eris, you summed it up perfectly. More people should leave to make that statement. The mods and admins have ruined this board.
No.
And you’re far from the only person who increasingly feels this way.
One more vote for “resign or fire.” One more person acknowleding it won’t make a difference.
Respectfully, if that’s what you got from erl’s post, you might not have read it particularly carefully.
erl, I understand your decision and the reasoning behind it. I don’t fully agree, but be assured I’ve valued your writing for years. Hail Eris.
All hail Dis-cord-eeee-ayyyyyyyyy!
Sorry to see you go eris, I hear what you’re saying.
Well, bless your heart, could you possibly twist what I said around any worse? Let me repeat for ya, hon:
- On matters of policy, I trust the folks who made the policy to decide what the policy is that they made. This is like how I trust a baker to know the ingredients in his cake. Only a fool second-guesses the baker.
1a) I may, however, tell the baker what he should have baked, and I may tell the policymaker what the policy should be, if I think I know better. This leads us to: - On matters of ethics, I make my own decisions.
In this case, I think that as a matter of policy Tuba made a serious but not fatal error, because that’s what the folks who make policy tell us. It’s absurd to tell them they’re wrong.
As a matter of ethics, however, I’ve come to a different conclusion. I think what she did was perfectly acceptable because I see little or nothing unethical about it.
Got that? Or should I find a third way to say it?
Frankly, though, I’ll be happy to see you leave, if that’s the kind of chicanery you resort to instead of engaging people’s points honestly.
Daniel
I think they are letting it continue because of the real shitstorm that they think will ensue if they close it.
Unless that “fool” didn’t like the cake. He does not take the baker’s word that it tastes good even if he disagrees.
Saying “no” and accepting the consequences is pretty much the only power we really have. Congress makes laws, not I, but I sometimes think they are wrong. Judges set precidents, not I, but I sometimes think they are wrong. You would be trivially correct to say that Congress says what’s legal and what isn’t. They do: Congress writes the laws. But if that were the end of the matter, would it be a democracy? The Reader makes the policy. If I disagree, do I just say, “Well, not my place, here’s my cash”? The Reader has made me a customer; is that a good way to behave as a customer? It is not a matter of the rather narrow issue of fact that the Reader has made some decision. It is whether their position in the matter of being a policy-setter is in itself good enough to overrule your own sense of what is proper behavior. I can hardly see any other way to approach the issue, though not for your lack of trying, it is true.
If I say no, will that then authoritatively settle the matter for you, even if you think differently that I didn’t really understand? So hard to tell.
Left hand…
If the baker tells you that he never puts chemical x into his bread, and he does, are you then justified to make a value judgement? Or if the baker tells you that it’s all okay, you can’t judge whether or not he’s been consistent? People who set policy can’t break it?
Let’s say chemical x made the bread taste nasty, and was obviously the wrong thing to put in the mix. But because the guy who makes the bread tells you, you figure it’s peachy. Is this good?
Heh–that’s pretty much what I thought, too. Notice that Blue Ruin kept repeating that people were babyrapers in it, and they didn’t even warn him. I suspect they’re quietly waiting for folks to chill, which may or may not happen.
Personally, I suspect that in a month, once people’s egos aren’t so wrapped up in defending the position they’ve taken, a lot of people will conclude that this isn’t nearly as big a deal as they thought it was. A copse looks like a forest when you’re in the middle.
Daniel
And how was this not covered under point 1a?
Indeed. If you decide that you’ve got to leave because of what you see as an ethical transgression on someone’s part, that’s your decision and I’ll respect it.
What pisses me the fuck off is you calling me a sycophant because you disagree with me, and then twisting my words around to make it look as if I’m ceding ethical ground to someone else. That’s a shitty thing to say about me.
And Finn, you too need to reread 1a): it should answer your questions completely.
Daniel
Perhaps a bit of clarity is in order here after all. The board admin has said that Tuba was in violation of the policy. THAT’s the policy decision I’m accepting.
If I wrote the policy, I would’ve written it in a way that allowed for what Tuba did. To that extent, I think the policy is flawed, as it forbids action that I deem acceptable.
But I accept the policymakers’ accounting of their policy.
Clear?
Daniel
1a does nothing for me.
A policy was set.
A policy was broken.
These facts are not in dispute.
It does, however, disturb me that an admin can deliberately flout the rules and only get a slap on the wrist. As a poster I am expected to obey each and every rule. I think this requirement should be as tough if not tougher for an admin. Especially if an admin admits, even as they’re breaking the rules, that they’re breaking the rules. Breaking a rule by accident is one thing. Knowingly and deliberately breaking a rule is quite another.
Or, to put it another way: I have to accept the ToS in order to post here. And that’s cool. If, however, with deliberate action and clear forethought I broke the rules, I wouldn’t expect to be coddled, let alone given a position of responsibility. Especially not if I didn’t clearly state and realize that I had done something wrong. Admins should be held to standards at least as strict as I am.
Or, yet another way: part of my contractual obligation to the ChiReader is to follow the rules I signed up for. Part of the ChiReader’s contractual obligation is to follow through on their promises to me (eg. privacy). Whether or not these promises are ‘good’ ones, they’ve still been made to me. For an admin to disregard, flagrantly I might add, the ChiReader’s promises to me is unprofessional and irresponsible.
