Lohrenswald vs Vincour

Lohrenswald requests a review of this infraction:

 

I am actually unsure about this one.

If I understand the whole mod text as an action taken by a moderator, then sure its against the rule - however is that the action? Or is the giving a warning an action? I am inclined to uphold the infraction in general on the grounds that he did publicly discuss a moderator action - but frankly this feels more like a coin toss. I would not have given 3 points but can understand that given the poster's history.

 

When I first read this, I was concerned that Lohrenswald received three points for this. Digging into it some more, I have found numerous examples where people have called him Lohren or Lohrens without any type of reaction whatever. This leads me to the conclusion that his reaction to Vincour was based upon his being infracted for foul language in the post before the one in question. Furthermore, Lohrenswald has been on a foul language spree for some time now. Since February, he has received 14 infractions for language or PDMA. It is almost as though he is trying to push it to make some kind of point to staff. In fact, after he asked for this review, he posted inappropriate language here and was infracted for it.

Based upon seeing "the whole story", I vote to uphold this infraction.

 

'Moderator action' includes everything said within mod tags, as it made clear by those tags commencing with the words 'moderator action' (by contrast, despite what some may think, the concept of 'moderator action' does not extend, and has never extended, to everything a moderator ever does on this website). I recently posted a moderator action here which I think clarifies the issue somewhat - a 'moderator action' isn't just the end result, whether that be the fact of an infraction or the fact that someone has been told to stop swearing. It covers the entire exchange between the moderator and poster concerning the issue.

A comment upon the manner of expression within mod tags is therefore a comment upon a moderator action. Here it was done publicly. If Lohrenswald were concerned about the manner of expression adopted by Vincour, he should have contacted him privately. Vincour would undoubtedly have been happy to listen to Lohrenswald's concern.

As Lohrenswald suggests, this does give a 'rhetorical advantage' to moderators. They can, for instance, say that someone is behaving like a jerk, without the poster having any public recourse to respond to that claim (even though in many cases the narrow 'moderator action' might be conceived to be an infraction for trolling, rather than the use of the expression 'being a jerk'). That is the nature of the moderators being the enforcers of the forum rules. Of course, it would be a concern if moderators were using this rhetorical advantage in a 'mean-spirited' manner, and we're always open to hearing complaints that that is the case. But that's a hypothetical which isn't at all engaged by Vincour using a shortening of 'Lohrenswald'. Shortening someone's username is only mean-spirited if you are aware that they take offence. It's not trolling or otherwise rule-breaking to refer to someone by an abbreviated name in the absence of that specific knowledge, because the notional reasonable poster would not assume that someone would negatively react to what usually amounts to a sign of geniality.

So I agree with an infraction for this post. Given Lohrenswald's recent infraction history, 3 points seems perfectly appropriate to me. Therefore I'd vote to uphold the infraction.

 

It's really looking at the full infraction history that has swayed me to my decision - which is to uphold. I agree with Leif and Cami's comments above.

 

So the infraction is upheld and I will publish this thread now.

Moderator Action: moved to Site feedback without edits