–
From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion”
the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
Bricker: Your posts are great! I wasn’t talking about you. I personally welcome you back!! I didn’t know you had left.
As far as Melin goes, she was a great asset to this board and her life will continue just as well with or without this board. The board is fun but IMHO should not become a necessity for one’s existence. If I were banned for any reason, I personally would say “adios”…and not lose one minutes sleep even if I was wronged. But each of us is different which is the way I think it should be.
Don’t ever say 288 in polite company. Its just two gross!
–
From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion”
the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
I thought Melin was a great resource to the SDMB. However, her threat of lawsuit justifiably ended her stay here.
I don’t always agree with the mods and definitely wasn’t a fan of the potshots some of them took at Melin after her de-moderator-ization. But considering the nature of this board and all the new trolls, spammers, sock puppets, et. al. that come through here someone else was bound to question Melin’s credentials, integrity, background, or motives at some point at which point she would feel that she had to defend them.
I read Melin’s explanation of the events before I read her threat of litigation letter and was fairly sympathetic. After reading the “threat of lawsuit” letter, I fully support the SDMB’s actions.
I would go along with that, Dave, except that last night, I read the ‘Melingate’ threads from last August, and this morning I read what was posted on OpalCat’s page. I’ve now read a number of posts of Ed’s from various points in this donnybrook, and I’ve unfortunately lost faith in Ed’s definitiveness.
For instance, take his latest post. Like his statement on MFSD, it’s long on Asterbark, but short (nonexistent, actually) on SD mods and staffers. Does he contradict what Melin has said about what they said about her on MFSD? No, and this is by no means his first opportunity to do so. I take that as meaning Melin’s account is correct, but Ed finds these details inconvenient.
Last August, the big deal Ed made was over extending a very necessary principle - that the SD mods present a unified face with respect to matters of board administration - to a ridiculous one: that they couldn’t duke it out with one another on abortion, gun control, minorities, life after death, or whatever. (But duking it out with regular posters was apparently OK. Gawd, Ed, that’s silly as hell. You obviously can’t be Cecil, despite the allegations.) Arguing with Ed about this got Melin sacked from being a moderator.
Oddly enough, it’s the original principle - the core principle, the one that makes sense - that he decided not to enforce here. Mods took a position, on their own, about a board matter, and flung it at Melin. That position, of course, was that she was nosing around without authorization in restricted parts of the SD site, and that she was posing as a mod.
Did Ed fire them, like he did Melin? No. Did he call them on the carpet? No. I guess that because it was Melin, it was OK.
At least this time, he didn’t delete any threads. Small comfort.
How come jerks don’t know they’re jerks? (I don’t know.) - Kim Stockwood
OpalCat:
SDMD has at least one paid staff member. That alone exceeds your ‘$50 per month’. Add other direct operating expenses such as rent, utilities, insurance. etc., and your number is buried so far down, it’ll never see the light of day. And we haven’t even started talking about monthly amortization of the capital costs.
I don’t know what you mean by “I RUN A WEB HOSTING COMPANY”, or in what capacity, as you are so obviously UNAWARE of costs associated with operating a business. Either you are someone’s employee, or your costs are being otherwise subsidized.
::
Calif,
You have no freaking idea what OpalCat or anyone else on this board puts out in costs for a web project…get a fucking clue. As a web designer, part-time, I back OpalCat 100%.
As for your involvement with this issue, I only point out that you suck and have no background by which to have any opinion.
I stated my wishy-washy opinion because I don’t know all the facts behind this. But for fuck’s sake, get out of this debate and leave it to those in the know.
============
Speaking from someone that doesn’t have the background that is required to have a knowledgable opinion with regards to this situation, and to some of us that entered this after August 1999, we should keep our noses out of this.
I will poke my nose in when I see someone getting their nose into something they have no idea what the fuck they are talking about, and Calif, you are one of those.
