What would fluther-style moderation look like in the real world?

I suspect that Fox News would go out of business.

It would cut down on a lot of the email that I receive from engineers and others who can’t write a complete sentence to save their lives:

[Message deleted – writing standards.]

My grandma was a fluther-like moderator when it came to grammar and word usage. My dad to some extent also. Even in adulthood, although not as often as when I was a child of course. I do it for/to my husband at times also (he is ESL).

Maybe if we were modding people it would make up for some slack when teachers are not doing their jobs well; kids would still learn some decent language skills.

Thing is, we can’t go around correcting people constantly, it slows things down too much probably. Plus, sometimes we can tell when a mistake is laziness vs. Really not understanding what is correct or the proper us or definition of a word. Are we going to correct every little thing regardless?

As far as emails and texts, I really think it is a waste of time to mod those for typos or sentence structure. In more formal writing it makes sense.

If we were a culture of correcting each other, maybe people would be better at taking criticism, that could be a good thing. I think Americans as a whole don’t take criticism well.

If situations like bullying were constantly being modded that sounds good to me.

Modding during an argument, psychologists get paid well to do it. Thing is, who is going to mod an argument between someone and their spouse? There is a privacy issue of course. Unless the couple is arguing in public. Certainly if a 10 year old says something mean to another 10 year old we would feel fine about stopping that behavior. Or, maybe most people don’t unless one of the children is their own? Maybe if we all modded those kids all the time they would grow up to be a bullying adult.

The fire department would burn your house down when you say or do something disagreeable.

I’ve long thought how great it would be to carry around a spray bottle and just blast people in the face like misbehaving cats on the counter tops.
It would be easy to spot the repeat offenders as their eye blinking would be a dead give away as soon as you pointed the bottle at them.
Pffffft….fools be gone! lol

Fot the really obnoxious types a little ammonia in the water would be great fun. haha

A posse of Beadles will whack you with their maces or long sticks.

Quite a lot of things would be kicked back for editing.

The moderators are a ruthless and brutal bunch! They take no prisoners.

Like this
I would be the guy with the cool Luchador mask and invisible football while the plebs of fluther (which is everyone except me) are the ones upholding my awesome-ness. All this while Queen’s “We Are the Champions” is playing in the background. The mods would be in the crowd making sure that everyone holds me or they will face severe beatings.

“Today, beep, this stupid boss of mine decided to not give me that pay raise after all…
And on my way home I heard that President beep is thinking of sending troops to Farawayistan; if your sister beep hears that she’ll be freaking mad as beep, your BIL is likely to serve there then.”

No naming names.

@rebbel
“Bob is such an assho-”
“POLICE! You’re under arrest for naming names!”
Police beats down guy
“What the fuck, you fucking pigs!”
“MORE PERSONAL ATTACKS! Get the taser out!”

I can hear the protester being carried from the meeting hall, “Don’t mod me, bro!”

It would be just like Etiquette Ninjas.

@wundayatta My school did have playground moderators. Every recess period, one teacher would monitor the playground to break up fights, bring students to the nurse after a bad fall from the monkey bars, etc. It seems to have worked pretty well.

@Hain_roo – that is the MOST awesome thing I’ve seen a long time. Thank you!!

I was thinking something like this or this.

In any event, it wouldn’t be different from how things are around my home. Our two language-loving girls love to point out and ridicule us (hubby & I) for any minor missteps in English or German.

Personally, the sort of moderation I’d like to see would be a sort of a BS-monitor. I work in the sales field and so I have to sit through a lot of meetings where it’s as if someone lacks the ability to speak plain English. I’ve actually lived this exact commercial.
I’d like to be able to hit a Gong-show-esqu gong or loud Buzzer when someone has gone over their jargon quota for a given presentation or conversation.

Jargon buzzer! I’d love to see that.

I’d moderate hairdressers when they babble on about the weather/holidays, this is clearly off-topic….........just cut the fucking hair & shut the fuck up!

It would be interesting. They would have to have new courses in schools to teach the art of treading the fine line between acceptable insults and personal attacks. You could tell someone they are acting like infantile idiots as long as you did in with correct syntax. You could say fuck anywhere anytime with impunity.

I think it would be great. We have an upcoming presidential election. Can you imagine being able to watch TV with NO political smear advertising?

@rooeytoo – they have such courses. They’re called logic classes. “Your comment is stupid because it is untrue, fucker” is legit. “Your comment is stupid because you’re a fucker” is a fallacy known as an ad hominem.

@ETpro – yes. Actually, smearing is maybe mostly a result of the two-party system. The best strategy is to make your opponent look worse than you. In a multi-candidate race, the best strategy is to look better than everyone else.

@bolwerk I think the only hope that we preserve democracy here in America much longer lies in one or more viable alternative parties emerging.

@ETpro: There is scarcely democracy in America. There was some respect for rule of law until recently, but that is mostly gone too now.

@bolwerk I am well aware of the changes. I’m old enough to remember a better day.

@ETpro: any luck finding a passport for another country? :-D

@bolwerk I don’t leave without a fight.

@bolwerk – you call it logic, I call it semantics and an ad hominem in either case. But the mods agree with you.

@rooeytoo: No, no, no. Online pedants frequently call every little personal dig an ad hominem, but strictly speaking an ad hominem is a fallacy of reasoning. You learn about these things in a logic class. Simply cursing at someone isn’t reasoning either way. It may be rude, but it’s not a fallacy.

One of my favorite illustrations is this guy (see bottom) – notice how I refer to his “idiocy” (= his frequently posted opinions that indicate low-effort thinking). In his confusion – he is, in fact, apparently stupid – he thought I was calling him an idiot, rather than referring to his poorly constructed arguments as idiocy.

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting).

You say potaaaaatoe, I say potahhhhhhtoe.

@rooeytoo: What you’re missing – and most people miss this – is an ad hominem takes the form of an argument. “X is false because you are stupid” is an argument demonstrating an ad hominem. X might be false, but the stupidity of the person arguing X does not contribute to the falsehood of X – and s/he might be stupid. The fallacy stems from the fact that the stupid aren’t usually able to formulate coherent arguments.

Still, saying “X is false, stupid” is still not an ad hominem. It simply presents the (unsupported) claim that X is false with a vestigial and irrelevant verbal dig attached to the end.

@bolwerk – Why don’t you run for president, you seem to be an expert on everything and always have the right answer!

Is that an ad hominem? :(

Don’t make me mod you two… ;)

@geeky_mama Thanks, your This and This had me laughing out loud :)
Buzzword bingo, great idea!