As a random thought. I think that if Lynn had responded to Euthanasiast’s “fuck off” with “I think you need a time out” and suspended him for 3 days, everyone would have snickered and forgotten about it by now. Sometimes less is more. With the mods not really having to defend their positions, they can easily get away with just declaring that someone needs a cooling period and leave it at that.
Lynn’s troubles came from trying to justify her decision making it fit into rules that didn’t apply.
What’s the “strange entitlement” that a bar manager has that the manager of any business or the owner of any home doesn’t have? Any business owner has the flexibility to take action that would be “contrary to good business practice.” And you keep saying “contrary to good business practice” as if it was self evident.
A privately owned Web site is a proprietary establishment, just like a bar or a Kinko’s or a Best Buy. Management can throw a single person out for cussing out an employee and no one expects there to be a Bill of Rights setting forth this rule explicitly.
None of these places constitute the “public square” where you have an expectation of constitutional processes. And I can just see you shouting “I’m going to tell all my friends to stop coming here!” as you’re escorted out. In the real world, this kind of exercise of authority by a proprietor is perfectly accepted in society.
Why should you be fed up? Come up with another business model that’s essentially based on casual social interaction between patrons and allows for relaxed expectations of politeness.
And where does “elite drinking club” come from exactly?
The ‘strange entitlement’ is the one where a pub owner can decide on a whim not to serve a customer, not have to give an explanation, and have you escorted from the place by the police if you refuse to go.
Tbh, my ‘fed up’ comment was an exaggeration, and I agree my ‘elite drinking club’ remark was a little off, but it seems you don’t really mind comparing this place to a drinking establishment. The difference here is, can you really spit venom into words like ‘cunt’ and ‘fuck you!’, as effectively as you could in a real life situation? My opinion is “No!”, but that doesn’t mean I advocate their usage on a regular basis.
Maybe it is a nitpick, but ISTM that Lynn ran the decision to suspend by the other mods for their review and approval. Maybe she got the OK from Ed, but it looks like the decision was hers. So she didn’t exactly recuse herself. Maybe it doesn’t matter; if so, I’m wrong and we can move on.
That’s something else that grates. We aren’t psychics, but Lynn said that the thread title was trolling, which to me means “posted with intent to deceive and thereby cause a breach of the peace”. Later (AFAICT) this was changed to “I don’t care if he meant it or not, it was trolling!”
Which was discussed several pages ago - how can it be trolling if there is no intent to deceive? The mods aren’t psychic either, and this does not seem (to anyone else) to be obvious trolling.
Well, it doesn’t seem to be the job of the mods to enforce strict accuracy in any other threads but this one. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that there was something about it that hit somebody’s hot button.
No, you are quite correct - it’s not. It’s their website, and they can make any rules they want.
If one of the rules is “thread titles in the Pit have to be strictly accurate”, that’s one thing. If it turns out to be “thread titles in the Pit have to be strictly accurate, on certain topics”, that’s another. In the latter case, simple honesty would require that those topics be listed.
And it is especially annoying if the rule really is the second, sporadically and subject to the whim of the mods, but it is claimed to be the first.
Regards,
Shodan
All proprietors of any kind of business have this entitlement. What makes it strange?
No, that’s not what she said. See my post 187. I’ll reiterate: if it was Ed’s decision to suspend Euthanasiast, then he could easily have done it himself; it’s not like Ed has to rely on the other mods to ban people for him. If Lynn had really meant to recuse herself, she’d have asked Ed to do it. If that’s, in fact, what happened but Ed insisted anyway that she do it then Ed’s an asshole and I’ll retract my “cunt” remark.
I’d have thought for any public service sector establishment, the onus should be on favouring the customer, and not suiting the preferences of the person running the business? Although it may be rare for a manager to abuse their position in such a way, they still always have the option to be a twat, for want of a better word, if the mood fits them.
You’ve never seen customers who throw a fit at employees being kicked out of a service establishment?
I’m not sure what you mean, but I have seen someone refused a pint because their face didn’t fit the satisfaction of the proprietor.
I don’t see any information about Lynn’s position on what should be done about Euthanasiast. She didn’t say “I sent around a note on what had happened and my recommendation that he be suspended/banned to the mod email loop” and she specifically said she tries to avoid including herself in issues which are close to her and relies on others. Now since I don’t have access to her email I can’t say if she had any position before soliciting further opinions, but the situation, assuming accurate reporting, seems straightforward enough.
Enjoy,
Steven
Okay, I’m starting to believe you’re being intentionally obtuse.
For years, members have tried to make this case, we’re all still here however.
True dat - she doesn’t say what she thought, and she does say that Ed said that he should be suspended.
Regards,
Shodan
Exactly what I suggested further down in that same post.
