The thing that's most baffling to me about the Hurt Locker Incident is that it was pretty obvious (to me, anyway) that regardless of what other people thought about the film - whether positive or negative - much of LK's distaste for it revolved around his own experiences in the US military and in Iraq* and the fact that Katherine Bigelow intended the film to be realistic, regarded it as being realistic and had filmed it in an almost-faux-documentary style. Now, I enjoyed 'The Hurt Locker' for what it was (which wasn't necessarily what Katherine Bigelow thought it was) and I recall defending it in that thread but - and I mean absolutely no disrespect - I pretty much disregarded that aspect of LK's criticism because I figured he was too close to the subject matter to be able to look past the flaws in its 'reality'. I'd do the same if it was a medical drama and LK was a doctor, a police procedural and LK was a detective or a vignette of rural life in 1980s Ireland and LK was a died-in-the-wool, aran-wearing bog-snorkeller. And for the life of me (and this is the baffling bit), I could never understand why Tom couldn't see the same thing. * apologies to LK if I'm putting him somewhere that he never was, but I think that's correct. Apologies also if I'm mis-representing his opinions as well.
It's not Tom's fault that Lizard_King bruises easily. Were you there for the whole thing? Do you know the context of the entire story? It was hysterical, and a perfect case of Tom's asinine moderation.
THIS. A thousand times THIS. I enjoyed the film to for what it was, which is not what Bigelow or Tom claimed it was, but I didn't care. What I cared about was the simple human indecency of Tom's refusal to understand or to respect LK's position even if he thought LK was wrong. LK was, under the circumstances, entitled to that respect.
Okay, that reminds me, I've always wanted to grind this axe and never had an opportunity. Since we're talking about LK here... NEVER BEFORE SEEN EMAILS FROM TOM ABOUT THE WHOLE THING. Feel free and note the shameless brownnosing to try and win my way back onto the forum. Also, the 10 day delay between my completely warning-less ban and him getting back to me. YES I'M STILL BITTER. My favorite part is how he's trying to white-knight Bill Dungsroman. lol
For a good while there, TapirGate was what made me describe Tom-as-moderator to non-in-the-know friends as essentially The Office's Michael Scott. Meaning well, but in a position he's in no way suited for, and a mix of hilarious and painful-vicarious-embarrassment blind spot about his own lack of ability there. This was prior to later phase transitions into ever more batshit events--or me having any information into how batshit existing events already were, as I mostly skated by without ever tripping over his personal triggers. (I think the closest would have been a rather weird disagreement over Burn After Reading, which mostly just amused me even as it made me jot down a mental note to just not bother engaging in matters of disagreement with him again.) For a long time, I thought it'd be the funniest example of terrible moderating calls, actions, and flailing reactions, until the great self-banning replaced it as being even funnier. Years from now, I'll still occasionally think of that and giggle.
That makes two of us. Getting Tom to ban himself from his own forum was something I didn't expect to actually happen but I'm so proud I could be a part of that historic moment.
He did indeed step in with PMs during a brawl I was having with LK. I can't lie, it did make me step back and realize that LK and I likely had more in common than not. Ironically, that was pretty much why I got banned-for defending him cuz we're bros now, LK and me ^__^ So, Tom did a good thing, then a not-so-good-thing. Such is life!
I'm not cool enough to have been banned. I just realised after a few months of not being banned that the rest of the people on QT3 were dullards.
Yes, I know the whole story, and it absolutely revealed Tom's bizarro passive-aggressive, childish moderation. I just didn't think anyone covered themselves with glory on that one. Just my opinion.
Favorite part of Tom's e-mails: "when you know perfectly well I'm capable of being respectful of differing opinions"
Bahimiron covered it pretty well. Basically, Tom made it so that guys like MSUSteve who joined the forum after the initial c-word debacle and didn't realize that tapir had a second meaning spent a while using that word, only to have their posts temporarily turned hugely vulgar as a result of a later Tom hissy fit.
Long story short. Tom had the forums auto-change the word "cunt" into "tapir". Which lead to people talking about tapirs a lot more, as you would expect. Then Tom switched it back, and sfor added hilarity there was a post of Tom's where he talked about cute baby tapirs. That post had also been hit by the switch.
There you go. Ruining a perfectly fine conspiracy theory. But then Tom was ultimately right. LK chose not to be a part of the community anymore... no wait, the community is here with LK. Tom just brought in new and better friends.
As I recall... There was a big disagreement over use of the c-word. Tom decided to insert a word filter to change the c-word into "tapir". But tapirs are adorable and it's a weird and amusing word, so people started using it all over the place as a joke. Tom got annoyed. Then Tom put a reverse filter on - changing all instances of 'tapir' back to the c-word. Woops.
I said it was entertaining, you said it was juvenile. I think it was extremely entertaining because of how juvenile Tom's behavior was, so I don't see what the argument is.
I understand Tom likes baby tapir. The most ridiculous thing about the whole situation were the dipshits who, after Tom turned tapirs to cunts like a scatological Jesus at the zoo, praised him for showing them just how wrong everyone was. Like Tom putting words in the mouths of dozens of people was some kind of bold statement.
What's been kind of funny is watching the parade of bans, as people get banned from another forum I post on (f13), they end up here, get banned again, and wander to Qt3 next. It's happened with at least 3 people I think. Will they stay there? Will they get banned and start their own forum? It's an exciting adventure.
Oh man, these hilarious Tom Chick dramas keep getting better and better. It also makes me appreciate this forum tenfold, since Lum takes all our bitching about moderating without actually banning anyone.
Lum just passive-aggressively takes it out on us by changing the organization every 3 days. I think it's a fair trade.
I left before my posts merged into a constant, unending stream of profanity at a particular set of posters. You know who they are. Don't need the headache, like it better here - and for the record, I'm slightly older than Demon G Sides, and when I first got onto Qt3 I was super excited to be talking about all these cool things, with all these cool people! How could they treat Tom like that! ...And then all that shit happened. I guess I just bruise easily, I suppose, but the signal-to-noise ratio has been unbelievably better here. Lots more good-natured disagreements, and even the ones that get bitter are mostly just set aside. Edit: Oh, I like all the new people, too!
The other, other ridiculous thing about that was after the whole thing had been fixed and the word tapir was no longer auto-corrected to vulgarity, bans were handed out to people who mentioned the word even obliquely as it was clearly a discussion of Tom's moderation and thus verboten.
The funny thing is that nobody really bitches about Lum's moderation because he's Doing It Right(tm) in the first place - so there's nothing much to bitch about. From what little exposure I had to it, Tom's moderation seemed like a unique and special combination of tone-deaf inconsistency and raging insecurity, which led right to his tendency to bruise easily anytime anyone mentioned his moderating. Which appears to have led to more bad moderating because how dare you question his behavior, in his own living room no less, which then led to more discussion of his moderation, and so on. Vicious cycle, that.
I wouldn't be surprised to log in after the monthly fundraising to find the entire thing translated into Aramaic.
This cannot be stated clearly enough or a sufficient number of times - I can't find a single nit to pick about how Lum has run this place since Day 1.
Oh, he did not like it when I linked to his old post about liking baby tapirs, nossir. Because that was my fault, you see
