A member was banned.

Just wanted to be public and up front about it.

phil_r was banned as the dual of a banned member.

phil_r was CheekyMonkey.

Hmm. A genderbending dual.

What? That never happens. Everyone on teh intarwebz is who they say they are!



















The management of this BBS wishes the public to know that the above statement falls into the category known as sarcasm. Users unfamiliar with this category should consult wikipedia for further information.

Huh. That's kind of crazy.

Didn't he just start a blue room thread about some girl he liked??

How did y'all figure this one out?

Interesting.

Usediesel is polarslam by the way.

Hmm. His personality and the things he said about himself seemed pretty consistent.

Are you guys sure about this?

Yes.

He should be banned.

It's only fair.

Packard might be CM too, better ban just to be sure.

And what motive do you have for reporting this "truth"?

Is this a good place to ask what CheekyMonkey did to get banned in the first place?

1. It's none of our business. Right or wrong, it's Elwood's board and he can, ultimately, ban anyone he wants for whatever reason he wants.

2. I don't know what evidence he used to determine that phil_r was CheekyMonkey, but on the face of it, I don't buy it.

3. Despite point #2, I generally trust Elwood to do the right thing. Ergo, I don't really care all that much.

Carry on!

I'm personally a bit surprised that CM came back here.

I want to be mod someday and thus I should start doing the right thing. The right thing would be to inform management that there is a banned member posting as a dual on WF.

Cheeky, if you're out there, send me boob pics and I'll do my best to lift your ban.

^That'll lift something

The user has e-mailed me asking for an explanation. I have listed most of the strong points of evidence for them in my reply e-mail. We'll talk it out and see where it goes.

I've been talking about this for months with the staff. It wasn't exactly a rush decision.

However, if I have made a horrible mistake, I will be the first to apologize and reinstate phil with a personal and public apology.

Then you will ban Packard right?

Well, I think that goes without saying.

Wow. Talk about a shitty judgment call.

Banning someone because Tamar thinks they are a dual.

Good job.

And this just shows how stupid I was to try and discuss the issue in private, as two rational individuals.

I should've raised the shitstorm I was going to raise last night before I thought I'd give you all the benefit of the doubt. So much for that.

:soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot:
:soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot:
:soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot::soldiershoot:








NOTE: The Guy with the party hat was as close to a bugler as I could find to go with the 21 gun salute. If Tamar would get off her ass and get us a propert bugler smiley I could have used that instead. And maybe a folding US flag as well.

Face is incorrect.

or as Darth Vader would say, "You should not have come back."

I felt the need to let the membership know what was going on. Can you imagine what it would have been like had I banned someone and not commented on it? What the fall-out would have been over a sho-'nuff stealth ban?

I sought out the staff's counsel about this over the course of months. Would the risk be worth it? Could this make it worse?

I sought out and gathered the evidence.

I consulted every single last staff member before making my final decision and I encouraged them to tell me if they thought I was full of shit or if they thought I was making the wrong choice.

In the end, the vote was 7-2 in favor of an immediate ban with the two dissenters saying we should only delay it for a better time. But, the buck stops with me. I made the call.

And, this is the last thing I have to say about it until phil responds to my e-mail.

"...and that's why I threw those bastards out, and that's all I have to say!"

Oh, well.

We've kick-banned duals from banned posters plenty of times. Ask Face and Polarslam. There's plenty of cases in WF history of this happening.

I'm a bit surprised that CM decided to come back after all this time, however, but I'm not seeing any cause for drama. And if this weren't the HD, I'd make a crack about Rozencrantz

OK. I'll say one more thing here. I was going to start a thread about this. Hell, I did, but I decided it could be better resolved quietly. So I had the thread deleted and PM'ed Elwood discretely.

Well, the response really wasn't what I'd expected. We'll leave it at that. Here is why I think it was a mistake to ban Phil_R for allegedly being CheekyMonkey. There are two possibilities:

1) Phil_R is really just some guy and the staff is mistaken. If that's the case, boy was this a huge fuckup. What next? Ban Jenee for being Hood? Wayne Jarvis for being Goldeneye? Jeff Cooper Disciple for being Borgs? It's the height of stupidity to ban some n00b for something that happened almost a year before he joined.

2) Phil_R is CheekyMonkey. If this is the case, still, what is to be gained by it? It seems to me Phil is just a somewhat interesting new poster that has raised some fun discussions. And the only person who seems to be obsessing about CheekyMonkey is Tamar. Hell, if the objective of banning CheekyMonkey was to gloss over the whole shitstorm she created, the smart thing to do would be to ban Tamar because she keeps bringing it up.

That's what it boils down to. If the staff was really that suspicious about this Phil, they'd have still been better off just keeping a close eye on him, rather than digging up a huge drama that we went through last year that almost tore the place apart.

Stop trying to make this about Tamar, as Elwood said he had very good reasons to suspect phil_r and presented them to all the staff.

Wrong.

It is our business. Wordforge is more then Elwood's board. We are a community. It's part of the reason we all keep coming back even though it can at times seem like we've exhausted everything in the universe to talk about. We may scrap with each other on a regular basis but we've seen time and time again that we can all come together regardless of personal politics over personal issues. We've seen members put aside personal and political differences when another member has been allegedly wronged by the staff.

I've no idea idea if Phil_R is Cheekymonkey or not. Hell I thought it might be PGT coming back from the internet wastelands. To be honest what little I do remember of Cheekymonkey (besides the infamous thread) makes me raise an eyebrow at the specter that Cheekymonkey could be Phil_R. It just seems like two different people to me. Of course if it is Cheekymonkey then goodbye Phil!

Wordforge was here before Elwood took it over and if he should ever decide to give up the helm to someone else it will be here after him, even if the members themselves have to get together and build a new board. And no we won't get Volpone to do it either. The wait would be too long.

Sure he can do whatever he wants. He pays the bill. But no one including him can ever tell this community that something is not our business.

Wordforge is more then Elwood's board.

It's all of us.

It'll be your business when you're paying for the board. Until then, it's Elwood's business.

Yeah, we are a community, and so on and so forth. But this ain't a democracy.

When in doubt, Murphy's Golden Rule applies.

I agree with you in principle, but when the rubber meets the road, my point is 100% valid and true.