I don’t know. I think Vanilla’s lucky not to be banned forever, and what she did was WAY the hell over the top re dragging a non-board member into the SDMB scrum for a thrashing, and it was something she’d been warned about before.
I think TD’s tounge lashing of her was well deserved. What the hell was she thinking doing something like that?
If we want this thread to remain open, (do we?) then we should probably try to limit ourselves to talking in a general way about Tuba, without letting this become another thread in which some posters work at tearing vanilla a new one.
That may be difficult, of course.
Yeah, I get that view. I guess I just don’t see it as vindictive or unjust – quite the contrary. Bannees are usually dispatched without a lot of comment, because they’re not worth it. “That’s just about enough from you.” Think no more of them. If you’ve got a poster who is actually a valued member of our little microcosm, they have an established pattern of recidivist behaviour when treated with gentle admonishments, and you don’t want to have to ban them, what do you do? Do you keep the kid gloves on, and just hope against hope that this will be the last time? That amounts to “I’ll ban 'em next time.”
Sure, harsh words were spoken, but I don’t think they were intended to be hurtful. They were substantially true. Look at it this way: By saying “This behaviour is so unchristian,” our humble TubaDiva is banking on vanilla being alert enough to recognize that as true, and good enough to want to check such behaviour when she’s given another chance.
It’s not like she said, “Fuck you, lady, you’re a worthless bitch who’s bad to the core and we’ve no use for the likes of you,” and then banned/suspended her.
Strong criticism is a kindness when it’s required and you trust that the recipient is constitutionally capable of changing whatever the problematic behaviour is. This is what this was.
In my humble opinion.
I should clarify that what I meant by that is that it’s difficult to talk about one side of an issue without mentioning the other side, and not that it’s natural for people to want to “tear vanilla a new one.”
It’s not even the unChristian thing, so much, too, as that she automatically assumed that vanilla did it deliberately. I don’t think she did, and either way, since she’s banned we have no way of knowing.
But she did deliberately send the thread to an elder at the church, bringing them into the dispute (or bringing the SDMB into what should’ve been an all-church thing, whicherver). If there’s not a rule against that, it’s still a really bad idea and I got the sense she’d been warned about it before. The church elder forwarding the e-mail to the pastor, which I guess was the last straw, was not exactly a shocking turn of events.
I KNOW that. What I mean is, did she do it on purpose so they’d come here, and she could ambush him, as Tuba implied? THAT is up for debate.
If you send someone a link to an interactive forum in which people are calling them pharisees, malicious talkers, jerks, etc, suggesting that their church is a bad one and creepily cultish, making disparaging speculations about their motivations and pontificating about what they should have said, what do you expect to come of that?
If you don’t conclude that the intent was to use the SDMB community to directly address her personal grievances, what do you think it was? Personally, if I sent someone a link to a page that is very critical of them, and every attack has a button on it that says (REPLY), then I’m going to expect that person to try to defend themselves. If most people responding have been very vocal about their contempt for them, and I know that the community is articulate and well-practiced at flaming people, I’m going to expect them to get ripped to shreds.
Sure, it was impossible to foretell the exact consequences, and in all probability what happened is not exactly what was expected, but the act itself was deliberate and no reasonable person can be surprised that it directly involved the SDMB in a member’s petty personal dispute.
Someone who scatters ball-bearings on a dance-floor may not have deliberately broken Disco Stu’s nose, (“How could he have known that would happen?”) but they’ve still deliberately done something that can’t be good for anyone else in the club, and if they’ve been chastised for doing it before, they shouldn’t be surprised when they’re manhandled on the way out the door.
I got the impression that she sent it to an elder to ask for his opinion, or whatever.
Perhaps she did send it to trap them into registering here. Who knows? But I’m saying, we don’t know.
And honestly, I don’t care at this point.
Excellent advise, Larry Mudd.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB
I see. Well that would certainly put a different colour on it, and I can see how that would inform your opinion. But it doesn’t seem to be the case…
Really, it’s terrible that this continues to be a source of contention for any of us.
I don’t want to see anyone tearing vanilla apart, but I don’t think it’s fair to cry foul at Tuba, either.
My point of view continues to be that the rebuke was harsh, but I can’t imagine a better way to try ensure that vanilla is able to retain her membership, and I can’t fault Tuba for not finding a pleasant way, either.
:smack: Apparently it’s really hard to follow the first part of that advice, though, Cajun Man.
At least until we figure out that “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” conundrum.
I think the point is that it doesn’t matter in terms of the suspension, even though it sounds like Tuba thought she did it on purpose.
Dear Elder,
I have a complaint about how unChristianly I was treated by a member of our community.
But rather than tell you about in person, on the phone, or type it out in this email, I’m going to send you a link where I’ve already gossiped about this person. I thought about going through the laborious task of cut-and-pasting what I typed earlier, but that would take forever! So, I’m inserting a hyperlink only so you can see what I already typed – it’s just a thousand times easier.
Yeah, I can see how it’s possible that Vanilla’s intentions were pure. It could happen!
So Tuba was snarky but gave Vanilla the possible option of returning. Tuba could have been non-snarky but banned her for life. I would not have blamed her at all for that. Or she could have been snarky and banned Vanilla for life. This too would not have seemed unreasonable to me.
And yes, the option was there to be non-snarky with a possible return too. But since non-snarkiness didn’t seem to be an effective tool in the past, I sympathize with the desire to do something more effective. If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.
Besides, sometimes one needs to tell other people just how one feels.
I thought I was clear, moriah, that Tuba was fair game, but vanilla was not.
I was obviously mistaken.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB