In the matter of Ed's thread take down

About This Message Board
61

I believe what you say has a lot of merit, however, I am also weighing it against the fact that the threads were originally locked, and all mentioning of the incident silenced several weeks ago immedialtely upon the threat of legal action.

There was to be no discussion of the issue, nor was there to be any mention of the person’s name specifically, as stated by Ed, because of the threat of legal action. Now, several weeks later it is written that the decision to take down the thread has absolutely nothing to to with the threat of legal action.:dubious:

I am having trouble reconciling the two events.

62

Sigh. Please note that Ed said:

Please note that the present request was NOT accompanied by threats of litigation, despite what many of your are saying.

63

I’m a newbie. Is this Ed guy some beacon of virtue that would never ever stretch or embellish the truth, even a little bit? If so, I stand corrected.

Actually, since you are a moderator, I can concede that you probably have for more knowledge of the situation and Ed than I ever will. I think the sigh part is a little dismissive though; I don’t think the idea that there could be a little creativity in the recounting of the reasoning behind the decision could be so fro fetched.

64

You can infer what you want as I hadn’t implied that it didn’t matter. The topic at hand just wasn’t being currently discussed.

No. There’s no logic in there. Do a search on current threads and one would have to go back a LONG way before they would come across the thread. Do a google search and the thread pops up with [Redacted]'s name in it.

And said poster has not entered into this conversation. Until then, their position is moot.

Thanks for the extremely lame personal insult.

65

I’d say you’re walking on thin ice impugning Ed’s or any doper’s truthfulness.

66

A letter from an attorney’s office might not directly threaten litigation, so technically it may be true, but come on.

It would be like saying “those local hooligans just told me I had a nice shop and hoped nothing bad happened to it… but they didn’t threaten me or anything.”

67

I’d say you’re junior modding a little bit.

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. I am not impugning anyone’s character, I fully conceded that there is plenty I do not know as a newbie. I am not the first to question the reasons behind the withdrawal; this was previously brought up in the thread by Running Coach and Shodan, so I don’t know why you are choosing to respond to me in particular in such a way.

Also, if you are going to use terms such as “nancy grace shrill” then your expectation should be that one would respond in kind with comments such as I made.

I don’t really like to argue or exchange hostilities, so let’s just leave it all at that, I think I’ve said all I have to say on the matter.:slight_smile:

68

Take some time, re-read your comments before posting them. Maybe you’ll understand why you’re being replied to in such a manner.

69

The thread wasn’t important because it memorialized the dickish actions of one sound mixing engineer at the Oscars seven years ago. It was important because it memorialized the thoughts, commentary and feelings of all the people who posted to it.

By triggering the Streisand effect, the asshole sound mixer in question has guaranteed that his actions in 2007 and his subsequent (now successful) attempts to have those words erased in an effort to clean up his own vanity searches will forever be documented on the internet. His Wikipedia page now includes the incident, several other message boards discuss it, blogs, reddit, etc. all include mention of these shameful events whereas before it was just one search result on an otherwise completely disinterested internet.

What has been lost is the words of 67 posters who chose the SDMB as the place to discuss, vent about, analyze and critique the event.

Let’s pretend that the letter being included with another letter from a law firm had no influence on Ed deciding that MM is really a nice guy who has suffered enough. To protect the ego of one man then, this decision throws the wishes of the following list of SDMB posters under the bus.
Equipoise, bbs2k, Autolycus, George Kaplin, Ferret Herder, faithfool, Kal, Nava, Kamino Neko, Shirley Ujest, Zabali_Clawbane, Gary Kumquat, Elenfair, Subway Prophet, WhyNot, tdn, hajario, tomndebb, Trion, DanBlather, Sarahfeena, shamrock227, mlerose, Spice Weasel, EddyTeddyFreddy, vibrotronica, Cat Whisperer, Seven, drm, Snooooopy, RickJay, appleciders, SkeptiJess, Cervaise, Sunrazor, Larry Borgia, Faruiza, MovieMogul, foolsguinea, Filmbufflistener, Covered_In_Bees!, Dissonance, Lasciel, Guinastasia, Little Nemo, bucketybuck, ladyfoxfyre, Wheelz, Leaper, buddha_david, Skywatcher, gaffa, Miller, Crazyhorse, Bridget Burke, njtt, chronometer, Encinitas, Ravenman, Siam Sam, Helena330, Mr. Nylock, Euphonious Polemic, Smeghead, levdrakon, Revtim, jimbuff314

