Burra, the problem with your answer of
'never' is that
'never' force-feeding
wouldn't produce foie gras. Producing foie gras is the OP's goal, and his question asks if anyone here on Permies can help him reach that goal. Instead, what your reply, and a couple of the other original replies in that thread, do is "should on" the OP. I think Paul makes it pretty clear in
this thread that "should-ing" doesn't comply with his overarching "be nice" rule, especially on a topic that, in my understanding of how this site works, is exactly the type of thing meant to be discussed
only in The Cider Press.
The other day, after reading through the thread in question, I was moderately incensed (is that a thing?). First off, the common practice on this site of welcoming the OP after his very first post to Permies, hadn't happened. Then, as is being discussed, I felt as if he'd been smothered by the "should-ers." It brought to mind the cartoon Paul posted at the top of the second page on the
"permies publishing standards" thread (sorry, don't know how to link directly to a specific post), but instead of turning a boring gray color and melting into the group, the OP seems to have just dropped out of the conversation (at least that's my hope). I felt determined to rectify the situation, as I saw it, by writing a good post with information useful to the OP. I wrote my post,
received an apple AND pie from Jocelyn Campbell, "Master Steward," for said post, but then later had my post put on probation by some other moderator. Huh?
The Purple Mooseage I received explaining the probation said, "please remove the moderation comments and suggestions that moderators are mean." Huh?
The line in question from my original post was: "Please let me know how it goes. PM me if you feel more comfortable, but the moderators on this site
WILL delete posts that are non-conforming to the
publishing standards, so hopefully no one will get mean about what they think you "should" do.
![](https://permies.com/images/smilies/smiley.gif)
"
Now, obviously I did not say that the moderators are mean. But, my Purple Mooseage said otherwise. At this point, I thought it was all a big misunderstanding, and that the gir bot had found the combination of the words "mean," and "moderators," and then made an ass out of "u" and me. But, as it turns out, it was human error, and my post really was mis-read.
The other part, the "please remove moderation comments," was requested again in the above post by Joseph Lofthouse. Throughout my years of using this site I have read and re-read what I consider to be the core three threads that Paul started, discussing how to behave on this site:
"permies.com publishing standards"
"Did you just 'should' on me?"
"be nice"
I understand what he's saying and respect his authority and have always done my best to make sure my posts here comply. But, in reading those, I had never seen anything saying that, "Discussion about moderation is not allowed in posts." I was super confused. All I had meant to do was reassure the OP that the site's moderators would protect him (to put it in simpler terms). And, I know I've seen moderation discussed in other threads. So, I was still confused. As we can see above, Paul has stepped in, explained this "rule" (for lack of a better term)
AND deemed what I wrote to be "an exception,"
but...
Now fully understanding the situation, and not wanting to be the reason Paul has 2% more stomach ache, I removed the sentence discussing moderation. I replaced it with links to the "publishing standards" and "should-ing" threads, which I feel accomplishes the same goal I initially had: gently reminding those responding to Marc (the OP) that they need to "be nice," and at the same time attempting to assuage the effect I imagine the two "should-ers" have had on Marc and his first experience here on this site.
I also
did click "!Report," for the two replies that
I saw as violating the "should-ing" rule, and the Cider-Press-only-topic standards. One has since been deleted. The other one is still up. (I'm not at all saying that just because
I clicked "!Report" that the moderators "should" do my bidding.). *****I'm probably going to get in biiiiiiig trouble for this***** The fact that the other one was left up, despite the fact that its content is discussing politics and ethics (
CIDER PRESS!!!), makes me feel that the moderators whose ethics are being offended by the idea of a Permie producing foie gras, are abusing their power and playing God/Paul.
This thread has been on the site for two months. It hasn't been deleted altogether. If it had been, that would indicate that Paul Wheaton, the owner of this site, deems foie gras production a topic that he does not wish to see discussed here. Instead, Jocelyn Campbell, Paul's co-"Master Steward," has actually participated in the thread in a positive and encouraging way! (I see r ranson is also a Master Steward...seeing her reply as I'm still in the process of writing this post...)
Top all this off with the fact that my post is
still on probation!
Burra, are you saying that my edits to remove discussion of moderation and replace it with links to the "should-ing" and "publication standards" threads are the reason? Or, were you referring to the original version?