Let’s do a reality check here. And I realize that all of this is generally speaking and there are exceptions but:
SDMB is a message board. We don’t really talk to people face to face but rather leave messages scrawled on a virtual message board to people we don’t even know. Sure the messages are written by real people but most of us have never seen each other much less met each other and possibly never will and are no closer human being wise, than the point and click of the mouse.
Correct me if I am wrong but this board was setup by private citizenry for the purpose of advertising and promoting The Chicago Reader and providing (for free), readers and others with a forum for exchanging information…whether it be in the form of Facts =(GQ) Opinions =(mpsims) Griping= ( BBQ pit) or long blathering opinions =( GD).
This is not a **real[b/] town,workplace, community or even communal environment. Some of you that say “yes it is a community!” Well virutally speaking it is but it ain’t real life. To be bannished from this board is not like being REALLY bannished. Not if you have a real life away from your computer!
I think this board is a lot of fun and most of the people here are very smart and I would be very disappointed if I could not post messages here. I think the feed back here from other posters gives one a sense of one’s self and that puts it way above a lot shit out there on the WWW. But for the most part there is no flesh to press here folks. It’s all pixels,monitors and hardrives. Hey I just got here after Christmas of last year and guess what? I was just dumb enough to be happy before I got here!
I have seen these same soap Opera’s played out on MIRC. I was a member of a channel that had get togethers and the whole nine yards. The channel lasted two years then disintergrated.
Well those are my opinions and I know I am as much entitled to them as you are entitled to disagree.
We are also here at our -own- discretion. I’ve personally placed the SDMB and the TSD et al on double secret probation. Any further “nonsense” on their behalf will result in the loss of my viewage.
Would they care? Probably not. Almost assuredly not. But if the sandbox I played in became a cat box, I wouldn’t want to play there anymore, anyway.
Y’know, a while back, I got into a real arguement with a clerk in a store. She was not abiding by the promotion advertised ( I thought) and I was atempting to apply the promotion to items not covered. ( she thought ) We went round and round for a while, then I walked off. I stood and thought for a minute, then went back to say something to her. As I said “excuse me” to her in preperation to ask about who her boss was to persue the matter, I saw how upset she was as she turned to answer. She said “yes?” and I opend my mouth and came out with:
" I relly want to apologise for the fight we just had. We got like two cats with their backs up, and I didn’t mean for that to happen."
I could see tears in her eyes as she apologised to me as well. We talked for a few minutes, then I left feeling very good about how it had turned out. ( and very shitty about the whole arguement in the first place.) In that second as she turned to me I saw a real human being, who I was making quite upset over something trivial. That was by far a more important issue than weather I got the special or not. The game no longer became worth the candle.
Hmmmm. I wonder why that story occured to me just now?
FWIW - completely out of the blue, Jillgat emailed me a lovely little (bitchy) dig last night, regarding a comment I made previously in this thread.
I’ve heard such childish behavior is common with her…but I would like to point out that her purported penchant for such behavior is mere talk I’ve heard from others. I personally have no physical, quantifiable proof of this “habit” of hers, other than my own personal experience.
But - given my own personal experience (this isn’t the first such email she’s ever sent me), I will now publicly state that this sort of “two-bit” harrassment by a message board moderator is not only uncalled for, it is unacceptable. Beyond this, it shines a very revealing light on Jill’s behavior in a separate but related matter (i.e. “Melingate”).
Discussing any issue on a public message board is one thing, turning it into one’s own tower to take email pot-shots at the passersby below (while on the SDMB staff and deeply involved in the whole Melin issue) is another, entirely.
Especially after the high standards he set for them at the time he sacked Melin last summer.
BTW, when is Ed going to fire all the mods who wrongly accused Melin of accessing the Staff Room without permission, and accused her of passing herself off as a mod during the Great Board Hack?
If one moderator arguing with another about whether we should fill in our race as ‘human’ rather than ‘black’, ‘white’, or whatever, is enough to sack Melin over, then surely this must be way beyond the pale.
If Melin wants to come back under another name, how about melin-oma? Those can be impossible to get rid of.
Kim,
I am not sure of the destinction you are making after my last post. My point was I was involved in a situation where both sides were upset over something minor and when cooler heads prevailed, we both felt much better, because we were both able to admit we were wrong. I always enjoy seeing that clerk now, We smile and laugh with each other. It happened, but we both rose above it and feel better about each other now.
