Let me just state I steer well clear of this controversy shit and know nothing about any of it. Don't want to either. Allow me to state that unlike the board owner at the old place Elwood is very involved and responsive. His personal life should be none of our business. He does us a favor by running this place. On the question at hand, I don't see the need to censor the RR based on a personal desire by one Mod to control the content. That is why I came to this thread and am posting this. My read of Elwood's response was he had asked Listkeeper to stop mucking up the RR and allow threads to be started and left open as they should be. That is a good thing. If I am wrong let me know. Carry on now carry on......
Out of rep, Elwood, I burned through it negging Listkeeper, but thank you for agreeing to listen. This is lifted from one of the closed threads: The first point stems from the thread title change Listkeeper made in Volpone's TKO thread. The rationale didn't make sense as it suggested that there could be inappropriate language based on sensibility rather than legal stricture. The second point stems from the banning of Goldeneye. To my knowledge, he has not posted anything personal about you before the ban, and since then, has continued not to post anything personal. Review his posts at TK, where he might have said quite a bit had he wanted to. He did not. IMO, that invalidates the stated reason for banning him. All we are left with is Listkeeper's statement at Troll Kingdom that he is banned because you want him to be. The third point doesn't really have anything to do with you, but I include it to demonstrate why these threads keep going. People are feeding them from every direction, especially the listkeeper. I don't care that listkeeper has made some vile statements about some of the folks complaining, nor do I care that he trolled folks by pretending he was going to ban miniborg, but others may wish to chime in on those matters,too.
Honestly, I started a correspondence with TKO last night. I decided that I wanted to have all of my ducks in a row before taking action on this one. Y'all will have an answer just as soon as I make a decision. Unfortunately, I have already addressed this and I've said my peace. It's the risk you take when you allow or encourage spouses or loved ones to post on the board. I will say this though. I had some pretty good evidence that CheekyMonkey was about to pull something after 10 months of semi-peaceful co-existence on this board. I knew I was going out of town for a week so I called Tamar on my way to the airport and gave her very specific instructions. My fears proved true and she carried out my orders to the letter. Also, as I've said many times, I was in contact with Nick, Tamar, and various other staff and board members almost every day while I was gone. Goldeneye was banned from the board, but he was not banned from chat, which he used to quite regularly frequent. He continued to try to defend and clear CheekyMonkey's name. He even went so far as to tell Tamar certain specifics which only a few trusted people know. Therefore, she shared my information with him, without my consent and most certainly against my wishes. Having him around is a risk I'm not willing to take. I'm sorry if you disagree, but I honestly believe, in my heart of hearts, that I'd do the same if it were any other member. I will not deny that I'm acting proactively. I admit this. But, I'm not willing to log onto the board one morning and be greeted by seeing my name and telephone number, or worse, in a red room thread. I will do whatever I feel it takes to secure anyone's privacy, because, as our rules clearly say, it's not a good to be played with. That's why the wealth of information that has been shared with me over the years is strictly confidential and will go to the grave with me. My girlfriend knows about this place and I don't even use the real names I know with her. User names only. And, that's about all I have to say about the matter. Fair enough. I can take care of The Listkeeper. Can you take care of the other non-staff people that are feeding them?
If I may, the controversy isn't about you Elwood, it's about the people you have working for you. They've made some very questionable decisions as of late, as well as in the past, that have alienated many of the more vocal members of this board. They want to know what action you're going to take because the "I'll deal with it behind closed doors" approach hasn't worked or these same issues wouldn't keep cropping up. If the people that left TBBS because of Lisa, Neroon, and the like are telling you this place is starting to have that kind of a vibe, maybe it's time to do something about their concerns. Nobody can affect change here except for you and the common poster is saying there's a problem, despite what others, higher placed and in private circles, are saying. You can ban people, you can shut the board down, or you can even make the board private and open to just a select group of people, but is that the approach you really want to take? I can only say for myself that this is supposed to be a fun divertion and when heavyhanded moderating and questionable staff decisions become the norm, it's no longer fun and I have no motivation to stay. I doubt that is the atmosphere you want to foster. It's your board and you can tell us all to just piss off, but I think that's the wrong approach when it would be just as easy to look at why the common poster is unhappy and respond to his grievences. EDIT: And I do realize some of those same vocal complainers are just trying to stir up trouble and that should be taken into consideration too.
Gul made all the points needing to be aired, but I'd like to expand on this for a brief bit. First, I don't care about CM; that's between you and her as far as I'm concerned. I believe she lied about everything, same as almost every other member. So I don't even bother defending her. Even GE, I think he's an idiot AND a twat. My sticking point is the pre-emptive ban. There is not a single shred of proof that he was going to release RL info, and his continued posting at TK without doing so, points to that. Now he might try to defend CM, but who cares? He would be max red in a heartbeat. And if he did try to release info, it would be deleted as quick as CM's thread was, he would be instantly banned, and no one would have the least bit of a problem with it. Deeds, not supposition should earn a ban. That's the crux of the matter for me Elwood.
I think it's too risky and too much work for someone to have to monitor GE all the time. He could bury the RL info in a post and who knows how long it would be up? No, he made his bed and his intentions clear on the board and in chat. And you can't discount the idea of him letting CM use his account.