IMHO this was not a fair trade, and it was a bad decision whether it was motivated by fear of litigation or not.

70

Nope, still don’t understand. Honestly, I may just need some further explanation, but I’m just not seeing the difference.

71

I think people are just having a hard time accepting that the recent request to remove the thread would have been successful absent the previous threat of legal action.

72

Some reading this thread might be surprised to learn that I actually defended the guy to some extent in the deleted thread. I think I was the only one though.

73

I think it would have been nice if, before Ed disappeared the thread, he could have at least secured the juicy Hollywood gossip that Mr. Redacted’s wife offered as a bribe to Equipoise in exchange for taking down her post. Now Equipoise’s thread is gone and she had no inside scoop to show for it. Maybe Ed got the gossip.

74

I don’t think I’ve ever been so ashamed to be a Doper.

So you guys get it into your head that MM threatened litigation, so screw him he’s unworthy of any sympathy and let’s just basically nail him to the wall.

Because reasons.

How fucking petty.

75

Many are similarly ashamed, though for different reasons.

76

For me, it has precisely nothing to do with any of those reasons. I didn’t participate in any of the threads in question, not ion the disappeared thread or in any of the spinoffs.

It’s not about the guy at all. It’s not about what he did or did not threaten. It’s not about sympathy. It’s not about nailing him to the wall.

It’s about the fact that this is a message board that talks about people all the fucking time. We talk about really famous people. We talk about moderately famous people. We talk about sort-of famous people. We talk about everyday people who, for one reason or another, make it into the news. Sometimes we say nice things about those people; sometimes we say nasty things about those people.

We’ve done all of that for fifteen years, about literally thousands of people. And every single comment posted about those people is still there, for all the world to find. But an exception is made for one relatively obscure guy because…well, to be honest, i’m still not sure why. It certainly wasn’t explained very convincingly.

I’m actually ashamed that the board caved so easily.

77

Speaking only for myself it has nothing to do with his impotent threat of a lawsuit which would have only further increased public interest in and criticism of his behavior that night (and boosted the street cred of the SDMB when they prevailed, which would have been a 100% certainty)

It was his attempt to strongarm and bully a SDMB poster into removing something he didn’t like to see in his vanity searches as his wife played good cop with a sleazy and transparent attempt to bribe the same SDMB poster with “inside info” about Hollywood that stuck in my craw.

78

I think you are conflating two issues. Like I said, I think he is worthy of sympathy, if you could go back and read what I wrote in the banished thread it would be incontrovertible. If there was a way for anyone, without legal threat to have unsavory information removed after a period of time, then that would be fine with me also. The issues in question for me boil down to

  1. Does the person who can hire a very good lawyer get different treatment?(equality)
  2. I do not like suppressing the voices of many people for no good reason, and doing so shapes the reality we live in - it obfuscates truth.

On point 1 I am not implying that their is any lying or deceitfulness going on on the part of Ed Zotti. The fact remains that a very well payed lawyer, one with years of training and whose stock in trade is crafting convincing and persuasive arguments had the ear of Ed Zotti; in the meantime, all other voices were suppressed. Would there have been a different outcome if not for that? That will forever be unknowable.

I think Crazyhorse puts it better than I ever could, but the decision to suppress the opinions of many was a bad decision.

79

Pardon me for not being a cool kid but could someone give a quick rundown on what happened?

80

I thought you meant the SDMB hissyfit itself was mentioned–that would be a full circle Streisand Effect.