To my recollection, there were only two (2) “virulent” attacks on staff members in the last year or so and in both cases, the staff started it.
In one case, someone posted a political thread that pissed an admin off. The admin made up a rule that hasn’t been enforced before or since and yelled at the poster for not anticipating that this new rule would be invented after he posted. The admin was told to “fuck off” by the poster (who was then suspended) and called a “cunt” by another poster (who wasn’t).
In the other case, a mod (as a poster) was in an argument with another poster. He kept tap-dancing back and forth across the “I’m a mod–can’t touch me. Ha! I’m a poster again, so I can insult you. Oops! Back to mod-no touchie!!” The poster, frustrated, said that the mod-acting-as-a-poster was “butthurt”. Apparently, in some odd South-or-Central American dialect, “butt-hurt” means “I will take my biker-gang to the back of this alley with me and cut you in a knife-fight*”, so the mod/poster was “taken aback” at the violence of the comment. The poster-now-in-100% mod mode got backing from other staff members. Eventually, the other poster said either “FOAD” or actually said the words “Fuck off and die”. Since that WAS a threat (he’s wishing death, see…) he was suspended.
And this is why I’m mad. I remember the days when mods and posters were on the same side. I remember when posters weren’t so frustrated by arbitrary and capricious abuse of authority by mods/admins that more often than not, when someone pitted a mod, the pit-ee got piled on, usually in a pretty nasty fashion. People vehemently defended the mods because the mods weren’t seen as outsiders, they were members–participants who did NOT use their authority for cheap shit like winning arguments or warning (in all but name) people who don’t share their political views. Rules weren’t invented on the fly or created to just deal with a single incident. (Heh–remember the “Non-Pit Thread Rules” rule that was invoked…um…twice? Three times? And once by me before it was decided that only mods/admins could invoke that rule)
The amount of good-will and camaraderie that’s been squandered is sickening.
I don’t know exactly what started it.
It wasn’t Tubagate. That camaraderie still existed (although somewhat more strained) afterwards. Aldeberan-gate was a wash–about as many posters were pissed as were satisfied.
Pay to Post had a LOT to do with it. First, members kept trying to convince the powers that be that a model that made people pay to provide content for the board was a bad model and every suggestion was treated with barely-disguised contempt.
Posting on the board diminished at least somewhat, long-time regular posters (the mainstay of any board) left and 30-day drive-by posters appeared…and knowing they only had 30 days to post, only a few of them made the effort to learn the Board culture or community (which was predicted by most of the posters and dismissed by the powers that be).
People who’d paid to be charter members and were long-time board contributors who’d missed a payment deadline by even a few days were told to fuck off, being a part of the board for 8 or 9 years isn’t worth the fact that you missed a deadline by a tiny amount and it’s just too, too much bother to keep you as a charter member (we just had 2 more cases of that in the last month or so). No amount of contribution or loyalty to the board bought you even a little consideration. The deadline is the deadline and the rules are the rules.
All the while, arcane rules appeared and disappeared on a regular basis, some mods point-blank said that they didn’t moderate all posters the same way–they wanted to “preserve viewpoints” (close paraphrase–Aldebaran got a pass for quite a while on the same excuse, come to think of it) and the board performance was getting worse. But at this stage, I think people had started to get angry
Then charter members, who’d paid to be ad-free, were suddenly forced to see ads. The uproar then was pretty loud and that lasted about a week.
It’s one thing to go to your buddy’s house for a (free) party and provide music (content) while he provides the space (board)–and if his house isn’t in the best of shape, that’s not a prob-you’re not paying for it. But imagine paying to go to a resturant–the wait-staff keeps changing the dress-code so you don’t know if it’s formal or jeans-and-tee-shirt, the roof leaks, your food doesn’t come on time, some of the waiters berate people randomly (while, to be fair, most of the staff treats everyone with class and dignity). But then to subject those customers to ads…? That may have been one of the final straws, even though the administration reacted (by the SDMB’s standards) pretty quickly.
Then they decided to drop pay-to-post and start making changes designed to “fix” the board–with no input from the members about what changes actually needed to be made.
So rules like the current “Customers must not criticize the staff”** or the “Non-pit rules apply” rules–all designed to protect the mods from criticism, but strangely, no rules concerning staff behavior. And then, on top of that, being told that our input regarding board-culture issues is so valueless that they’d rather work at McDonald’s than consider the member’s opinions, and if you don’t like it, go find another board. That seems to be THE final straw for a lot of people.
And I think people are fed up with A) being treated like children, B) being given random, arbitrary and often contradictory rules, and C) not being consulted for input on board culture/atmosphere type issues–just having them dictated by a stranger who pops in to post about 9 times a year on average and 100% of the time sides with the staff was the final straw.
Congrats if you’ve gotten this far. I already see the “TLDR” comments (oops–another one-shot rule–you can’t say “TLDR” in response to a post. Or at least you couldn’t for about 15 minutes–that rule vanished soon after a poster who used it was (rightfully) banned) and the “If you don’t like it so much, why don’t you leave?” posts.
And the main reason I’m not fully leaving, although I’m posting less and less (although you couldn’t tell from this post 
) is there was a culture here that I loved and appreciated. I miss the days when mods and posters enjoyed each other rather than the current unhealthy adversarial mode we’re stuck in now. My hope is that by posting, I can help things get better. There was great stuff here, even in the worst of times–good people (mods and posters both), good posts, good information. And maybe things aren’t so broken that they can’t be fixed.
Fenris
*This is a little hyperbole for humorous effect…but not nearly as much hyperbole as you might expect…the actual words “knife-fight” were the mods.
**In it’s current incarnation–see QED’s thread where he says Lynn sucks as a mod and is admonished for criticizing her moderation. A few days ago, it was “Don’t insult the mods personally, but you can freely discuss their actions”. Tomorrow it might be something different.