The only reason it was caught as fast as it was was because I knew it was coming and I asked Tamar to alert the staff to watch them like a hawk while they were logged into the board. There's no guarantee that it wouldn't sit there for several hours or half the night if you knew the mods working, sleeping, and posting habits. That's why I encourage staff, to set their profiles to invisible. That's also why we don't publicize when certain key staff members go on vactions, work trips, or what have you. Again, it's a risk I'm not willing to take and I can't help but think you'd agree if you were in my shoes.
Well, I'm not sure where you are going with that, but I hope the result is that sensitivity does drive standards for Red Room conduct. Again, if something is illegal, that clearly calls for remediative efforts. But if somebody simply says, "I don't like this," I'd prefer to think the response would be an explanation of the Red Room. I withdraw my protest. Just be sure such things don't happen too often. I can understand the rock and the hard place you are in. What efforts will you take? As for the quid pro quo, how am I any better positioned than anybody else to control the outbursts we are all given to?
Elwood: 1. The TKO thread - didn't care much, 'cause both Volpone and TKO wanted the change. Seemed to me Volpone posted without thinking and then wanted it taken back. No worries, happens to everyone. 2. The CheekyMonkey Incident - whilst I too went over Goldeneye in particular, ultimately I went "eh, well, it's Elwood's board" - but seriously, while you were gone, Listy was acting like he was Lord Supreme God of All Creation (aka, Alexander Haig) which really did rub people the wrong way - and he's STILL doing that. Since when does ANY mod around here get away with even pretending to hold a poster hostage in order to win an argument? Or move or close down threads that are about him? Mods are supposed to put out fires, not spray liquid oxygen on them and dance like the Trashcan Man from "The Stand". We could sit here and argue over whether or not it was an abuse of power, but it's most DEFNITELY an abuse of responsibilty. He's like one of those half-trained and trigger happy newbie deputies who join a department thinking a badge and a gun makes them the Lord Almighty and end up getting the department sued and the Sheriff forced to make apologies at press conferences.
Simple. Effective immediately The Listkeeper is no longer the Red Room's moderator. He will go back to just being the Gray Room's moderator. Also, effective immediately, I am the lead moderator in The Red Room. Tamar and the supermods (Lanzman and thelurker) will watch it for me when I'm not around.
We are not going to see eye to eye (heh) on this, but it's done. I can respect your decision, and deal with it. But if that particular goal post changes again..... Damn, two weeks of drama, almost totally handled in two hours, with a handfull of post. Do you see the point I'm making?
No offense, hun, because I love you dearly, but in some cases there is no substitute for "the horses mouth". Especially when it involves permabans, which has to be the #1 most sensitive topic EVER in the history of this board.
Has the majority of teh drama really been because people have it in for Elwood and his decisions to protect his real life? Looks to me from only popping in and out this last week and reading this thread, that gul, markb, phantom et all are more pissed off with Listkeepers conduct and they have essentially dealt with the elwood/cm thing. The second page here has taken a turn for the better with gul and elwood discussing things properly rather than the shite i can see in teh red room. Cudos to both of you. One thing though, looking at all the posts and reps in this thread, it appears Elwoods got something unsavoury hanging out his arse. I wonder if Mrs A will notice any brown lips this evening.
I can be quite reasonable in here. The reason you see what you see in The Red Room is because I absolutely refuse to discuss board business in The Red Room. If you post a thread in there looking for an answer from me or the staff, you ain't gonna get it.
Elwood, I had a big long post going until you made the decision to remove Listkeeper from the Red Room. I think that's a very fair decision here. One last point. I don't think you should have to do this - I was perfectly fine with Tamar relaying the basics. But what might work better is, if this is feared in the future, maybe having a release written up beforehand to explain what you asked to have happen "from the horse's mouth," as Chaos mentioned. Thanks again for hearing us all out.
yes, but whilst elwood does it in a calm, authoritive manner, listy does it in a snotty frat-boy-in-charge way. in most of these little dramas its not the message, but way the messenger gets their point across, and the way some of the staff just brush off concerns. it just seems ridiculous that, yet again, the staff have managed to spend days making things worse, and it takes the boss man a handful of posts to rectify most concerns. maybe its about time the mods starting taking notes?
That would be ideal, but, I logged onto the board for maybe five minutes on the day I left. That was just enough time to learn what was going on and to get a few things strait. Like I said, I had to call Tamar on the way to the airport.
I would like to complain about the way Listkeeper is modding the Gray Room. I know it's only been an hour, but I feel he already sucks at it. He closed this thread- I assume. No one actually posted about closing it. Is TK off limits now? Are we really going to start censoring links to it now too?
I understand the logic behind this, but that also makes it difficult to know who to contact when something bad actually happens at the board. But all in all, I think you managed to diffuse this situation well, Elwood. As much as I hate losing Goldeneye, it's your private information and I completely understand not wanting to take a chance.
I didn't address it in a snotty frat-boy manner. I also did not brush off concerns. I was just apparently completely ignored, called a liar, accused of covering things up and of making things worse. The fact is, some people refuse to accept an answer unless it came from Elwood himself. And even when I said we needed to wait for Elwood to return to address the issue that still was apparently a problem. I am trying to figure out what I could have done that would have kept this from happening and I am at a loss.
Lessee, I think they wanted you to say everything CM said was true whether it was or not, and open Area51 to everybody, and for the modship to spread its cheeks and squeal. I'm not being facetious, I really truly think that's what it'd take to please some folk here.
