I agree with what wring just wrote.
Well played, Ed, and many thanks to you, Jerry and the teeming IT millions (thousands? hundreds? dozens? um, one?) for all you do to keep the SDMB humming along. We really appreciate it, even if we don’t say so nearly often enough.
I know where you’re coming from, Ed. Before reading this thread I read Jerry’s current update thread and was saddened by the cheap shots therein. Permit me to make this
Suggestion
Whenever a post that is beyond the pale appears (at least in ATMB, where there is no reason to be anything but civil), replace the text with some formula like “Offensive/Impertinent Post Deleted” and a link to a Sticky explaining the policy. Do this for awhile and most folks will get the idea. Rather Draconian, perhaps, but sometimes one has to bring out the big stick just to get people’s attention. Sad.
(Now, if we could just figure out a way to squelch the partisan hijacks of political threads in Great Debates. . . .)
Well, I can see both sides.
This is Ed’s/Cecil’s board. One of the Forums has always been “Comments on Cecil’s Columns”. The complaints about Ed starting a forum “to advertise his book” were out of line, IMHO. That being said, there were some legit questions there.*
Mod critism: There’s two different types here:
“Hey, Mod XXXX, your call here was a bad call and I think you were wrong” is perfectly reasonable. Mods are human (mostly:p) and all us humans make mistakes. Back in the old days here, it was hard to get a Mod to admit they did/could make a mistake. Things are much better now.
“All the Mods and staff are incompent jackbooted nazi thugs!!!”- This is just plain being a jerk, IMHO.
Same as complaints about Jerry and such- “Hey, why can’t I search?” is a valid complaint/question. “Jerry is an ignorant hampster-fucker” 
is just being a jerk.
In general, I respect the staff here, especially for what they are not paid. Good bunch of dudes. 
Thanks, Ed, for this thread.
Thank you for what you said, and how you said it, Ed.
Not sure we should still be referring to you as “Little Ed”, since it was big of you to step back, breathe, and handle this in the manner you have. Your recognition of the vibrant and living, dare I say, nature of the SDMB is appreciated all around.
I’ve already posted my thanks to Jerry elsewhere, but he’s deserving of multiple kudos- so thanks so much, Jerry !!!
Cartooniverse
Did Ed post in the NSFW thread and I missed it?!?!
Thank you for your reconsideration, Ed, and thanks to Jerry for all his hard work too.
Do I understand correctly that this is the final word?
Mama Bear Zotti went a bit over the top while gallantly defending his staff against base attacks. After his apology he secured a sufficient number of acceptances and thus we can safely leave it at that and in a few days we will pretend that it never happened.
There are no long-term grievances that might have precipitated the problems and that might be worth addressing.
Ed, you run a for-profit (even if it’s a small profit) board, aiming to keep a civil tone, and a democratic way about things. And you do it with moderation–not the attitude of “agree with my ideas or find another board!” where members basically are cronies that agree with the board sponsors. Maintaining this fine balance of income, civility, freedom of thought, and all on a well-oiled, hampster powered machine is a thankless job. It’s been said before, but I’ll add my voice to the choir: thank you!. I know you and the rest of the mods are human. And IIRC, PT Barnum said, “You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” Props to you for doing the damn best that you have been all along.
And Jerry, thank you too. I personally have firsthand knowledge that the guy works hard and gives a damn. Normally I wouldn’t admit this, but he’s called me in the past. On the telephone!. I had a subscription problem, and after going back and forth via email with the mods, he called me to figure out what was going on. So, he does give a damn. But he’s only one dude with smart withering resources under increasing demand. I thank you as well, Jerry.
That being said, these Boards are important to me. I learn factual stuff from them, I laugh at the humor herein. These boards provide me one of the few comforts I have when I’m deployed, and these boards introduced me to my then-girlfriend, now-lovely wife. I’ve weathered other storms, I’ll weather this one too. [sub] These boards are important–I love my Nawth Chucka![/sub]
Ed, Jerry, thank you for keeping such a high-brow place, open to everyone’s voice. Thank you for also allowing the free dissent and vitrol necessary (a la the Pit). Thank you for this place, and allowing it to become what it has. While it ain’t perfect, it’s a damn close second. I will continue to maintain my Charter Membership until it becomes completely unbearable or no longer serves the purpose of providing a place where people can discuss factual ideas, and engage in thought provoking debate. This minor . . . ‘hiccup’, this ain’t nothing. Slow servers, limits on searching, they ain’t nothing. It’s the gathering of smart, funny people here that is everything. And I’ll stand up to be counted with them [sub]even though I’m not that smart or funny[/sub] to at least keep it going just a little longer.
