Tell ya what, Ed…I think you’ve made it abundantly clear that our opinions have no value because we only post here, while you are the great and powerful Internal.
If that’s the attitude of the admin here, I’ll go elsewhere.
The Straight Dope may not be dead, but I think cancer has just been diagnosed.
I agree with Flora. I also think it’s really easy for all of us to Monday-morning-quaterback this thing, with what should have been done, but that’s pointless. Someone has to make the decisions on how we keep all the balls in the air around here, and it is counter-productive for the peanut gallery to second-guess those decisions. I’d like to think that if it happened again, it would be handled differently, but I see little reason in continuing to beat this particular dead horse.
I also think the idea of flying along without moderators is silly. They’re the grease beneath our wheels (if not the wind beneath our wings) and they keep things running smoothly around here. It’s too bad there wasn’t greater clarification of the parameters of their duties before now, but I hope that’s being rectified.
[quote]
There’a petition in MPSIMS for the reinstatement of Melin as a moderator. I put my name on it, and I recommend that everyone else who’s disgusted, stunned, or otherwise displeased with the situation should, too.
And as I stated over there… the other moderaters might consider cleaning up their now sullied reputations by putting their names on it, too, if they even care what we, the general public, thinks about them. [/quote}
Ed has spoken; some of our other moderators have already weighed in with their stuff, here’s mine.
We ask our moderators not to fistfight in public. That’s not argument, that’s not discussion; that’s disagreement that topples over into abuse. If staffers have difficulties with one another, it’s an internal matter and should not be on public display.
If you work here, we want you to (no pun intended) moderate your actions. By the nature of the situation, staff members are held to a higher standard of behavior than users; all of you certainly expect stuff from us that you do not expect of one another.
And that’s as it should be.
If a staffer does not wish to abide by these conditions, then what choice is left? Any reasonable person (and you are all reasonable people) can see how this plays out.
A resignation was tendered . . . and it was accepted. Hence, it was by mutual consent.
She was not “fired for being politically incorrect;” she can’t work here if she won’t follow rules. For anybody to say otherwise is to be untruthful to you, which is unforgiveable.
It’s complicated by the fact that this simple matter of staffing has been blown up into a full-fledged psychodrama, with the “victim” as the star of the show. Why she chose to do that, I cannot begin to tell you; I can only say that it baffles and saddens me.
I am infuriated that you as users and we as staffers have been so used and abused. It disturbs the trust between us that must exist for this site to be successful; if you do not trust or believe us, then what good is anything that we do?
I hope that we can recover from this . . . and go forward.
your humble TubaDiva/SDStaffDiv
for the Straight Dope
PS You should also know that this woman was my dear friend and I hired her over the objections of others; I let affection take the place of reason. My mistake, and I have paid the price; I have lost the friendship.
Put the freakin’ Minorities thread back up, in its entirety, and unedited. Close the thread so no one else adds to it; just make it a read-only thread.
We need to see the whole thing, including the “ugly” parts. Ed doesn’t have a copy, but I know Melin has some of the posts. Put it back up.
And nice to know our opinion is ultimately of no value to the way things are handled in such situations, Ed. That’s simply repulsive.
This is the pit, right???
Up until now, I might have disagreed with some decisions (particularly the ongoing refusal to let the unexpurgated minorities thread return), but I did not sense a truly reprehensible attitude until Ed’s last post.
Ed, you can take your attitude and stuff it! “We’re not taking a vote here.” Oh yes we are! You can ignore it if you like, but I am voting that 1) I’ve clicked on my last banner on your site, 2) I’ve bought my last print copy of any SD book, and 3) I’m looking for a good alternative to this site.
You can call us users, customers, whatever you like, but piss enough of us off, and your franchise won’t be worth snot. You’ve made your condescending, disdainful, superioristic attitude abundantly clear.
Me, I think it’s a plot to keep everyone interested in this board - something has to compensate for the gawdawful load time, why not a combination of defining racism and constitutional rights?
Tuba, you seem to be indicating that Melin abused us in some way. How do you rectify this with the fact most of us feel she shouldn’t have been kicked out in the first place? You seem to be playing the “That bad woman, I’m sorry she did this to you” game, and I doubt it will be very effective.
Let’s try to get some sense here. Does anyone disagree with the following statements?
Ed has a policy that moderators not publicly (adamantly) disagree with other moderators.
Ed has no problem with a moderator posting controversial posts about racism in their own names.
One did, and Melin felt she had to speak out publicly against a public statement she found abhorant. We don’t know exactly what she said.
Ed said “stop.” Melin said “No” because of issues of conscience. Melin was fired.
All traces of Melin’s POV were deleted. Ed admitted this was a mistake, and put her POV back in the pitt.
Most of us think Ed made a bad move.
Most of think this could be avoided.
Most of us believe that aside from disagreeing publicly with a moderator, Melin was doing a great job.