:dubious:
So the person who drops the hammer is responsible even if they didn’t make the decision? If Ed’s at his desk, not even logged in or reading the SDMB, and working on something else, and an email comes in saying “what should we do about this situation” and Ed replies “I think a suspension is appropriate” then he should have to stop what he’s doing, log in to the SDMB and pull the trigger himself? Why? What good is having the other mods/admins if he’s going to have to implement all his decisions himself? I see no reason to assume Lynn had a bigger voice in this decision than she has said she did and once Ed made the call, then it is not improper for her to implement it.
The real question here, in my mind, is the judgment call on “inflammatory” or “trolling” thread titles. This seems to have a non-objective criteria, and actions taken on enforcing any rules around these titles seem to be opaque. That’s not a comfortable situation to be in. Most people write the punchiest title they can for their posts. They’re designed to bring people’s attention. Add to that the fact that Euthanasiast simply cribbed the title from the youtube clip, and I’m finding it difficult to support a charge that he did it to troll. Trolling is posting in cold blood trying to incite hot blood. From what I can tell Euthanasiast was genuinely outraged by the incident and the thread title was in accord with his own views on the subject instead of an exaggeration intended to provoke others to outrage.
Enjoy,
Steven
Here’s what you said (post #244):
I was nitpicking this.
Judges are called to the carpet when there is a perception of a “conflict of interest” all the time.
If there was a law suit against a company that had “cooked its books” (in an effort to increase it’s stock value), you don’t think it appropriate to check if the Judge has shares in that company?
I see demands for cite’s about a posters experience all the time, more so on the internet than in person.
For example, I could make an assertion about everday life on a submarine, and someone could ask me what my background in that area actually is (usually because that other poster disagrees with what I may have said, and are heading for a “you don’t know what you’re talking about” 
).
I agree. But it is my perception that that is not what happened.
Lynn issued a warning for trolling with a misleading thread title. I do not believe that a decision to issue that warning was vetted with other mods first (although I could be wrong), nor does it appear in my (admittedly short and imperfect) memory to be a typical “no-no” (paraphrased or sarcastic or overly simplistic thread titles) that gets warnings.
Again, there are plenty of thread titles that lump all Republicans, Christians, and so on, together under the same bullseye based on the actions of a few members of that subset. No (or few) official Mod warnings, usually just thread title edits.
What was floated around with other board staff members was the question of what to do with a poster that was publicly abusive of an official mod action. I will absolutely not defend the abuse (even though it was in the pit). I would have taken my lumps and moved on. Even if the original warning is viewed as improper or unfair, there are better ways to argue your case than “fuck you”. (I am a former enlisted. If an officer gave an improper order, or if I felt I was being punished unfairly, you follow channels. You don’t deviate outside those channels, especially with abuse.)
While Lynn’s ruling might have not been consistant with past board moderating behavior, it does not justify the abuse IMO. (And I realise that my opinion is worth what y’all paid for it. 
)
I’ve skimmed through this thread with some bemusement…it’s clear to me as an outside observer that Lynn’s reaction was because the target of the “inflammatory” content remark trolled her personally. I make this judgment on my own, recognizing Lynn disagrees with it. But the SDMB leans very far left and based on what I’ve seen posted I think you could castigate a non-liberal icon in as inflammatory a title or a post as you see fit–pit or not. Your comeuppance would be other posters taking you down–not a chiding from a moderator for being inaccurate or inflammatory. Trolling is the deliberate baiting of fellow forum participants. It’s not the act of making wild accusations against some external icon or external group. Whether she recognizes it or not, I think Lynn must be close enough to the cause of PP for this to feel like it was baiting her–thus the trolling accusation.
And while the technical reason for suspension might be defying a mod–noble indeed–if the precipitant of the defiance was out of line, the defiance doesn’t seem suspension-worthy.
I am curious, though: Why isn’t the response to simply become a non-paying guest? Or if the moderating is intolerable, move to a different board? The SDMB is dependent upon those two sources of income (subscribers and ad-readers) so it’s not as if posters have no recourse.
GAHHH!!! Punish people by advertisement? You fiend!
When there is a storm a-brewin’ over mod actions, and when the mods are discussing behind the scenes, we are generally required NOT to post. The various comments that have been posted here are being read and discussed, but we are supposed to say: “No comment.” Our past experience has been that, when one of these things arises, moderators making statements (even innocuous ones) is perceived as kerosene being thrown on the fire. And, of course, while the mods are holding private discussion, it would not be helpful to publicize that this mod favored this action and that mod favored that action. Our internal discussions are just that. We will arrive at a consensus decision that we all agree with, and for us to publicize the individual elements of our debate would be (a) pointless and (b) unnecessarily divisive.
Most of you who have been around for a long time know this, so it’s disingenuous to try to make our silence seem like something else.
We will reach some decisions and come to some consensus in a day or two. We are not all available 24/7, we have lengthy discussions behind the scenes, and this takes time. Patience.
I suggest saving this entire post somewhere so next time a shitstorm occurs and the regulars lose their minds again, it’s just a Ctrl+V away.