BTW Calif…I have one site that only runs me $15 per month…yeah, they may have a server located at their offices but for the most part servers (if set up properly) require little if any maintenance…I am also a network consultant.
I am not saying that it doesn’t cost anyone any particular amount of money for a specific thing, but get off Opal’s ass and I will get off yours.
Uh-huh. And sending cheesy email comments to me proves that how? If Jill’s so almighty worried about inviting lawsuits in her role as a moderator, maybe she should learn to keep her remarks to herself, eh?
Jill:
If you thought an email to someone you know has no respect for you would be well-received, you’re a bigger fool than I gave you credit for. My bad. That you whine and moan about being hurt and misunderstood and wronged after doing so only underscores your disingenuousness and your pathetic need to play the martyr. And that’s YOUR bad.
Too late. Don’t you ever wonder why so many people don’t like you?
Not badly enough to stop being a shit-disturber, apparently.
As far as I’m concerned, this little email issue is closed. Got that, Jillybeans? You might not have the fortitude to drop it, but I’m done with it (and you) as of NOW. (For future reference, any response/comment to me - public or private - will be taken as just more of your shit-disturbing, and rightly so.)
Now can we drop this please, Jill?
I surrender. I have a headache. Is this the easy way out? Yes. Do I still have questions and concerns? Yes. Will I post them again? Not on your life. No need for anyone to e-mail me reiterating what I have already read. I understand everything. I am just tired and I don’t want to play this particular redundant game any longer. I will no longer respond to Melin threads. Not that this post means rat shit to anyone, it’s just my version of a full-page ad declaring myself immune from further actions. Thank you for your time.
I always try to do things in chronological order.
I have written a post twice that takes Zotti’s last post to task on a point-by-point basis. Unfortunately, I’m tired and I just made the discovery that hitting ESC while typing a post, reverts the post window to it’s previous state. Damn.
So, here is the condensed version.
-There is an acknowledgement right up front about misunderstandings and a lack of communication. No apologies, mind you, just a statement of fact.
-Asterbark demonstrates the damage a true troll can do. With little more to go on that inferrences, she attacks Melin and raises a flame war to slanderous levels. Her naivete notwithstanding, she is largely to blame for what occurred subsequently.
-None of the moderators or administration came to Melin’s defense when untruths were being spread. Ed only did so after “The Letter” was sent. (I’ll take a moment here to point out that the lawsuit threat might not have been so frivolous after all. People speaking as representatives of the MB refused to shed the truth on the situation, which should have been their responsibility. At least some of them knew the truth of the situation.)
-The threat of litigation was certainly frightening, particularly to Zotti’s bosses. That doesn’t make it an unjustified action. Melin’s reputation and livelihood were at stake. She was upset, and she had a right to be.
-An apology and explanation came out from Asterbark and Zotti, repectively. Melin withdrew her threat. That should have been the end of it. Obviously, it wasn’t.
-[WAG] Zotti’s bosses were sufficiently unnerved by the possibility of a successful lawsuit to set things in motion to have Melin removed permanently.[/WAG]
-Melin’s behavior after this was certainly not atypical of a normal SDMB poster. Unfortunately, she chose a sig line that upset the acting moderators. There was no untruth in the sig line. There was never a claim by Melin that she was a moderator. The word under her name said “member” not “moderator”. She should not be penalized because some people do not have a vocabulary that includes the word “emeritus”. Likewise, she should not be banned for a little ribbing of the powers-that-be. And who the hell cares whether her removal was involuntary or not. It should have been water-under-the-bridge.
-Finally, Ed’s ascertion that Melin will never be allowed back in shows an incredible amount of obstinance. Certainly, one of the most important abilities we have as people trying to fight ignorance is the ability to accept the possibility that we might be wrong.
Everyone makes mistakes. In this case, everyone made mistakes. I said once before that my pet peeve are people who are willfully ignorant. I’ve been in repeated contact with Melin since this whole fiasco started. (We hadn’t been friendly before, so this is not a situation of an old friend trying to help someone out.) She would like to see this resolved amicably. She acknowledges that she had made some errors along the way. Right now, my estimation of her intelligence exceeds Zotti’s by a considerable margin.
