I’ll agree 30 days is maybe a little harsh, and banning doesn’t seem called for, but Tuba seems pretty stable and above reproach. (From what I know of her. YMMV) 
I agree that vanilla didn’t deliberately ambush anyone by luring them here.
However, and I agree with both Tuba and pastorjc on this (not that my non-mod opinion counts for anything, but…), the fact that vanilla sent a link to that thread to the subject of it without trying to work things out in the Meat World screams passive-aggressive to me, and it’s beyond the pale for how this board works. The Admins and Mods have a long history of trying to keep the boards and the Reader out of members’ personal disputes with non-board members (and even with other board members, at times). They go so far as to have a public disclaimer denying responsibility for anything that goes on at a DopeFest, and they’ve previously come down on members who reveal other members’ email communications maliciously in a thread.
It’s all of a piece, and the fact that vanilla kind of stumbled into a problem in her slightly ditzy way rather than deliberately calculating some kind of evil plan doesn’t enter into it.
Just to be clear, here: this is sarcasm, right?
I have to clarify, because the whole rest of this thread and the other one make absolutely no sense to me. Where in the hell is TubaDiva coming from? This message board is on the internet. Everyone has equal access to it.
Nothing I read in that thread indicated that she “dragged him in from the outside.” She sent her pastor a link to a thread expressing her grievances. Just one of many other threads where people vent about other people anonymously. She used that post to explain to someone what were her problems with that church, the attitudes of some of the congregation, and why she was leaving.
Links to this message board are accessible from anyone. He didn’t have to sign onto the board. He didn’t have to make post after post in that thread. By all signs, he’s a perfectly capable adult who chose to go to the board, chose to read the post, and chose to respond to it. I want someone to point out anything in that thread that indicates otherwise.
I know I do that kind of thing constantly when I’m having conversations with people – you want to know exactly how I feel about topic X? I wrote it all down already; here’s the link. What if someone I disagree with wants to come on the board and post his opinions? Is that despicable behavior for me as well?
Sheesh. Closing the thread would’ve been enough. A banning, with a veiled threat of “longer than a month” is drastic. And adding in this self-righteous, sanctimonious little bit is just nasty and uncalled for.
This is bullshit.
And I’d like to add my own disclaimer that I love vanilla to pieces, but this whole situation really is just perfectly her.
Oh, no. Seriously, after we rid ourselves of posters like Collounsbury, lissener, Zenster and vanilla, the closer we’ll be to a utopian SDMB where Reeder and [bAldebaran** can post in peace.
And yet you remain, like a pimple on our torment…
What she did was inappropriate. I don’t think she thought it through, and I hope she’ll come back after the month is up. (Vanilla, make sure you come back, hon!) She just forgot that the line between online and real world sometimes should not be blurred. This was definitely one of those times.
She may have sent the pastor the link because she didn’t anticipate that he’d post to it, and, as far as I can tell, the Pit rant wasn’t about him, it was about some other woman, but still, it was so, so, so, so, so VERY foolish to bring someone from her Real World into Our World.
Because, you know, these two planes of existence shouldn’t always intertwine (except at Dopefests, of course, but that’s completely voluntary :)). I mean, sure, these two planes of existence (the Dope and the Real World) are okay to intertwine when you want to point one of your real world friends to a great discussion on, I don’t know, sushi, but NOT when you are trying to deal with personal gripes. It’s just a really, really, really, really, really, bad idea. (And of course, once you reveal the Dope to a Real World friend, you are forever going to have to watch what you post because you know they might be reading.)
Not only that, but Pastor Jim, not knowing how things work here, revealed some personal information about himself and vanilla (first name, etc.). Major crossing over of Real World and Our World! I’m not blaming Pastor Jim for doing this—he’s probably clueless as to how Our World works. But see, when vanilla invited him to look, she risked the chance that he could do anything, like maybe even reveal her whole name (which he didn’t, but he could have). Or he could have forwarded the link to a whole slew of vanilla’s friends (or enemies) and they could have made things really messy for her.
Such a bad, bad, bad, bad, idea. But I don’t think she’ll ever do it again. She just didn’t think it through.
Let me break this down to the 2 paragraphs and try to explain where I stand.
1st. Yes, everyone has access to it. Along with the other multi-trillion sites on the net. The chances he would stumble onto this site, find the boards, find the forum and find the individual post are slim at best. Even if he had, what are the chances he would know it was her?
2nd. She didn’t drag him in here, but she did offer the lure. Why not instead of linking to the OP, copy and paste the message in the e-mail? In addition it apparently wasn’t even the person she originally sent the link to. No matter how he got the link, it shows why the link should have never been included in the first place.
I have to strongly agree with others that have said it’s best to keep message board ID’s from RL contacts unless you want them reading everything you post. It’s very easy to let out some things on a message board you would never tell those you know personally.
I agree. At its worst, what she did was dumb. I’ve done dumb stuff too.
