Thanks Quasi. I’m glad you’ve spoken to him.
Just for the record, as Board Owner of G’Dope, I’d just like to clarify that that board is neutral territory, and we have a policy of not discussing any SDMB moderator or Administrator actions over there, so you’re all welcome to go there of course, but don’t expect any vitriol regarding this incident. Heck, we don’t even have a Pit. We used to have a Slight Hole in th’ Ground, but I think it caved in, or something.
I think this goes back to county saying that axe handles should be used on those who cross picket lines. Zenster didn’t cook “axe handles” up out of thin air.
That would make sense, except you quoted EarlyOut. Why would you be replying to me while quoting what he said?
Either way, sorry for seeming snarky.
I have never participated in any thread about banning. Frankly, I don’t usually care who gets banned, or why. I do occasionally notice, and sometimes wonder, but rarely enough to do any searching to find out.
This one startled the heck out of me. There are plenty of junior mods here - Zenster happened to point out that he was doing it, when he typed the words (junior mod hat on) and (/junior mod hat off). I see people junior modding all the time, the difference is they don’t say “Hey, I’m gonna pretend to be a mod here and refresh you on the rules!” How many posts do you suppose you would find NOT by Zenster that say, “Rule number one here is don’t be a jerk and you’re violating it!”?
As far as the threat is concerned: I see plenty of posts where people say, “Boy, if you did (whatever) to me, I’d kick your ass!” or words to that effect. In the cited post, Zenster was replying to county’s assertion that he (county) would beat someone with an axe handle - the difference? County said “if someone” and Zenster said “if YOU”. If it wasn’t taken as a literal threat - and personally, I think much more of Lynn’s ability to tell the difference than she exhibited - then I am left with the conclusion that the banning was already decided for some entirely different reason and someone was waiting for an opportunity to exercise it.
I will freely acknowledge that there has been more than one occasion where a post of Zenster’s has made me mutter, “go back, GO BACK, you’re going over the line!” but - in every instance of that I have seen, he was quick to apologize and acknowledge his mistake. Granted, I don’t read everything here, so maybe he was a jerk one too many times - but I’ve seen plenty of people here behave worse, and more consistently. They’re not banned. Zenster was warned, yes? Has everyone else who’s ever been a jerk on this board been warned too?
Me, I’m just disgusted at the moment. I maintain that a mistake on the mods’ part was done here, and I hope to see it corrected.
No, but he could do some really amazing things mushrooms.
Well, the thing that bugs me about Zenster’s banning is that there are plenty of people, even in the linked threads, that violate the “Prime Directive” of the boards even more than Zenster, i.e. don’t be a jerk. I could name names but then I’d be being a jerk 
Not to say that he wasn’t a jerk: he definitely was. And not to say he wasn’t bannable, that’s the mod’s discretion when it comes to things like threats. But still, if I had my druthers there’d be more heads to roll* before Zenster.
*in a SDMB way, not in a literal, threatening way 
I think it was the “junior mod” thing specifically that was catching him the warnings. To someone who’s not familiar with the board and its various in-jokes, it could sound like he had some sort of actual authority on the boards, instead of just being another poster. I think it was the apparent asumption of authority he did not posses that merited the warnings, not the fact that he was pointing out what is and is not against the rules.
You’ve just found the critical difference between the two situations: county was threatening a non-board member. Zenster was threatening another poster. AFAIK, there is no rule against threatening violence against, say, the guy who cut you off in traffic, or the slow clerk at the checkout counter. In fact, UncleBeer has a habit of attacking people who do make statements like that, but he never does so as a mod: only as a poster.
This blows.
Understood, TLD. Also for the record, I thoroughly enjoy posting there and reading about the lives of my Aussie and Kiwi buddies! 
Q
Question for those who think this board is unfair or who have lost all respect for the Mods.
Why the fuck you still here?
We’re hoping to see you naked.