When you cross the line from bratty little digs directed at the administration to threatening legal action, you’ve crossed the line. If the situation had been reversed, and Ed Zotti had written to Melin: “I believe a couple of lines (in apology) would be far less painful and expensive than litigation.”, I seriously doubt Melin would have taken it lightly. In fact, I believe she would have taken it EXTREMELY seriously.
Personally, I think the administration has been amazingly tolerant of several posters who have been openly hostile and critical of the SDMB for months. It’s almost as if they are hoping to get banned. And I again wonder why people frequent a place that gives them no joy.
I’m curious if anyone else (besides Melin) has received similar missives from this particular moderator on this particular subject. Hard to believe I’m the only one receiving snide, unprovoked comments via email…
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
StoryTyler, Cyb-Killer
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”
StoryTyler: “I doubt I’m alone in feeling as though I must now guard everything I say,
because someone in power might become “fed up” and boot me, too. Might
not be true, but that’s honestly what I’m feeling right now.”
Then you must know what it’s like to “guard everything you say” because you might be sued otherwise.
I didnt’ mean for this to be “bitchy.” It’s true. I sent it email because I’d rather not get involved in the public dispute. I’m sorry if it came across differently than it was meant and upset you, Tyler.
Jill
Dave - I guess the distinction I’m trying to make is this: what you were arguing over was far less important than the damage the argument was causing to the arguers. Here, it’s just the opposite.
Melin isn’t cat food; she’s a real person. It’s her banning that we’re discussing here. I doubt that any hurt between posters that has arisen, or will arise, from this debate amounts to the hurt I know I’d feel if I were banned from here, and that I would imagine Melin feels now that she has been banned.
I feel Melin got a bum deal here. But I’m not angry at any of the multitude of posters who disagree with me. (I think Ed’s acting like a jerk, but that’s another story.) So (to me, at least) this isn’t like you and the clerk. But banning Melin from the board is far more significant than the trivial matter you and the clerk got in a catfight over.
Apology accepted. However, you’re already thick in the middle of this public dispute, whether you like it or not, so trying to keep it “private” is a lame excuse.
Secondly, why on EARTH would you even consider making (what I feel was) a snide and unprovoked comment to ANYone via email given the whole nature of this issue? Your judgement is questionable at best, Jill.
If I may suggest . . . you might consider keeping a tighter reign on yourself in the future. Never know when Ed might decide he’s “fed up” with you, too.
StoryTyler, Cyb-Killer
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”
Wellllll…I think you did. What you’ve very obviously implied here is, because I know Melin IRL, I must have to watch everything I say around her because if I don’t, she’ll sue me. Right? And that’s not bitchy?
In the future, if you want to make digs at Melin, please do it directly to her - I don’t represent her and I’m not willing to be your middleman. Thank you.
Now can we drop this please, Jill?
StoryTyler, Cyb-Killer
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”
Jill: you mean, like if a person makes baseless accusations that someone had accessed private websites and misused confidential information? I mean, that’s what we’re talking about, here.
When a person does that, they shouldn’t be the least bit surprised, IMO, if someone at least saber-rattles the threat of a suit if they don’t set the record straight. Maybe the threat is an overreaction, but it’s frankly not that uncommon an overreaction. On the whole, it doesn’t mean that the saber-rattler is that much more likely to sue.
I mean, I’ve never sued anyone, and hope I’m never in a dispute serious enough to consider it. But I have, on occasion, pointed out that a specific action was technically grounds for a suit. (It’s a good bargaining chip when dealing with some corporation that regards you as a negligible flyspeck.) I’d hope that, even having divulged that, the SDMB doesn’t consider me a threat to sue. But then, my career would stand much less chance of being affected by the sort of accusations that were leveled at Melin.
It’s one thing for you to be concerned about what you say on a message board for fear that you might be “banned” (an irrational fear, IMO).
It’s quite another thing to have to walk on eggshells and choose with care every word you say because you are facing the very rational fear that you might get sued.
Unlike being banned from a message board, being sued has some real world repercussions that are considerably more weighty than the risk of being kicked out of a virtual playground. (The possibility of financial ruin springs to mind.)
