Well said…and that goes for all the mods, admins, and folks behind the scenes who make this place great.
First of all, Tom I did say that I was apparently wrong as to why he was banned.
Second, I did say I was trying to find out why he was banned and that all I saw was the link. Which BTW I don’t have a problem with. BUT it does link photos.
Third, I never claimed or even thought he linked anything questionable on purpose.
I was originally hoping that if this was the reason he might not have caught the links that I found. It really doesn’t matter since this was not the reason.
AND finally…I wanted to know if this would be a bannable offense because I want to make damned sure that **I don’t make this mistake **.
Sorry if you took it the wrong way. 
I hate to see anyone banned, esp. after being here so long.
Reminds me of some old threads I’ve seen, sad.
Just to chime in about Coll - I was very, very disappointed when he was banned the second time, but it never crossed my mind that it was a politicial (=“anti-left”) decision. The build up of him going off the deep end again was totally apparent. In fact, the fact that Coll was allowed back after the first banning demonstrated there was no bias, and that it is about behaviour not belief.
Ditto december. The fact that it took the mods and admins such a long time, with the proper warnings, to make what was obviously a difficult though (as I understand it from their recent posts on the subject) somewhat long-desired decision) is ample decision that they’re not “anti-right”.
If anything, I believe I got upset in a thread by C K once because I thought he was being extraordinarily decembric, and I even thought to myself at this time that the reason december hadn’t been banned was because C K supported his views. How very wrong and unfair and paranoid that suspicion was of me. Sorry C K.
Collounsbury (and I speak as someone who loves his intelligence, knowledge and acerbity, and follows his LJ postings) utterly deserved to be banned.
December (and I speak as someone who hated his ignorance and insidiously bigoted style) utterly deserved to be banned.
Anyone suggesting board administration bias in either case is just fucked in the head.
For what it’s worth, I never accused the mods of bias. I was quite explicit on that. The point I was trying to make was that what December did was no different than what a lot of other posters do, but the difference was that December’s sloppy cites or extreme opinions were attacked viciously while other posters get away with the same thing. The continual attacks elevated the whole issue to the point where the mods decided they needed to step in.
My point is that if December had used the same tactics in the service of opinions that are more politically acceptable around here, the reaction would have been much more muted, and the mods would not have had to act.
Huh? Sam, your first sentence and last sentence are at odds.
On a lighter note, if you insert <any banned poster with 5,000+ posts> in place of “December” in your post, it commemorates them all.
I hesitate to ask what western Iowans might then consider ‘sophisticated’, but only because my eyes are crossed.
So anyway, notwithstanding the habits of western Iowan nuns, if ever one chanced across a giant-rubber-mallet-whacked-around-the-ears style hint, the first sentence (above) would be it. Thus, and after a quick shufti, we can now also consider:
- very ‘collective responsibility’, but with a manly, paternal hand overseeing proceedings. So although Guadere offered the first explanation of the banning (and thus putting herself in the line of fire), kudos should correctly extent to the entire panel, bollocks imaginary or hairy.
Kudos to all, then !
Oh and Jodi, you prairie wimmin sure talk preddy. Be mighty glad ta help ya our ya swivet, jis don rightly knows what that ess ?
Maybes I needs take me that thar shufti . . .
It took testicular fortitude to make the decision. Well done.
If December were to start a live journal, would we be able to post links to it in multiple threads?
If what he was discussing was relevant to the discussion at hand, and provided it wasn’t “posting by proxy”, I don’t see why not. December continually posted links to blogs, even though they were rarely relevant to the discussion at hand.
Then what’s this thread for?
The OP was directed at Gaudere, correct?
See, I haven’t “forgotten” that a male admin made the decision. It was stated a couple times in this thread - including by the OP - either that Gaudere made the decision or played a direct role in the situation. Or did you “forget” the OP itself?
Oh dear, all this celelebration and hugging to express gratitude for the excommunication of a long term poster makes me sad.
And the continued charges against those who claim the banning is a result of left-wing leaning of this board’s membership suggesting that they really mean the board administration was opposed to right wing ideas is patently bullshit.
For a long time I admired the patience of the board as they refused to succumb to the numerous december haters. But it wasn’t long ago that I myself realized that december was not making the least bit effort to make the administration’s task any easier, and that he really crossed the line with the Bali bombing OP. It was the second thread in a short time devoted to castigating anti-war protesting which is clearly a hot button issue in this left leaning community.There was no reason other than pissing people off to start that thread.
I’d like to congratulate the administration on their admirable and just way in how they handled the whole december saga. And my money is on Dex as the last holdout.
Mine is on either UncleBeer or Ukulele Ike, who, in previous discussions on board ideology, were mentioned as being ideologically closest to december.
What might be an even more interesting bet would be to guess which of the original (1999) moderators will be the last to go. It may take years, though.
I recall offering him a LiveJournal code once and being told that the offer was “mindless December bashing”.
**dantheman ** - Looks like you’re more on the ball than I was last night. Looking like I erred in sifting through the welter of information. Somewhere I read this partial quote from Gaudere:
“I have reviewed december’s email to me and found it unconvincing regarding adequate justification for deliberate misattribution of a quote, therefore his thread remains closed. In Great Debates I do not wish posters to be required to verify the source of every quote; there should be a reasonable presumption of truthfulness on the part of posters. If everyone pulled crap like this latest OP, deliberately misleading and conflating quotes so that posters have to independently verify the source and content of each quote in order to have an accurate response, Great Debates would become enormously unrewarding to debate in. Who said what and when and why and where DOES matter, and deceiving people about those sorts of things makes you a poster I don’t want in GD.”
I’d assumed that quote was the point at which he was banned. But it now seems she posted that a week before his banning here, and obviously in connection with another thread (also it wasn’t the full quote).
As best I can tell, the first public comment by a Mod/Admin after he was banned seems to come at 06:41 PM on 08-29-2003 by C K Dexter Haven half way down this page: WHOA!
Conclusion: I got it wrong and Gaudere isn’t identifiable as the Mod/Admin who made the ultimate decision, or the first to explain the decision after the fact.
As a general proposition, I think she still has bollocks - just, in this case, they were swung in rhythm with the other staff against a particularly flabby rump of ignorance.
And I think that’s quite enough.
It makes sense if you parse the quoted phrase slightly differently. 
Yeah, Dexter was the first to explain the reasoning - which, of course, they don’t always do. Nor are they obliged to do so.
It’s tough to say who made the actual decision, but my uneducated guess would be that it was about as unanimous as possible. That is, I think when most people are banned, an Admin doesn’t consult every single other moderator or administrator before doing so. (For example, when a person comes back as a sock or is a troll.) Those decisions are no-brainers, for the most part. But when a poster has been around for a long time and is widely known on here, it’s probably wise for the authorities to check with each other so that they may come to a consensus.
Either way, banning a well-known poster is never simple. There are always a lot of people whining that it should never have been done, a lot of people whinin that it should have been done sooner, and a lot of people whining that there are too many people whining and that we should all just let people do their duties. 
In short, it’s a headache, and it’s not a decision that’s made quickly or without cause. Or alone.
Who were the original moderators?
I don’t really know. I know some came over when the place moved from AOL, but I’m not sure how many came over directly after that (I think it was March 1999, but I wasn’t here).