My apologies for not having attended to this matter sooner. It has been a hectic week.
For those unfamiliar with the controversy involving Persephone and Dex, you may as well read the relevant threads, since links will undoubtedly be posted soon anyway: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=193732 and http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=193951. Quite a few SDMB users feel a wrong has been done and that apologies are in order. We’ll get to that in a bit. First some comments, not in order of importance.
It’s not against our rules to post details of your private life on the SDMB (exception: no phone numbers, home addresses, or other information that in our opinion could endanger someone). But you do so at your own risk. If you post embarrassing revelations about yourself, it is foolish to think that everyone who reads them will be sympathetic.
Shortly after Persephone’s OP in the first thread cited above, CKDexterHaven, an SDMB administrator, posted a comment professing his astonishment at the situation and wondering how things could possibly have come to such a pass. A few people took umbrage at this, but in my view Dex’s comment was not unreasonable. The situation on its face was appalling - Persephone had apparently left her children in squalor to attend a social gathering in NYC. She expressed some contrition - “I am not worthy of you. But I swear, I will make myself worthy.” Dex was under no obligation to take this at face value. He said what a lot of people undoubtedly thought. His remarks were well within the realm of acceptable discourse on the SDMB. It is not a violation of our rules to post remarks critical of another user - all we require is that you be civil, or else take it to the Pit. Nor was Dex overstepping his bounds as an administrator. We don’t tell mods or admins they can’t post personal opinions.
But. Dex then decided to open a thread in the Pit taking Persephone to task. Here is where things went off the rails. Had Dex been an ordinary user, his Pit thread would not have been objectionable, and would not have gotten him warned or banned. We afford posters wide latitude in the Pit. Persephone was incautious enough to post details about her life suggesting she was an unfit mother, and if she got pitted for it she had no one but herself to blame.
However, Dex was not an ordinary user; he was an administrator. We did not, up to this point, have a rule that mods and admins were not allowed to pit people. Our chief guideline - and you understand that this was an internal rule, we don’t post such things publicly - was that we expected moderators to moderate. Dex’s Pit thread had the opposite effect. His tone gave the impression he held Persephone in contempt. What’s more, the fact that “administrator” appeared under his name could easily lead a newbie to conclude that Dex was expressing the official SDMB staff view. He was not. Posting a thread in the Pit in this manner showed poor judgment. I have admonished Dex for this and the mods and I have agreed on new rules meant to prevent a recurrence. I apologize to Persephone on behalf of the SDMB staff for any suggestion that we had officially decided she was an unworthy human being.
The ban on discussion of this topic is lifted, subject to the following: (a) All such discussion is to be confined to the Pit. (b) Notwithstanding (a), “Pit rules” do NOT apply to discussion of this matter. Be civil - no name calling, abuse, excessive profanity, or anything else that would get you in trouble in a non-Pit forum on the SDMB. Violators are subject to revocation of their posting privileges. Thank you for your adherence to these rules.