Ed, thank you for the ‘cease fire!’ call, and your well measured reconsideration–it’s a good call. Jerry, thanks for kicking the hamster’s pants.
Tripler
I wouldn’t normally admit Jerry makes individual phone calls, but I wanted to show that he’s willing to reach out and solve any problem.
Who is Chris Webber?
Basketball player. When he was playing college ball (at Michigan), he called a time out in the championship game when his team was out of time outs, resulting in a technical foul and killing any chance of a victory for his team.
Thanks. I’d googled him, but the time out story had escaped him.
Thank you.
THAT, I would think, would only make things worse-everyone would go nuts trying to find out what happened, and accuse the staff of trying to hide it.
Yeah, I agree. Posting something with the offensive text deleted and explaining that the deleted text led to a banning, and then saying YOU BETTER NOT DO THIS, is a bad bad idea.
It speaks nothing but well of Ed that he should have become so angry over the treatment of his staff. It speaks even better of him that he relented on the bannings he made in the heat of that anger.
And thank you, Jerry, for all the work you put in to the upgrade, and the care you took that posters were inconvenienced as little as possible during the process.
Thank you Ed. I understand where you are coming from.
I’m an IT project manager, and I was seeing red from the comments…which reminded me far too much of far too many project meetings I’ve been in - where I’m trying to manage an overworked, stretched too thin IT Technical Professional, a budget that got cut before we even got started, and a project priority rating of anything less than URGENT - and the stakeholders - who are important - start complaining - without seeing that what they are accomplishing by whining is putting the project at risk - deciding to cancel the whole thing due to complications, risk, scope creep, schedule delays as you try and address the complaints.
Yeah…perhaps a little close to home.
What Dangerosa said. (Except I’m just a programmer, not a manager.)
For the sake of learning, Ed, let’s review the chain of events.
Stickies were placed, somewhere in spring (date uncertain), explaining a two-tiered membership model, a server upgrade, and other good stuff, slated to occur ~ June/July. Those months arrived, and passed, without comment from TPTB. Folks began to question/bitch, and the stickies disappeared. A month, perhaps month and a half later, Jerry announced the weekend shutdown. It didn’t go without a glitch, which wasn’t his fault.
After various board performance problems arose, and much angst was expressed, you reacted with punitive measures.
From a management standpoint, let’s analyze this. I was taught that when you realize you won’t meet a commitment you’ve made to customers, you communicate with them immediately. You must have known that the June/July date was unachievable somewhere along the line, and at that point should have posted an update. Human nature is to speculate, in the absence of good information. Of late, you’ve heaped praise on the administration, but in truth, you placed the admins between the rock and a hard spot, via your refusal to speak to the masses and address complaints. Had you spoken to the issue before the previously stated rollout date, explaining IT staff reductions, and other difficulties, we wouldn’t have been happy, but would have respected your candor. Instead, your silence merely served to fuel anger.
I hope you take this missive to heart, for the sake of those members present and those to come. Good day.
As I think about it, there probably are any number of ways such a procedure could quickly turn to worms.
I sure wish there were some way to encourage civility; but at my age, you’d think I’d’ve grasped the impossibility of legislating “morality”!
Interesting thoughts on the future of the SDMB. Thanks for sharing, Ed.
Is there a more appropriate place we can comment/discuss?
I agree with danceswithcats. I accept that there were problems and the masses were getting unnecessarily obnoxious (to put it extremely mildly), hence what happened a few days ago. BUT prior to the announcement of the amnesia weekend there seemed to be a wall of silence from TPTB about what was happening with the server and software. The standard response from the mods seemed to be “we don’t know any more than you do”. If Jerry, Ed, et. al. don’t have time to communicate regularly with the masses (no implied criticism - I’m sure they have a lot on their plates) could they at least keep the mods informed so the mods can say something more than “we don’t know”? Walls of silence don’t promote respect.