I remember I once lost a nice editing job AND a music gig on one of the occasions I was suspended thanks to having no PM access. Its the name of the game.
Surely you don’t mean bad behaviour has consequences?!? And unforeseen consequences as well? Starting to sound a lot like life… This is only the Internet, dammit.
Surely you don’t mean bad behaviour has consequences?!? And unforeseen consequences as well? Starting to sound a lot like life… This is only the Internet, dammit.[/quote]
Much as I like the two fellows Jaboney is referring to here, I agree with this sentiment. We generally fuck things up for ourselves a lot more than we’d like to admit. Happens to the best of us, as evidenced by this situation.
The whole point is that there are TWO different problems.
- Did MM deserve to be suspended? Yes. He doesn’t deny that. He has no problem having been suspended.
- Did MM have an obligation to be “sufficiently polite” (whatever that means) to the admin to get access to materials that are not ON the boards, but only in his PM box? This is the question being debated.
Suspension is supposed to keep people from posting temporarily – to provide a “cooling-down period” or to point out that certain types of posting behavior are not in line with the rules established for posting. That part is fine.
The rules concerning suspension do not mention blocking a person from READING the boards, much less the contents of one’s own PM box. There is definitely no requirement to say the “magic words”, do a certain dance, or provide a set volume of delicious chocolately Ovaltine™ to the administration in order to get access to one’s own information on the boards without posting. There was no discussion with the moderator team about whether or not to allow access - there was only discussion AFTER the fact about how access was denied.
I can only conclude – having watched it develop “on the inside”, as it were – that this is a one-on-one spat between individuals. I told Maoman that I thought he was not correct in his handling of the matter, and that he was in effect imposing a rule that didn’t exist by allowing MuzhaMan to access PMs if he did one thing, but not if he did another. It is not Maoman’s place to teach politeness to anyone on these boards one-on-one. The only way “politeness” should be monitored on these boards should be through the application of existing rules for public interaction on the boards, not individually by judgements by one person about whether someone asked “nicely enough” or not.
ironlady - while I can appreciate the frustration people might have for not being able to get to their inbox, I just checked the rules again and it simply speaks of banning. Of course, there is no mention of access to PMs once banned or suspended. I always simply assumed that if you were banned or suspended, you wouldn’t have access to anything and that all you would be able to do would be to read posts.
I do see in the rules - though: [quote]Do not send rude, dismissive, or disrespectful responses to the moderators.[/quote]
So, I don’t think it’s necessary for moderators or admin to respond to any text messages or mails outside of the site which are not polite. I can understand your discomfort at what seems to have been something akin to the discipling of a naughty child, but politeness is actually part of the rules and maybe it is necessary to say the magic words. Suspension is suspension from all the services including the PMs. Nothing in the rules say one will still have access. Access though - I am very certain - would be granted in many cases if a bit of tact and forethought, instead of panic and anger, were employed.
Moderators and even admin will be taken to task by other posters and other moderators for being rude to general posters and I know there have been apologies given to members of the Forumosa community when such has happened. The basic idea behind the rules seems to be - for me - to encourage respect for posters, moderators, and admin. Why shouldn’t a poster be contrite once banned, especially if he urgently needs a service that the site provides? If the rules stated that you could still have access to your PMs if suspended, then maoman would have been out of line. But as the rules do not state this, I can’t see the reason for all the excitement. Both of the MMs are important members of this community. Everybody’s human.
I don’t think admin went too far here. No rules were broken. And certainly it must be the case for many forums, that suspension just means suspension, and not a semi-suspension with access to PMs? And how wrong is it to ask for a little bit of politeness?
This whole threads a bit weird since this is basically Maoman’s final act as admin and therefore any argument about the rights and wrongs of his actions in this case are a bit of a waste of space. He made a judgment call and then backed down somewhat and now he isn’t even admin anymore so that’s the end of it. The one conclusion I draw is that PMs shouldn’t be linked to bannings. You get an email alert to a PM; why not just add in the content of the PM in the email as in Facebook’s message system.
Noted, AJ. :neutral:
Yeah, it takes two to tango, for sure. I don’t respond well to people deliberately pushing my buttons. I need to work on this. When people approach me with good intentions, I always reciprocate. When they are rude to me, I often become inured to their plight. I guess I’ve got plenty of room for personal growth here. :eh:
In that spirit, I’m unbanning Muzha Man. He can have at me, I don’t care. It’s now Goose Egg’s problem. 
[/quote]
Good on you Maoman! Now, I thought what you wrote back on the second page of this 12-page monster of a thread would have brought things to an end. Unfortunately, there’s been an echo-induced avalanche of crap from various posters since then. The idea that Mucha Man threatened you has been repeated again and again and has taken on a life of its own. You started it, and you need to put it to rest. Was there really any threat of violence from your fellow lumberjack - an axe with your name on it? Come on, the idea of a threat is just something you latched onto as justification after you had realised you’d overreacted.
Please, clear things up. Then, I’m sure you and Mucha Man can agree to have this thread locked, and Gus will be happy to do so.
I might just be a hairy, drunken fool, but as I see it this thread is really casting a nasty shadow over your departure from Forumosa. It’s getting more hits than the Farewell thread.
Let’s finish things and bury this bitch.
Just like to state that the rules are pretty clear about taking things into real life, and also have a provision about respecting other’s livelihood:
I’d say preventing me from work because you don’t like my tone is taking things into the “real world” and also harming me.
Now no posts were made to threaten my livelihood but actions were taken to do so. The rules have always been perceived as general guidelines, in any case, since every eventuality cannot be anticipated. It seems pretty clear that threatening a poster’s livelihood is considered wrong no matter how it is done (for example there is no rule against posting a picture that could harm someone’s livelihood but it would be absurd to argue that this somehow is an exemption).
Not that I think this will change the attacks on me. Those are motivated by anything but a sense of fairplay. But those are the rules and my breaking one myself is not an excuse for what happened.