MADem has been reinstated

[dsc]

Personal attacks and other no homophobic rule violations will be handled by the normal alert/remove system.

[William769]

1. THANKS!

Recommended.

[Rowdyboy]

2. Thanks....if a suspension is deserved, fine. But this one wasn't....

I appreciate fairness.

[Vanje]

3. ````

Oh Joy

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. thank you for hearing us and restating the new rules

[mitchtv]

5. Open season?

sharpening my insult skills.

[dsc]

6. note the part about personal insults being alerted and removed

if for some reason that breaks down then I will step in. It is my impression that the attacks will be removed.

[Vanje]

8. /\

}( :hide:

[Zorra]

7. I'm glad that is clear now. You and Pab Sugenis were caught between

a rock and a hard spot regarding how to deal with personal attacks.

I can totally understand why y'all made the decision that you did, considering the circumstances.

Pab Sugenis, if you read this, please reconsider your decision to "resign". It is clear that you made the call in the interest of protecting the community, and protecting the community is/was your primary responsibility.

The bug is worked out now.

Thanks so much to the both of you.

[Vanje]

9. He didnt leave because of a bug.

He left because he was caught between the admins and the forum members that chose him as liaison.
He got No support. Not from Admins , Not from forum members.

That was Cold.

[William769]

10. The bottom line is he got put in a position by certain members in this forum

to do something that should not have been done.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mitchtv]

25. I love you Vanje

n/t:toast:

[Vanje]

12. "certain members"

[William769]

14. You got it!

[Vanje]

15. Cheers

[Zorra]

17. This is the bug I was referring to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x191969#192586

Things like this ^ that are left unclear commonly lead to problem issues like the one we are discussing.

That's why I asked the question.

[Rowdyboy]

16. I know its too much to hope for, but it sure would be nice if I could read GLBT news and chat here

without being spattered by other people's fights over overblown slights. Its a freaking message board-in the long run it means nothing but to some of us its our only connection to the larger gay community.

I live in freaking Mississippi-I need DU to keep me grounded and it has for many years. I don't want to lose that because one guy freaked out....

[BR_Parkway]

18. Totally agree, I mostly avoid this area anymore

[mitchtv]

26. There are many times when I have "bit my tongue"

when I was ready to scream obscenities at certain people here in GLBT, but for the most part I CONTROL MYSELF and realize that I am not just in DU but in a community forum and that we are all in this together,and we are at war for our survival. We must not squabble venomously,take it to GD-Not here Please .I have been here about as long as you , Rowdy, and although I haven't always agreed with your posts, I don't feel the need to call you names when I do.I disagree with you about MaD, it was just nasty , I do think the point may be made for 24 hr suspension in fighting threads, but WTF anyway. We are in this together ,stand up together, no fighting here we have enough enemies as it is!

[Rowdyboy]

28. Had the whole story been posted before such drastic action was taken I would have had no problem

with it. I wish that had been the case. Coming on the heels of days of watching the slow motion train wreck that was Sub Atomics last week it was too much too soon for me.

I appreciate your coolness and rationality. Certainly I don't expect you or anyone to agree with me all the time. Hell, DU has helped me to evolve and change my opinions often in the past and it will again. The things binding us together are far more important than the differences we have.

Right now I just want and need to be as far away from here as I can get.

Thanks....

[yardwork]

19. the "normal alert/remove system" has not been working for a week.

Atrocious personal attacks are littered all over this forum. I have alerted on them numerous times, all ignored. Others have posted that they are alerting, all ignored.

Several people asked in ATA and were told by Skinner that he was "letting us handle it." How can we handle it? I have no power to delete offensive posts. Neither do dsc or Pab. The ONLY power they were given was to block members from this forum, and now one of them has been hounded from the board for doing just that - doing exactly what the Admins asked him to do.

It looks like a nasty trick by the Admins to turn us against one another. Leave the vicious personal insults up on the boards and urge us to police ourselves, then stand back and watch the fights.

THIS IS THE FACE OF DU3. This is the model for moderating at DU3. No thanks. I'm outta here.

[Zorra]

20. Don't leave. Let's first observe and assess the situation

and then figure out how to turn it to our advantage.

If what you posted is true, then the nasty trick you posted about worked if it made you leave.
;)

[Puglover]

21. Wow

"It looks like a nasty trick by the Admins to turn us against one another. Leave the vicious personal insults up on the boards and urge us to police ourselves, then stand back and watch the fights."