Almost all of us want to know the details of what really happened in the offending thread.
Are we in agreement?
Your Quadell
P.S. Now let’s see how many relevant posts I missed while I was writing this…
hey Tuba:
I was kinda thinking you seemed like a nice enough person…POV I can’t appreciate, but nice enough. Then I read THIS:
What the HELL was that about? For? Mean? THAT is just disgusting. ALl kinds of ugly, unexplained, uncalled for implications in that little remark.
Everyone here has voiced nothing but approval and appreciation for Melin as both a user and mostly as a moderator. And here you come along making icky insinuations about her, that she is was in some way unacceptable right from the very beginning, but you stood up for her…now the people who didn’t want her were right! Oh dear, poor you, now you’ve lost the “friendship”.
Man, if any of my friends made a remark like that about me, damn straight they’d lose me as a friend!
YUCK.
stoidela… totally offended.
Thank you, Stoidela, that was my reaction, too. Yikes–I thought there were Personal Things going on, but I had no idea what a Peyton Place The Straight Dope really is!
Well said, stoidela. Even friends who have betrayed you (and Melin did not do anything of the sort) should not be denigrated in public, out of respect for the friendship you had. I don’t recall Melin saying anything snarky about TubaDiva.
“Eppur, si muove!” - Galileo Galilei
TubaDiva, you are pathetic. Truly pathetic. That P.S. at the end of your post is childish and absolutely uncalled for. This is the pit, right? Where we can say what we feel, right? Sick it up your ass! Stick it way far up your ass! You have no business being an administrator on this MB if you’re going to act like this.
Dirty Devil:
LOL - good for you!
And an excellent point! Whatever the hell started this whole mess, THAT was a fire-able offense, in my opinion!
WOW - This is a first! I actually agree with Stoida!
I think we can all appreciate the explanations from Ed and Melin and even Jill and Lynn and I was respecting your own opinion too Jenny, that is until I got to your sly, back-handed back stabbing (“I hired her over the objections of others; I let affection take the place of reason. My mistake, and I have paid the price”)
I read the thread and my personal opinion was that both parties were to blame for it getting out of hand, however, it didn’t seem bad enough to pull - but what is my opinion? It is sad and pathetic that such a minor disagreement turned into something so nasty, especially with supposed adults.
I would love for Melin to stay and even if she isn’t reinstated as a moderator, I would beg her to continue posting (that is, if anyone is left after this little circus). However, I think the damage to the SD continues to be made by remarks such as Tuba’s.
Things keep sinking further and further into the shitcan. You can’t blame Melin for this one, Ed, you can blame the continous digs from your staff (i.e. Jill getting one last word in and Tuba’s public dig).
>^,^<
KITTEN
Coarse and violent nudity. Occasional language.
Ed, I don’t know if you have done this, but I would advise you to do this immediately if you have not. Write an AUP specifically for the moderators, it can be publicly posted or private between the moderators, but write it, and then abide by what is on it. State clearly what actions are and are not allowed, and just what the lines are for moderators. If something not covered by the AUPmod comes up, then add it to the AUPmod and start dealing with it then. But don’t wait until something happens then say, ‘It was against my policy.’ that too easily smacks of favoritism and lack of consistancy. To much of what has happened here seems to be of the retroactive rules varity.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
—The dragon observes
You have much to learn, grasshopper. . .
Rich
TubaDiva wrote:
That is an incorrect statement. I know that there are real people doing the volunteer work around here; I don’t expect them to become saints in the instant they are given the Magic Password.
I have no problems with moderators arguing, or even fighting, whether with users or among themselves. All I ask is that they do their jobs well, which Melin certainly did.
Putting that aside for now.
Ed Zotti wrote:
Translated into plain English: “We fire who we want, so fuck y’all.”
Thanks, Ed. You make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It’s so nice to know that you don’t need to make the users happy. You all are doing so well that you can afford to piss off a few hundred of Cecil’s most dedicated fans. You don’t really need any of us to visit the website, read the columns, or even buy the damn books.
Admit it: you people really screwed the pooch on this one.
The only thing I have to add to this thread is that I’ll miss Melin as a moderator. I thought she was doing a good job.
Shadowfox
Another thing.
TubaDiva also wrote:
[quote]
A resignation was tendered . . . and it was accepted. Hence, it was by mutual consent.**
In a word, bullshit. Just last month I was asked to leave my job; I was given the choice of resigning or being fired. The fact that I technically resigned does not mean that leaving was my choice.
Another thing.
TubaDiva also wrote:
[quote]
A resignation was tendered . . . and it was accepted. Hence, it was by mutual consent.**
In a word, bullshit. Just last month I was asked to leave my job; I was given the choice of resigning or being fired. The fact that I technically resigned does not mean that leaving was my choice.
Oh Tuba … Do you even see how uncalled for that was, dear?
Suze - “Dammit, I’m staying OUT of the middle” - anne