I have nothing, at all, against Tuba. She’s a smart person and a good person. But I have grave misgivings about those in power who do not follow their own rules. I have even graver misgivings about those in power who laugh as they break their own rules.
Nice–and unwinnable–double-bind there. Thanks. Much of this thread has been ugly in spirit, not to mention with some wild speculation that would boggle hardcore conspiracy theorists. Real Area 51 and Illuminati territory, some of it.
But this thread also:
- Is properly placed for content
- Involves issues of legimate concern for Dopers
- Contains some valuable feedback and perspective
It’s being kept open because the kernels of thoughtful input matter more than the reflexive spewing, and no other reason. But as the old saying goes, if one is a hammer all problems take the form of nails. YMMV.
Veb
Okay, the first sentence quoted completely contradicts the last sentence quoted. The whole POINT of 1a) is that you get to make your own decision about the wisdom of the policy.
Perhaps our disagreement is over whether the policy contained specific details of what would happen when the policy was broken?
My understanding is that it did not; therefore, when I say that I trust the admins to describe the policy accurately, Tuba’s non-banning isn’t a factor in that. I’m specifically and solely saying that I trust them when they say she broke the policy.
If there’s a place in the policy where it details the consequences of breaking the policy, please show it to me; at that point, I’ll evaluate what the admins did and whether it was in accordance with what they said they’d do.
Absent that, though, the disagreement is not with the policy, but rather with a response to violation of policy. Which, again, I respect your right to disagree on that.
I don’t respect your* right to call me a sycophant because I happen to think their response was overly harsh.
Are we agreed, then, on the terms of our disagreement?
Please understand that after Lynn’s post in this thread, it was kinda surprising that it remained open to a lot of us. Especially since the admins seemed to have asked folks last month not to discuss details of this situation any further. Obviously that has changed, but your post is the first official acknowledgment I’ve seen of that change.
Daniel
*“Your” in the impersonal sense here; I don’t think you specifically have called me a sycophant, unlike Erislover.
One more note, and then I’m gone for the night: Tuba to the best of my knowledge never admitted she was breaking any rules. I read her posts as saying, “The rules that apply to me at SDMB don’t apply to me here,” and that’s accurate. Different rules apply in different places.
Two acknowledgments with that:
- I understand that she probably violated LJ’s rules. If LJ bans her, I’ve got no problem with that.
- I think it was pretty unwise to include the “For the Straight Dope” kicker on her post over there. Unwise !=unethical, but it was unwise.
Daniel
No… I understand that it did not. I don’t want Tuba banned, either. My point of disagreement with you, it seems, is that I believe that the deliberate breaking of a rule by an admin speaks to a lack of professionalism and judgement.
I agree with that.
What I do not agree with is that an admin can deliberately break their own rules and then stay an admin.
It’s not in the policy, per se. It’s more a question of propriety.
I cannot trust those in power if they can knowingly break their own rules with little to no actual consequences.
I’m glad of that. I’ve tried to be civil in this thread.
If the disagreement centers around what to do with an admin who knowingly and deliberately breaks their own rules, then yes, that’s our point of disagreement.
I guess this is another point of disagreement.
The ChiReader’s privacy policy makes no mention of particular forums. It doesn’t say that they can’t give out personal info here, but it’s cool anywhere else.
Warn him for what? Do you think that’s the worst thing that’s ever been posted in the Pit without getting a warning?
It was not classic “hate speech” (without going into that tangle of definitions) and it was clearly intended as simply insult rather than an actual accusation against his targets. I think this demonstrated the poverty of his opinions, but it hardly set off alarms of “jerk” behavior. (“His” emphasized because I do not lump together the opinions of everyone who has expressed opposition to the Adminstration’s actions.)
Pretty much the main problem I had with the response is that everywhere else I’ve hung out (either as a regular user or as a mod/admin), this would be a shoot-first-ask-questions-later situation. Autoban… e-mail the admin if you’ve got a problem with it. So I couldn’t see how to get from ban to a 30-day suspension.
Read this post by Lynn Bodoni. Posting someone’s name and address is not a banning offense in and of itself on the SDMB. Hmmm. That puts a whole different spin on it.
Rather than reducing the punishment for an admin, etc. etc. and all that stuff that smacks of cronyism… the admin got a more severe punishment than a regular user. I might still feel the response was insufficient, but at least I can see they’re going in the right direction.
For some reason this paragraph brought to mind an image of children doing the “I’M NOT TOUCHING YOU! I’M NOT TOUCHING YOU!” gag. Technicality-based defenses usually don’t work well in the real world. Works great for CYA in court, though.
Also, people who find ways to break the rules without really breaking the rules are not often the type chosen or retained in positions of trust and authority. On a continuum of “Does this behaviour break the rules?” all the authority figures need to be clustered out around “Not even remotely.”… not dancing a jig on “Well, technically…” Regular users (or technical staff that have admin/mod access merely to do their jobs) don’t need to be held to that level of sustained performance.
Why? Because they set the example for other users to follow.