“World’s smartest man”, my ass.
I had hoped to be able to help out in possibly negotiating peace in this situation, but Ed has pretty much nailed that coffin shut. The real shame of it all is that apparently they had been on friendly terms with each other. It’s amazing how quickly things can change.
I’ve got a good friend in Oregon, who I suddenly feel a strong urge to call…
God is my co-pilot. Blame Him.
Thank you Mr Zotti for clearing up a few of my concerns. After reading your response and doing a bit of soul searching of my own, I find I no longer want to be a guest at your RESTAURANT. As I said before, I didn’t know Melin, or anything about this, until this issue was brought up here and in MPSIMS, but I find the food here a bit too tasteless to just swallow and say thank you kind sir!
Yes, it is your RIGHT, as an administrator to be selective of whom you will or will not allow at your fine establishment. It is also my RIGHT not to patronize any place, that discriminates against anyone, for any reason.
I hereby tender my resignation as a poster.
I am not making this statement to get a response from you, or from any of the other posters, as my mundane posts will not be missed, of that I am sure. I am posting this because I truly believe that the reasons you gave for banning Melin are not only petty, they reek of discrimination and my not calling you on it would go against all that I honor.
How is PROFESSIONAL prejudice any different than RACIAL or RELIGIOUS prejudice? Are all the lawyers on the board now a threat… or just the ones who use a Signature line that annoys you?? What about those posters who are married to lawyers?? Or those who happen to have lawyers as close friends? What if I shop where lawyers happen to shop? Does that make me susceptible also? I mean after all… I HAVE shared space with OMG…a LAWYER.
Oddly enough, Mr. Zotti, this is the first post I have read of yours, as I rarely venture from MPSIMS. Up until this point, I had the only the greatest admiration for the moderators here… Sadly, now, I see them as petty and narrow-minded. Now, my mind drifts off to a high-pitched whiny voice moaning, “she has ‘Most Popular Moderator’ for a sig line and I can’t handle it…make her go away.” every time I read a moderator’s post. I actually thought this was a place that valued intelligence.
And as for you, Mr. Zotti, well suffice it to say I have absolutely no respect for you what-so-ever. Not that it matters much, as I am a mere guest to this board. The fact is… you have offended me with your actions. Sure, you can hide them behind the fear of a lawsuit, but I have to wonder if the Chicago Reader wouldn’t be just as upset about negative publicity? How exactly would their marketing department feel about having discrimination associated with their name?
As for me, I may have no say in whether or not you can ban a poster for something so idiotic as having a sig line that you don’t like, (one that she btw, DID happen to win), but I don’t have to be a part of it. You can sugar coat it all you want, but it still smells like shit to me.
Yes, I will miss a lot of the people that I have shared my days and evenings with, and make no mistake, it IS the PEOPLE who post here that I chose to spend my time with. Not the Chicago Reader, not Cecil, and certainly not for the blatantly arrogant treatment of WE the GUESTS. ya know… US… the ones who should be so honored to be here at SD, that we should swallow anything put on a plate before us.
Sorry, Mr. Zotti, but I wouldn’t put up with this treatment in the real world, and I have enough integrity and conviction to not put up with it here also. I don’t happen to like what is on your MENU sir, and I believe I will go to another place that has a less oppressive one, thank-you very much.
Please let me know where you want me to hang the white sheet you offered on my way out, as I chose not to wear it. It seems overly large for a napkin and much too Klan like for my tastes.
Oh and Ed… as far as your sending me an email reiterating your explanations, don’t bother.
Marva
I don’t happen to serve crow at MY restaurant!
I’ll miss you Marva. 
No you won’t Dem… she’ll still be slinging chocolate at those she loves and respects.
We are, each of us angels with only one wing,and we can only fly by embracing one another
Hey, I’ve always said Ed had a perfect right to ban whoever he wanted. I just asked he be honest about his reasons for doing so.
