Is it justifyable to ban someone from the SDMB because of their behaviour elsewhere on the internet?
I don’t think so. The rest of the internet is outside the jurisdiction of the SDMB moderators.
Just my opinion.
Is this a hypothetical situation, or are you referring to something that has actually happened? If the latter, please provide a cite or other information…
Sorry, the post in question is right at the top of the board and is called ‘Using the name “Straight Dope.”’
My opinion is that if you’re quoting more than one paragraph, you put a start quote before each one and an end quote only on the last one.
But that’s not relevant and probably a bit pedantic.
Paragraph? don’t you mean word? I think you are refering to nested "s
(I was going to put the " in "s but that would just be silly)
Mods don’t have to justify a damn thing. It’s a private board and they can do whatever they want to whoever they want. They can ban you for having brown hair if they feel like it.
In this particular case, it’s pretty cut and dried. Tuba asked people not to do something. Someone did it anyway. They got banned. Tra-la.
Discussions concerning the administration belong in The BBQ Pit.
And to make the discussion concrete, rather than abstract, consider participation in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140335
Yup. Actually, it’s justifiable to ban someone from the SDMB for any reason whatsoever. You already agreed to that. Why you would find fault with the policy now is beyond me…
And besides, it comes down to this: the Mods/Admins are already doing a hard job for free. If they ask “Hey, don’t throw gas on an open flame: we’ve got the beginnings of a Board war and we’re trying to put it out.”
And then someone goes out and deliberately tries to make a board war worse, then yeah. Banning seems like a pretty rational solution.
Fenris
Fenris: Are you a double agent?
Nope. Not me. Given that I’m Jewish…
“jewsmedia”???
Fenris
I think he meant the “juice media.” The Minute Maid company apparently has a strong influence over the New York Times.
IMHO the mods are right without having to appeal to the “The mods don’t have to justify anything” argument (which is valid, but always sounds a little like “The referee’s decision is final” to me).
They have a vested interest in protecting ‘The Straight Dope’ - the name, the message board and the column itself. Board wars are unbelievably juvenile; in fact, another board I post on has orechestrated three or four ‘invasions’ that have only cost us good posters.
IANAL, but I’ll give it the college try:
The Chicago Reader owns the name, “The Straight Dope.”
Legally, that gives them some rights to control how that name is used.
When you or I or anyone else here (excepting board admins acting in that capacity) posts on some other board, we are doing it as private individuals, and not as representatives of The Straight Dope, the SDMB, or the Chicago Reader.
If we should post at other websites, we certainly don’t have a moral or ethical right to drag the name of The Straight Dope into whatever fights we get into.
I don’t know how far the CR’s legal rights go in preventing us from doing so - that’s one for the lawyers - but they certainly have the legal right to ban posters for any reason, and I’d argue that they have every moral justification to ban posters here who ignore the SDMB administration’s admonitions to avoid causing trouble for them elsewhere on the Web.
Seems simple enough to me.
On another note, I’d recommend against links to sites that are actively hostile to us. Apparently if you click a link on Site A to get to Site B, Site B can tell where you came from. So if you have to point out something over at nutcase.com to people here, I’d advise breaking up the URL so that it isn’t a link, but so that people can read it and C&P it into the URL window on their browsers.
RT, although you keep saying you’re not a lawyer, I wonder if maybe you oughta be one anyway. 
The Reader’s rights are relatively few - they can’t sue one of us for simply posting at another board, whether we’re slamming the SD or presenting ourselves as a de facto representative of it. They can’t have us tossed in jail. What they can do is tell us to knock it off. We have the right to refuse. Then they have the right to kick us off. It’s not complicated.
The bottom line is that whoever the person was knew perfectly well they weren’t supposed to do what they did. They did it anyway. This is an implied acceptance of the consequences.
The cardinal rule is “Don’t be a jerk.” Taking actions that promote cross-board hostility is jerkish behaviour. That such actions may have been made in the mistaken belief that the actions were helpful simply moves the person from being a jerk to being a stupid jerk.
Minor hijack.
That other board scares the crap out of me. Looking at their forum list was like looking at a reverse image of the SDMB. We’re through the looking glass, Alice.
Gazelle from Hell:
I’ve got to agree. The redness of it gives me the willies. I’ve looked at a few of their posts, and some of them are normal, everyday things. For crying out loud, there’s a thread entitled “crib safety sheets”. These people are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, but they’re crazy. How can normal people be so wrong??