The "in" crowd has special priveleges on this board

[NYKnicks]

you're going to run me over with the car avatar aren't you.

Yup... I've hit a deer, but never a reindeer

Thats ReindeerS to you.

[melissamw]

180... great post!

Hmmm... I disagree with ZAP pretty strongly.  I think it was right for Big Tex to bring this up.

In this way?  If you'll read my point, it's not so much that I take issue with bringing it up.  I'll make this clear.  I DON'T.  I don't take issue at all with raising the question IN THE RIGHT WAY.  Tex went about it all wrong.  He just wants to pick fights, and that's obvious to me.  He gets off on it. 

Let's go back over what Tex COULD have done.  PM to Pookie: Did you split the thread?  No?  Who did?  KGD?  OK, I will take it up with her, thanks for the info.  PM to KGD: I hear you split a thread, and it seems like it's an abuse of power to me.  Would you mind talking about it? 

That could have ironed the problem out real nicely.  Instead what do we get?

"It's the stinking, filthy rotten IN-CROWD!  They're AT IT AGAIN!  They're conspiring to cut off all dissent!  And POOKIE is to blame!  And since we all know LEXY runs the show behind the curtains, SHE's partially to blame!  AND... Oh, wait, so you mean Pookie didn't do it after all?  Well then, GOOD!  Because I have GRUDGING RESPECT for Pookie, but it must be Lexy's fault still because she's friends with KGD too and didn't tell her pre-emptively not to split a thread she didn't even know was going to be split!  And while I'm at it, I think I'll go complain directly to Andrew about the moderators, too!"

As you might gather, it's the METHODOLOGY I take HEAVY issue with.  I agree with Tex after going back and looking at the thread.  It didn't need to be split, and there's no precedent to do so.  All the same, I don't think KGD had bad intentions, and above that, I can assure you there's no "in-crowd conspiracy".  The problem could have been handled civilly instead of in an accusatory way.

That's my point.  Take it or leave it.

ZAP

[!@#$%]

Nope, no "in-crowd" conspiracy, no special requests, nothing personal for or against anyone, and no malicious intent.  The split simply seemed logical to me.  There was a repetitive and off-topic argument hijacking a thread that was otherwise useful and on-topic.  Such splits have happened before.

Sorry for creating such a stir.  In the future, I will defer to Andrew before splitting threads.

[NYKnicks]

Nope, no "in-crowd" conspiracy, no special requests, nothing personal for or against anyone, and no malicious intent.  The split simply seemed logical to me.  There was a repetitive and off-topic argument hijacking a thread that was otherwise useful and on-topic.  Such splits have happened before.

Sorry for creating such a stir.  In the future, I will defer to Andrew before splitting threads.

You shouldn't have to defer to Andrew. Moderator privileges were given to you to use as you see fit.

[BigTex]

Nope, no "in-crowd" conspiracy, no special requests, nothing personal for or against anyone, and no malicious intent.  The split simply seemed logical to me.  There was a repetitive and off-topic argument hijacking a thread that was otherwise useful and on-topic.  Such splits have happened before.

Sorry for creating such a stir.  In the future, I will defer to Andrew before splitting threads.

That doesn't explain your unusual selection criterion. The criteria you give above applies to many many many threads which go unsplit. But out of the haystack of "hijacked" threads available for splitting, you chose this needle.

Though this this is a small and trivial matter in an unimportant web forum, there are real human forces at play here. A tendency to stifle speech in this arena when inconvenient to one's personal interests does indicate a willingness to do so in larger more important domains.

[dr_draino]

BigTex, I agree with you on some level, but come on...don't you think a more logical explanation would be that kgd doesn't read EVERY thread on this board so there are many, many, MANY that slip through her moderation and that, as a school that she also applied to, the stanford thread was one she poked her head into?  She's said "fine, if the board doesn't like me doing this type of moderation because it appears too selective, I won't"...isn't that enough?

Nope, no "in-crowd" conspiracy, no special requests, nothing personal for or against anyone, and no malicious intent.  The split simply seemed logical to me.  There was a repetitive and off-topic argument hijacking a thread that was otherwise useful and on-topic.  Such splits have happened before.

Sorry for creating such a stir.  In the future, I will defer to Andrew before splitting threads.

That doesn't explain your unusual selection criterion. The criteria you give above applies to many many many threads which go unsplit. But out of the haystack of "hijacked" threads available for splitting, you chose this needle.

[BigTex]

BigTex, I agree with you on some level, but come on...don't you think a more logical explanation would be that kgd doesn't read EVERY thread on this board so there are many, many, MANY that slip through her moderation and that, as a school that she also applied to, the stanford thread was one she poked her head into?  She's said "fine, if the board doesn't like me doing this type of moderation because it appears too selective, I won't"...isn't that enough?

First, unless i'm missing something, i didn't see the "fine, if the board ..." quote to which you're referring. Second, that's the entire problem with having a participant as moderator. As a participant, there's a certain subset of threads that kgd will be interested in and read. Others will escape her attention. Thus, only the threads that capture her attention will receive her editing services. Right off the bat that's problematic, especially considering the fact that she is most likely to read the threads that relate to her web board friends (this applies to any participant moderator). Thus, there will be a natural tendency for such threads to be split while threads that do not relate to her friends (and thereby receive less attention) do not receive such moderation.

[foxnewssucks]

build a f-ing bridge

[A.J]

I was thinking cry a f-ing river.

[!@#$%]

You're right...I can't possibly get to every thread.  Here are the things I look for when moderating:

1) Topics that have been started very recently by users who have subsequently deleted their accounts.  This is often an indication of trolling.
2) Topics whose subject lines are obvious indicators of pointless arguments (e.g. Eat sh*t and die).
3) Topics that swell quickly to more than 3 pages.  This often indicates a contested item.  This is where the Stanford thread fell.

I'm not sure where the idea came from that Lexy and/or Pookie are my friends.  They are no more or less my "friends" than anyone else on the board, including bigtex.

I didn't censor anything.  I simply pulled a subtopic out of the thread, moved it to the appropriate area, and even posted a redirection topic so that anyone who wanted to see or participate would have an easy link.  If anything, I would think that'd bring more attention to the discussion, not less.

At any rate, all posters are free to click the Report to Moderator link if they don't agree with something that's going on.  As I said before, since topic splitting seems to be such an unpopular way of keeping things relevant and useful, then I will defer to Andrew's judgment before doing it again.