He was finally a little closer to honest. What do you know. He showed himself to be an ass.
For the record, I don’t intend to leave unless and until I’m banned. I’m here to honestly express my opinion and if Ed and the Former Hippies (what a great name for a band) can’t take it, so be it. I have great respect for many of the rest of you. Your intellectual rigor and diverse humor are admirable and intriguing.
Too bad our fearless leader can’t cut the mustard, characterwise.
Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars.
Well, I’ll miss your posts on the board, Marva. I’m sure we’ll be in touch. xoxo
I will not instigate revolution.
Lest anyone misinterpret my silence here, I have been away for 6 days.
Melin is my good friend (even my Siamese Attack Twin), so I make no claim to be impartial.
In my view, here is what happened:
This chain of events was set in motion by Melin’s goodwill response to the m.f.s.d. newsgroup, followed by a deliberate misrepresentaion by Lileth/Terey (who is SD Staff, if not a moderator on this board) and a scathing post by TUBA (an SDMB Administrator) labelling Melin as a “poseur” after another poster commented that TUBA was too busy to talk to him.
Then came Asterbark’s post asserting that Melin was misusing access to the staff board & was not to be trusted.
Yes, after all that, Melin sent a letter to Ed demanding apologies for what she considered defamatory comments made about her by someone unconnected with the SDMB but with what she believed to be knowledge gained inappropropriately from inside the SDMB.
If, in fact, there had been an official e-mail to the effect that “Melin was still accessing/reading the Staff Board, be careful what you say” AND that information was leaked by a member of SD Staff who was good friends with the person who posted the defamatory comments, the SDMB would have been completely in the wrong, and would have been getting off extremely lightly with a public apology.
This, however, was not the case, and once Melin was made aware of this, she immediately & fully withdrew all demands, and apologized for her actions. In other words, once it became clear that there was no wrongdoing (leakage of privileged information) by the SDMB Staff, there was a full retraction of any litigation threat.
To those who would suggest that other means of redress should have been attempted first, I will simply point you to the stonewalling response from Ed & a moderator when apologies were called for in posts & e-mails last October/November regarding another instance of defamatory comments:
http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/003035.html (Nickrz’s post ~10th in the thread)
And this response I got from Ed in another thread complaining about a perceived double standard in regards to moderators attacking members:
from http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000362.html
Yes, this message board is unquestionably the property of the Chicago Reader & Ed & Company can invite or ban whomever they choose, for whatever reason they see fit.
Melin’s banning was inevitable. Ed’s letter & the rule change allowing banning for any reason whatsoever makes that clear. Banning Melin for her sig line of Voted Best Moderator - emeritus and/or Censored strikes me as remarkably similar to the Pharisees & priests crucifying Jesus for blaspheming by claiming that he would destroy the Temple. That was simply the most expeditious thing Ed could find. Whatever. I’m sure no moderator’s ego being bruised by Melin’s winning the Best Moderator Contest & daring to put that in her sig line had anything to do with it. :rolleyes:
I won’t be surprised to be banned myself in the near future. Saddened, but not surprised.
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
UnBan Melin
Pssssttt! Hey…over here.
Majormd’s sig:
Sue, I poltely ask that you not use that sig outside the Pit, since it is clearly a “complaint… regarding administration of the SDMB”.
Bringing that disagreement into GQ or GD is inappropriate. Plus it means that regardless of the nature of the OP, I would have to “stay the fuck out of” whatever thread you post in, as per Ursa Major’s recommendation to me.
You want to continue to fight for your friend, go ahead. But please don’t do it in a forum where responding to your anti-administrative assertions would be inapproproate.
Thanks.
Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you.
Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.
PurpleCrackWhore is leaving ? Arg !! I did not know Melin, but I was priviledged to hang out in a couple of threads with PCW and thought her to be one of the better posters.
Dammit ! No fair ! I just got here !!
This sucks . . .