BTW, I remember a while back she had a changed attitude sort of, she said she needed to be more harsh (not the word she used) toward sin. I remember a lot of people got really pissed off. I guess that situation got resolved?
One other thought about the first name. In the thread we’re talking about vanilla in post #23 gave her name before the pastor got involved.
Yeah. And God help you if you click on her home page, duffer. :rolleyes:
She didn’t send the e-mail to the pastor, she sent it to a totally different person who forwarded it to the pastor.
Overreaction city – on all counts. Here’s how I see it. The Pitting was justified; the email was not, nor was the forwarding of said email to the pastor himself. The pastor’s response to the thread was justified. The reaction to it, in large part, was not. The locking of the thread and the warning were justified. The suspension/potential banning was – and is – not.
I don’t generally take great issue with the actions of the mods; I know that making judgement calls in ambiguous situations is their (unpaid and largely thankless) job. Still, though…any chance of rethinking this one, Tuba et. al.? It seems over the top to me, any way you slice it.
I think that’s the best summation of it.
Tuba… honey, sweetie, lovely darling… Maybe you did the right thing by suspending her. Well, frankly, it’s right by definition, since that sort of thing is your call. But your melodramatic scolding was over the top.
Edlyn and I both know how kind and generous you are. We still treasure your gift to our grandson’s guest book. We know how gracious you can be. But on the other extreme, you can have a tendency to kill a fly with a sledge hammer. As someone who has been the recipient of your “I’m so horrified at your despicable behavior” rant, I can tell you that you carry it way too far, piercing into the marrow when only a mild slap is necessary.
Vanilla doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. She got a little carried away maybe, but frankly, everything you said to her could be said to you, and for the same reasons. You took your place at your bully pulpit, used your special powers to make a last-word post that she could not respond to, and then proceded to bash her into a pulp. You played “Let’s you and them fight” with her by giving her a public ass-whipping in front of us, her peers.
The fact is that you are not a horrible person. And neither is Vanilla. This is one you should reconsider all around. All the best to you and yours.
Safe to assume this in reference to post #30? I didn’t see anything about the SDMB there. What was the rolleyes for?
For not knowing jack shit about her.
And I respond to both points with the same question: what did she have to hide? Why is it so important to keep the SDMB safe from The Outsiders? As far as I can tell, vanilla didn’t feel she had to keep her activity on the SDMB a secret, because she wasn’t saying anything on this message board that she wouldn’t say to people in real life. I don’t see anything “foolish” about that.
I have to say I find this whole insistence on keeping the “Real World” and the “Doper World” separate, to be very troubling. It strikes me as two-faced. Of course there are common sense rules that you take – don’t put identifiable information on here like your street address and phone number and such, because you have no idea who’s going to be reading it.
But I thought everyone understood that goes both ways – it’s not just strangers who could be reading your posts, but people you know as well (although much less likely). And even still, there are real people behind every one of these screen names, even the ones you haven’t met in real life. When somebody says something nasty on here, he’s being nasty to a real person. And when he says something friendly, he’s being friendly to a real person. I feel like I’ve been pretty open and honest and forthcoming on these boards; is everyone else saying one thing on here and then turning around and saying something else as soon as they turn off the computer?
It goes without saying that the moderator’s decision stands on this one, and my opinion counts for exactly jack and shit. But it still bugs the hell out of me. Not just for vanilla’s sake, but for what it says about this message board.
I don’t feel she did anything wrong. It’s a public fucking message board.
vanilla’s pastor came here of his own volition. Some people made this place inhospitable – EddyTeddyFreddy, I’m speaking to you – and an utter disgrace.
Does Reason win out over Faith? Are you going to decide, Casual Reader?
This suspension seems hurried, inaccurate and ill judged.
Par for the course of late I’m afraid.
I really do think that the admin sometimes go for a “Ready, Shoot, Aim” policy here.
The reason given for the banning is wrong and the personal insult at the end is uncalled for.
We pay but still get amateurs making rash and incorrect decisions.
Well, at least SolGrundy was able to expand and show me where the other side of opinion was coming from. Sometimes it takes more than a toss-off sentence.
Thanks, Sol. You put it in a way where I can see your point and think I agree with you now. The problem I had was baiting someone to hit a board not knowing how “we” are. Of course it’s acceptable to link to a post. The post-link problem I had was that he was shown what was posted, and expected to leave it be without responding somehow. Human nature comes into play somewhere, no?
Thinking more about this, I’m starting to slide in my support of vanilla. It’s one thing to rant in the Pit (God knows I’ve done it enough), but it’s another to do it here to get it off your chest, then forward it to the people associated with it. It’s not like I e-mailed my Pit thread to my MiL about the turkey. Imagine if she signed up to reply to me? Better to go face to face if the Pittee is actually going to see it.
I’ve had a few beers, so if that doesn’t clear it up lemme know and I’ll do what I can. 