The odd thing is - a lot of the posters supporting Zenster are adding a disclaimer “but I understand, he did this/that.” Bullshit. He simply stated his opinion in a manner that the almighty mods decided was “unacceptable.” If I state that someone who killed their small children should be put to death, will I be banned? No? What if I phrase it differently, but suggest the same thing using more colorful language?
The censors on the SDMB have just thrown out one of our most intelligent posters.
I fail to see the difference. Being a member of this board does not give one some magical immunity to threats or put them above the rest of the population. As far as I’m concerned, making threats against the guy who cut you off in traffic is just as egregious as making them against one of us. if the board administration seriously wants to raise the tone of this board, as they’ve said they want to time and time again, they’ll address this. If we’re going to disallow threats against SDMB members, then we should disallow threats against anyone. To do otherwise is hypocritical, IMO.
Aside from the personalities and circumstances involved in this particular banning, I would ask that the moderators consider this. While it is true that long-time posters are generally familiar with the rules and know when they are on thin ice, they are also more likely to mess us from time to time and show their backsides. Nobody gets his shit together once and for all.
I respectfully disagree with you here, Miller because in this SPECIFIC instance you may be correct, but there’s still plenty of “if YOU did that to me, I’d (whatever) to you” rather than “if the person or persons unknown who cut you off cut me off, I’d to this to that person or persons.” Just look at some of the thread titles in the Pit: “Ere YOU left the stall” is the one that jumps immediately to mind. Me? LifeOnWry? Ere I left the stall?? Of course not. Or all the threads where someone rants about something and someone pops in and, having experienced something similar, says, “Oh, that was YOU?”
Come on. Even the dimmest bulb on this board knows better. And you, Miller, you yourself in your own person as an individual poster on this board, are not the dimmest bulb.
No, I am not making up conspiracy theories or harboring anything resembling a persecution complex (on my own behalf or on Zenter’s) but I still say that unless something very weird happened that none of us was privy to, this banning is just plain mystifying.
No worries Quasi mate. That wasn’t so much aimed at you as just general info for any other folks who might wander over there expecting to find something that isn’t there.
Because this is the FIRST time I’ve seen a poster banned that didn’t deserve it. And why the fuck are you fucking asking? It’s not as if your life will be altered by whether any poster is “allowed” to be on this board. It’s just a fucking message board, right?
Let’s just stop it with the potty mouth language, shall we?
Oh, now that’s just ridiculous. If a post uses the word “you” without reference to a particular poster, obviously the use is intended to be rhetorical, and not adressed to any specific poster, or even any specific indiviual human. And the “Oh, that was you?” thing is clearly meant as a joke. One which carries no threat of violence, I might add, so I don’t see how that applies.
Thank you for the compliment, I suppose.
I don’t see anything mystifying about it. There’s a clear and long-standing rule against threatening violence against another poster. Has been almost as long as I’ve been a poster, and I believe Zenster’s been a member for longer than I have. On top of that, he violated several other board rules in a short period of time. No one of them was enough to warrant a banning, but taken together, I don’t see how the mods could not ban him.
Q.E.D.: If you want to argue against the fairness of the policy, that’s an entirely different matter. I’m just pointing out what the policy (apparently) is.
Although, for the record, I do think being a member of this board makes you better than the general populace. 
A short-tempered poster might take this as a signal to cast a wider net with his ignore list.
Um, he didn’t threaten anyone at all. He cooked up a wildly exaggerated and surpassingly unlikely hypothetical situation, then “responded” to that situation verbally, and hyperbolically.
This is important: at no time was anyone in any danger that Zenster would take an axe handle to them. Know why? Because 1) Zenster’s house was not on fire, 2) I doubt if his house even has a “fire lane” in front of it, unless it’s within 10 feet to either side of a fire hydrant, 3 )thus making it highly unlikely that someone was blocking the fictional fire trucks from the fictional fucking fire lane in front of his uncombusted fucking house!
Know what? If someone dressed as a clown broke into my apartment and shaved my nonexistent Wookiee with a bowie knife, I’d fucking boil their guts and spread their brains on toast.
This is a complete load of tripe. He broke no rule at all.