This thread, I mean. Did he really break a rule by posting about meeting Tuba? Did he just overreact to the innocuous teasing in the thread? 
Link broken? Or edited by the mods to hide some terrible secret? Find out more on next week’s “Posts of our lives”…
Strange. Very strange.
Just to erase one area of paranoid speculation: the first link didn’t work, Rilchiam, because you didn’t type the URL. Your typed:
(of course, you used square brackets) and that won’t work; you need to provide the actual URL.
Any time a moderator or administrator edits a thread, there is a little tag that tells everyone that it was tampered with. No mod or admin has the power to alter a thread without that notice appearing. (The only exception is that a mod or admin editing his/her own thread within a minute or so of posting, that doesn’t show up.)
So Dex, can you clarify if it against board rules for the mods and/or admins to fraternize with board members IRL?
Just to clarify that I never suspected as much - my comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek and a prompt to Rilchiam to fix his link.
Grim
You don’t need to be an Admin to clarify; the claim is false on inspection of the various Dopefests which feature Mods and Admins. I’ve met TubaDiva in person, and I do all sorts of things with Moderator SkipMagic, some of which can even be put into print.
You guys still selling the tapes for half off?
I’ll speak up. I think I can do it without spilling any big secrets. Basically, I e-mailed Quasimodem, and I think it’s fair for me to at least put my own e-mail in here
Anyway, he e-mailed me back, rather rudely, I might add, saying something along the lines of it having to do with the SDMB policy of fraternizing with members, which would include the lunch he had with TubaDiva.
I think that’s generic enough. He is convinced meeting **TubaDiva ** was wrong.
Just so there’s no misunderstandings: I closed the thread because Quasimodem seemed to be taking all of the good-natured teasing rather personally. Because of that, and based on his statements that he wasn’t going to pop his head back in the thread, I felt it was best to close 'er down. There was no secret or mystery involved with that; I just felt it was a polite thing to do.
As for the rest: I could tell y’all about the rituals, chickens, goats, mystical sayings, rude limericks and dirty stick figure drawings we had at TornaDope this last May (or even the time auntie em and I recently plied Una and Fierra with enough wine to get them sauced enough to eat our home-cooked food), but it’s not any of your business. 
My goodness, mods please see if you can sort things out with Quasimodem emotions can have strange effects on people, but surely he will be able to understand that the things said in that thread were said in firendship and even in love for the two of them. Both him and Tuba are respected and well liked people. If there was some nastyness by email or the like that we are not privvy to, perhapse we could know that such a thing happened, no names mentioned, and a pit thread against the annonymous emailer could show our support for Quasi
Seconded. Bring Quasi back!
I have been inundated with e-mails since yesterday, and I appreciate everyone’s concern, but I just made a mistake, that’s all. Maybe TubaDiva and I both made a mistake, but it was a very pleasurable time and I just felt like I needed to share it with y’all.
Anyway, y’all are very fortunate to have someone as caring as she is to be your adminstrator, and the only reason I am copying this e-mail from her to me is to close this unfortunate incident out and allow us both to get on with our lives. I think you will see how much she loves SDMB by what she has written.
I don’t believe I am doing anything wrong by posting this, but if I am, well then you have my resignation already, don’t you? I just returned because of the e-mails. And I wasn’t trying to be rude to you, Anaamika , I just had had enough.
Thank You
Quasi
>I got to tell you, your enthusiasm is appreciated, but this really complicates things for me.
I know that was not your intention; you were just sharing your feelings with your friends. I’m quite flattered . . . and more than a little embarrassed; I haven’t felt exactly like this since junior high school and it’s a disconcerting feeling at this juncture.
However, it’s not like you were just out with someone; not to put on airs, but people see me differently because of my position and the circumstances are not the same for me as they are for you.
I should probably have told you that the staff is discouraged from this sort of thing; there’s not an outright ban on fraternization, but we have had people on staff who took undue advantage of members of our community and it looked bad, so we do ask our staffers to please go elsewhere for date bait.
I’m going to have to ask you not to do this sort of thing again. And please don’t return to the thread; just let it fall without input from either of us.
I’m not mad at you, just concerned about the fallout; there are potential repercussions for me.<
What the – ? What about Dopefests? What about mods who are married to (or living with) non-mod members? Since when is lunch such a terrible thing? For what it’s worth, I didn’t get any sort of romantic vibe from the original post, and I figured that what followed was just along the lines of the much-more-explicit flirting that always goes on around here. And if it was a “date,” so what? Why not just deal with any improper “advantage-taking” situations as they arise, so that a nice little thread like Quasi’s doesn’t have to come to this? Has someone in the higher-up staff expressed disapproval of an admin and a member having lunch?
I hope things can be straightened out so that Quasi feels comfortable coming back. The board would be poorer without him.
I’ve had countless lunches, dinners and get-togethers with Cajun Man, Dr. Matrix and Ukulele Ike, and neither they nor I saw anything the least de trop about it. Indeed, Uke and I used to tease each other mercilessly till he kinda disappeared a year or so back.
All this is making it sound like a lot more is going on than I’m sure really is!
I was glad to see this thread; I participated in the original thread, and it certainly wasn’t my intent to hurt anyone’s feelings with what I thought was good-natured teasing. This whole thing does indeed seem strange to me.
Maybe it’s a “Don’t ask; don’t tell” policy - fraternization is okay, as long as no one knows about it. Which makes it seem sordid, which it doesn’t sound like it is. I’m confused again.
All right. Thank you all for the explanations. Color me :smack: for my empty link in the OP. And grimpixie, I’m a she!
The whole thing sounds utterly bizarre. This “non-fraternisation” policy must be new – I’ve seen mods/admins go to stacks of 'fests, as seen via the threads here since I’ve been around.
Something brought in with the paid subs and recent troubles re policies etc? I’m just sorry to see a good man like Quasi so hurt for doin’ something any of the rest of us would have done on meeting another Doper and enjoying the experience – share it with the community.
Bloody sad.
Okay. Here’s the thing:
Staff is held to a higher standard of behavior than the rest of the community. We are asked to be mindful of what we say and do and how we interact with people. Yes, everyone on the board should be so, here and elsewhere, but it’s doubly so for staffers.
We also need to treat everyone impartially and fairly and avoid even the perception that we are giving undue or unfair advantage because of personal feelings or outside relationships.
Doesn’t mean we can’t be friends in real life with people from the board, but it does mean we need to show some tact and discretion in how we do so. We also shouldn’t use this community as hunting grounds for partners. (Again, none of us should, but it goes double for staff.)
Finally, I love y’all dearly, I truly do, but I would prefer not to put my business in the street. I’m quite embarrassed about all of this, for myself and for Bill, and even more so that stuff got misinterpreted and misread into this big ridiculousness, not only for you but for myself. I found your teasing very sweet and funny and I plan on writing it all up in my slam book and passing it around as soon as possible.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
For the record, it was a nice lunch and Quasi is a sweet guy.