Aw, ol’ Walter thought he flew like a moron too, he just blamed the director for it. 
Yeah I agree; there’s multiple reasons why you can flag a post, and only staff can see why you flagged. If anything seeing one of your own posts flagged should give you pause to reflect on what you’re saying and whether it’s actually contributing constructively to the topic of the thread. Maybe you’re just straying into piranha infested waters and the flagger simply wants to see the thread stay on track. It’s unreasonable to assume that flagging is always a personal attack.
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Yeah, thanks. 
I think I’ve said enough here and in the Griping thread about all this. It’s time to just move forward, I guess.
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It’s also unreasonable to presume that flagging will never be a personal attack, and that it will only be used in situations where it’s warranted. We should have contingencies for both “let’s get back on track” flagging and “flagging maliciously” possibilities.
There’s obviously no way to plan for every possible outcome, it’s just not possible. We can still develop guidelines for users and moderators to improve oversight and consistency, at least most of the time. Guidelines just take a lot of time and effort and so many iterations to develop. Hopefully members will be invited to participate in the development of these oversight/consistency guidelines.
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Well said as always. Absolutely no reason to get mad at the mods, or even the community.
Even in a bar or other social gatherings where you have a community of people from various walks of life co-mingling 3 subjects are usually strongly discouraged: Politics, Religion, and Race and for good reason.
I think when it comes to all three of those subjects, first and foremost they are all in fact very subjective. Most people feel very strongly about at least one if not all of those things, and there is a plethora of view points, experience, beliefs, questions, and answers we all have in regard to each of those that are on some level very personal to us even if we don’t realize it at times. So as was basically said already: it’s not a matter of who’s right and who’s wrong or trying to silence anyone’s belief barring any of those topics, on the contrary since the conclusions we have reached for ourselves are personal to us, it’s an easy way to assure nobody feels dismissed or even worse personally insulted.
Even if everyone enters the conversation with no ill intent situations can easily become heated(I seen it plenty when I was SwimHelper @ the now debunk [adultswim] message boards and plenty of other places). People feeling their personal beliefs and views are being dismissed or insulted can easily lead to hurt feelings and/or anger, and neither of those are good for a community as a whole(partially because those feelings can linger even long after an unnecessary messy situation has been cleaned up to the best of the ability of MSD3K or any forum).
Honestly everyone’s easiest and best method to avoid a messy heated situation with possible lasting effects on your enjoyment of the forum, and your friends and fellow fans here @MSD3K is the time tested method of avoiding those pesky but tempting a hot button topics.
Didn’t mean to go off on a rant there. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.
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Oh god do I hate that man. I mean viscerally hate him. The second I hear one note from his piano I have to turn it off. Ugh. Horrible.
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Thank you for addressing the situation, @Lesley, and I’m looking forward to the upcoming post. I don’t flag much; I’ve used the Mute functions instead to curate a nice fun experience for myself here. But if the flags are a form of voting, I’m missing the chance to register my “Hey, I’m not cool with what you just said.”
It seems like by doing so, I’ve perhaps created the impression that I don’t have a problem with what those users are saying. And that, in fact, I only do have a problem with those who try to engage and disagree with those users, because they’re not keeping the party friendly, it’s just a show, etc. etc.
This is the exact opposite of how I feel. And although I like the nice fun experience I’ve curated for myself here, it would be good to know if I need to lift some Mutes and start flagging so I can be clear about what I do and don’t support.
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Brass tacks…
There’s a million other places that people can vent their spleens about the issues of the day. MST is a place for MST and I’d much prefer to not have other people’s political / religious / social chocolate stuck into my MST peanut butter. If someone wants to sound off on a subject of that nature then by all means please do so … just do it somewhere else and let MST be MST.
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When a moderator targets only one user’s comments for a bunch of flagging but completely ignores everyone else’s virtually identical comments, I just don’t see how this can be interpreted as anything BUT deliberately picking on an individual with the goal of silencing ONLY them. Or how it can be framed as they just didn’t understand flagging well enough at the time. This is outside the realm of “what is an isn’t political,” this is in the realm of “a moderator targeted one person for a bunch of flags and didn’t target anyone else saying the exact same thing.” That’s unjust.
The initial comment that was flagged as “political” was complaining about how every social media site censors marginalized people and won’t allow us to talk about the things we experience or that rightfully upset us, and this is always done in the name of “neutrality” and “no politics.” So marginalized people have to curtail how much of their life experiences they talk about for the comfort of people who don’t experience any of this.
So actually, no, there really aren’t a million places to go to vent about this stuff, ALL of them have someone taking it upon themselves to shut up marginalized people so everyone can have a good time. We get shut down and shut up and told that we have bad attitudes, literally everywhere. Including here.
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Believe it or not, the most frequent issue I have seen as a moderator is antagonism, not politics, although they often join together.
Someone says something that someone else doesn’t like, that person gets angry and posts a mean reply, the first person doesn’t back down and instead amplifies the anger by being overly aggressive in defense of their original comment. It isn’t healthy for the community.
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You are attacking the moderators. Please stop.
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Stating what happened is an attack?
I want to be clear - I’m stating the truth about what happened last week - only I was targeted by this moderator, no one else - this is factual information.
If we are not permitted to point out when moderators have done something wrong or unfair without it being labeled as an attack, then we simply have built a system in which moderators are above any reproach and can do no wrong at all.
I’ve not harassed or abused anyone - I’ve just not glossed over the fact that a moderator ONLY flagged me while letting nigh identical comments slide. It’s the truth, it happened, and it’s not an attack. I wouldn’t be saying any of this if this hadn’t happened.
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PM sent. Let’s leave this here for now, please.
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I wonder whether things could relax a bit when a thread is clearly tagged as “off topic.”
I mean it’s right up there. Maybe put a blink tag on it?
I think everyone’s right. Except me. So forget I said anything, okay?
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Naw, it’s about more than topicality. It’s about the tone it creates and how it spreads and permeates every other discussion. Once someone has shown their political hand, that toothpaste won’t go back in the tube. Those people will show up in other, topical conversations, but you’ll know it’s that no-goodnick who thinks this or votes that. Eventually, it becomes, “How can we allow someone who thinks this or votes that to stay here in these nice forums!” and then there’s behind-the-scenes bickering and unkind words are exchanged, and factions are formed, and everyone expects issues to be resolved once and for all here that the MST3K fan forums really aren’t equipped to resolve.
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That sounds catastrophic. I unsubscribe from that newsletter.
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Thing is, by throwing in that third one - race - you’re trying to silence a group of people who are already marginalized. Race should absolutely be a thing people are allowed to talk about. So should pronouns and other issues of social justice.
By relegating them to the ‘silence’ pile, you’re denying these people the right to stand up for themselves or for others to stand up for them.
There are certain people who deem everything of importance to be ‘politics’ that really aren’t and should not be.
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