If you believe that you should leave. If I thought that was true even a little I'd be gone in a heartbeat.

But I don't. I was a mod when Skinner put up the "Mending Fences" thread and I know how much both Davids agonized over it. Do I think they do things perfectly. Nope. But I think your characterization of what is going on here is hideously unfair.

"and now one of them has been hounded from the board for doing just that" Really? Hounded? Speaking for myself I respectfully disagreed about the decision to ban a DUer from this forum for reasons that I did not see as anything to do with homophobia or bigotry. I was quite specific about that. Pab responded 3 times. Once to explain his reasons. The 2nd time to hurl an insult at the moderators and the 3rd to leave. For the record I do not think he should. He brings great value to this forum. While his style certainly differs from my own I enjoy his posts for the most part.

And lastly if you think that being a liaison for anything much less representing a forum like this comprised of many folks with many strong opinions doesn't require a very thick hide think again.

For sure the rules could have been spelled out in a clearer way. I still am not sure why this was done in the 1st place given the limited shelf life of DU2. However here we are.

[yardwork]

24. Puglover, I have a lot of respect for you so I've logged back in to respond.

To me, this sure as heck "looks" like a nasty trick.

I've never seen an instance before on DU where a small forum dedicated to the civil rights of a minority was asked to deal with a troll by themselves, with Skinner telling the mods not to respond to alerts or touch anything going on in the forum. Skinner has called this poster a troll in ATA.

We have been begging the mods to delete numerous personal attacks in this forum, and now we learn - days after the fact - that Skinner instructed all the mods to ignore our alerts. If that isn't a nasty trick I would like to know what it is. I have yet to hear an explanation for this unprecedented departure from DU practice, other than Skinner's rote repetition that he did it to allow "us" to handle the troll ourselves. Again, I ask - when have the posters in a forum ever been asked to deal with a troll by themselves? What were we supposed to do? Reason with a troll? I'm insulted at this suggestion that GLBTQ posters are somehow responsible for dealing with trolls if that troll happens to identify as GLBTQ. Is the gun forum expected to deal with trolls themselves? Is the cooking forum?

In the absence of any action on personal attacks, despite numerous and ongoing alerts, the brand-new forum liaisons did the best they could. Pab has explained that MADem was rude in PMs and stated that he/she would continue to violate the rules of this forum, and that there was nothing Pab could do about it because the mods had been instructed to ignore alerts. Pab did the only thing left for him to do - the action that was clearly encouraged by Skinner, who had cut off every other possible action.

You don't see this as trick by the admins. If there is another explanation I am willing to hear it.

[Puglover]

27. First of all thank you very very much for logging in to answer me

and your kind words Yardwork. It means alot.

I can't and won't speak for Skinner. I can only draw from my experience with him. Trust me when I say the man tries TOO hard if anything to foster a sense of community for everyone both here and in the other forums.

The cold hard facts are, you can't please everyone and if you try to do that more often then not you end up pleasing noone.

I can't tell you how many times I have read from posters, GLBT and others....

"Admin deletes all the attacks from the bigots therefore we can't prove anything."

"The mods didn't delete x,y and z which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt they are homophobic."

and on and on.

So which one should it be? Yardwork, there are a million examples. I mentioned in my post above how seriously Skinner and Earlg took the mending fences thread. They did. Do you honestly think it was easy for Skinner to admit he acted badly when he TSed the group of posters he did? I was in the mod forum then too. It was awful. And do you honestly think that there wasn't pushback when he reinstated folks? I saw a guy trying as best he could. And I am not a stupid sentimental sop. I'm basically a hardass who calls things as I see them.

I can't give you the trust I have with these guys. I can only witness my own experience with them. They are human like both you and I. Ergo they fuck up. And both of them have pissed me off and vice versa. And honestly I think it was/is a mistake to think DU3 will solve it all. (I should say I am not sure they think that.) But all of this being said, I firmly believe they act in good faith with us.

I believe they tried to make this forum self determining. Sadly that was a flop.

I will be sorry if you leave.

[dsc]

22. I have been assured

in writing, that offensive posts will be removed from here just like in any other fora. If that doesn't happen, then I will step in.

[Puglover]

23. Thanks very much.

Is "fora" the plural for forums? LOL I learned something.