaming that was crossed in that thread. Where that line is depends a lot on the context. I'm also happy to accept that different people have different standards. I believe that consistency is a near impossible ideal to achieve when moderating.

I have sympathy for your position on the spoiling issue, having been spoiled myself by Harleyquin more than once in my pre-moderator days. That led to my withdrawing from the UBW thread. Nevertheless, that doesn't excuse personal abuse.

My defence rests on 2 points.

1) The post from Harleyquin that I edited (for reasons unconnected to this feedback - I removed 3 nested quotes and joined two consecutive posts) was a direct response to a question from another moderator, nobahn. My normal reaction in such instances is to let the moderator in question respond. What happened afterwards, however, had nothing to do with nobahn.

2) The three posts I deleted were, in my opinion, more offensive than the triggering post. Here's the trigger and deleted responses.

Harleyquin wrote:

Easy to miss posts like these in the long theological argument between the distinguished religious scholars on this forum.

Funny, no adverse reaction from unspecified critics when "spoiler" material isn't covered by tags in this instance. No capital letters, nothing highlighted in bold font, no attempts to bypass the swearing filter...

Blood- wrote:

Gee, genius, guess it doesn't occur to a powerful intellect like yourself that I don't read every single post in a given thread. Rolling Eyes

Harleyquin wrote:

Nor does it take any intellectual capacity to take anything you type seriously, until the moderators are involved because you've made enough of a tantrum to draw their attention.

Blood- wrote:

Yep, sometimes it takes making a fuss to get the dipshits spanked. Glad to see you're still pouting over getting your snout whacked. Laughing

(Because I deleted the contents of your following post rather than delete it entirely I'm unable to retrieve what you wrote there. In essence it was a briefer version of your OP here.)

Yes, the triggering post is snarky and, yes, it is provocative. I gave it a pass because it was a response to another moderator and was couched as a general complaint about other posters, rather than personal abuse. I didn't like it but deemed it warn-worthy rather than delete-worthy. The warning is in my post - the two of you are not to post in the thread unless it is directly on-topic (a warning that you promptly ignored, hence the edit). Those three posts were off-topic, personally abusive and totally uncalled for. I deleted them and posted said warning.

You will never get absolute consistency between moderators or even by one moderator. Hence the get out clause in the rules allowing moderators to take action as they see fit. When a thread erupts it is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when it does. Further, different people have different interpretations of what is offensive. Those deleted posts had one purpose and one purpose only - to piss off the other poster. That's unacceptable.

****

Edit. I'm going to make a concession here. My joining of Harleyquin's two posts has altered the way the latter part of that post could be read. The first post ended with "... the source material", while the second post began, "...jroa wrote". The triggering comment was probably not intended for (though likely prompted by) nobahn. That said, I still think it was warn-worthy, rather than delete-worthy.

@ errinundra - thank you for taking the time to explain your reasoning, I appreciate it. I accept your reasoning that the three excised posts were snark-escalations and I can understand why you might treat them differently. However, the problem as I see it is that your decision de facto lets harleyquin's accusation of hypocrisy towards me stand. At the very least, my non-snark rebuttal - which I provided - i.e. "I didn't read jroa's post" should be allowed. Yes, harleyquin doesn't mention me specifically by username but there is no question he is referring to me.

In any case, I'm not asking for that to be done, I am simply indicating that if it was done I would be entirely satisfied with the resolution of this issue (for what that's worth).

I've done as you've asked, Blood-, though I had to remove the snarky bits.

Absolutely. Thank you, errinundra. You have forced me to love you. Wink

eta: I excised my last post from the thread just to tidy things up.

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