Amen!
Incidentally, people are thrown out of Disney for screaming obscenities period, not just because it’s aimed at staffers. Should be same same here.
Geez, Giraffe, I thought we were suppose to suck up to the Mods, not the Mods suck up to the Posters. 
I really do like what you just posted. Maybe each Mod should explain whether they want to be treated a poster with duties or an Authoritarian Official of the Board or some grey area in between.
Jim
I still hate you all, don’t worry. Your anguish is like sweet nectar to me.
That’s better, thank you.
Now all is right with the world again.
Jim
Your payment doesn’t entitle you to diddly squat. If you don’t like what you get for your money, don’t re-up your membership. Even a Liberal should be able to understand THAT basic economic and social fact. :rolleyes:
The issue, if any, is whether or not the limits on behaviour will be “acceptable” to enough members to make implementing them something other than a losing proposition. If a new approach results in 50% of the membership finding somewhere else to spend their time (and dollars), then the approach will have failed its goal.
But you as a paying member aren’t entitled to anything beyond what you were promised at in the contract, and buddy, that contract basically says you can be tossed out of here for anything they want. It’s their site, you pay to play, but you don’t have a right to play how you want to play, whether that seems fair to you or not.
Surely the most amusing (and mis-aimed) insult ever! 
My payment entitles me to all the rights and privileges of membership, whatever they might be, extended from the ownership authority of the Chicago Reader. I can choose whether to re-up, that’s fine. But I cannot choose whether to be banned or suspended just because a mod has misunderstood me or made up a new rule.
Rights are an attribute of property ownership. When I posted for free, I had no rights — only privileges extended by the Chicago Reader. Now, I buy rights.
Sure, I have to behave reasonably and within the guidelines, and no one is suggesting that it be otherwise. But when you take people’s money and give them nothing in return but grief as you laugh your way to the bank, that’s called a “scam”. I don’t know law, but it seems to me that a “contract” with consideration for only one party should be unenforceable.
I haven’t had time to search–insane work schedule this week–but I do remember posters being warned and even banned for cussing out mods in direct response to official actions. (Of course this might also be the first symptom of creeping dementia.) There was a lot of razzin’ and jazzin’ in both directions but outright “fuck you for doing X” wasn’t kosher.
Of course that was before pay-to-post and things are different, as they *should be[/]. I’d say things are better, even though the growing pains can be a drag.
I agree with Giraffe (oh God, that’s scary) that the fewer the rules the better. In the first place, zillions of rules sap the fun right out of the place for everybody. Who wants to memorize The Code of Federal Regulations just to post on a message board? Second, we probably can’t completely go back to the free-wheeling past but too much bureaucracy inhibits a lot of innocent fun.
Maybe one problem is that any concerns about the board go in The Pit, the only place where flaming, ranting and creative invective are allowed. I think that implies an invitation to flame at will.
Read the contract, learn some contract law, then come back and discuss the issue intelligently. :smack:
Like I said, I most likely missed anyone being warned or banned for cussing out a mod. It wouldn’t be the first thing I ever missed here.
Maybe there should be a forum for nothing BUT concerns about the board. Seems to me that would cut down on the problem quite a bit. There’s already rules in place about no flaming outside the pit so it’d be covered.
I’m not senile (though demented is certainly a possibility and always has been) and I definitely remember throwing people out for being abusive of staff.
Ed used to refer to it as such: “Rule No. 2: Don’t piss off the moderators.” Right behind Rule No. 1. “Don’t be a jerk.”
We’ve been much more tolerant in recent years, especially since we ask for your subscriber dollars, but as I seem to say a lot lately, there are limits to everything.
I’m surprised people have forgotten – Manny and Alphagene used to throw 'em out wholesale, to give but two blazing examples – but we also have a lot of people that weren’t here for any of this old drama, so I’m assuming that accounts for the lack of memory.
TubaDiva
Looking forward to the day I can hide my own Easter eggs, read one book, and make new friends every day
True, but those were with consistently abusive trolls. Not with typically moderate and immediately apologetic members how don’t have a history of troublemaking. To compare the two is asinine.
I have never understood why complaints About This Message Board have never gone, oh I don’t know, in the forum entitled About This Message Board.
Makes sense to me.
Short version: We got tired of reading “fuck” in ATMB. 
Now, really, here’s how we split it up:
If it’s a question about how something works or how to do something or why or why not, it goes here.
If it’s a useful suggestion, it goes here.
If it’s a gripe, a complaint, a rant, a flame, it’s in the Pit. We do expect a lowered level of invective in ATMB and it’s much more common in the Pit, so it fits there.
TubaDiva
The only thing I said about contracts is that it seems to me that a contract that does not provide consideration for both parties ought to be unenforceable. Is that something you care to address? Or did you just come in here to huff and puff and call people stupid?
As has already been said, I remember it for obviously abusive trolls but that’s pretty much it.
Manhattan dished out his share of insults but neither did he did bitch and whine about the abuse he got in return. And posters got banned when abusive language was a long-term pattern, not just because they happened to call a moderator a bad word in one instance.
Mistakes in your assumptions:
-
You aren’t buying “property” by paying for membership. A contract isn’t “property;” it’s an agreement between parties, each of whom/which agrees to do or not do something they aren’t required to do/not do. So no, you aren’t buying “rights.”
-
Your money buys you one thing at this message board: the right to post messages (and search, etc.) after 30 days of “guest” membership. The parties with whom you are contracting don’t have to let you do that, so the fact they let you do that after payment is their “consideration.” A very loose analogy would be paying for the right to bowl at a bowling alley; the alley could toss you out for any reason they chose.
-
This board hardly “gives you nothing but grief as [they] laugh [their] way to the bank.” But even if they did give you grief, and lots of it, so what? That isn’t a “scam,” although it may be a bad retailing practice. Now, if they took your money, and then you couldn’t post at all, that’s a different issue, for which, by the way, your remedy would be the return of your $15.
-
The only thing you said in either post that was accurate is “I don’t know law.” I will point out I never called you stupid, just uneducated on the subject and incorrect, a practice I will continue when the target offers itself as readily as you did.
Regarding “rights” and “privileges” as a result of paying or not paying, there’s another point which I didn’t see here during a cursory scan through the thread. In a nightclub, or at Disneyland, as someone pointed out, if you act obnoxiously you’ll be thrown out without having your ticket price or cover charge refunded. And that’s as it should be, because by throwing obnoxious people out, the management is protecting the rights of the other customers.
I’ve seen some unmoderated boards, and it’s always made me say to myself, “thank god we have moderators here!”
30 days or just a few. Makes you wonder.
By you, of course, I mean me. And by wonder I mean contemplate.