Well I have given this issue a good week to settle down and allow me to consider what I SHOULD do here about it. Conflicting emotions, to be certain, but enough time has passed that the edge is off of it and the wounds a felt inflicted have healed a bit.
It's alway a shock, I guess, to see blatant evidence of ill will bordering on hatred from someone directed at yourself. I expect people to dislike me for some of the decisions I have to make, but honestly, I expect that from the bad guys really not people I consider as "good guys". So I expect anyone faced with a slap in the face like that would probably react as I did. Shock, hurt, then later on anger. But the shock wears off quickly, as does the anger, but the hurt still lingers the longest.
But let me back up a bit and explain some of the background happenings that sort of primed me for the response I made.
Back around mid April, not long after I implemented the adding on of a bunch of forum moderators here, I had an issue arise where one of the moderators who also had his own personal forum got involved in a situation involved several other members not real pleased with my choice in moderator for one of the forums. What these people conspired to do, with the blessings of the moderator, was to use his personal forum to post threads of the topic matter more appropriate to be posted in the forum for that topic. In effect, using this personal forum to kind of compete with the regular forum and obviously done to antagonize the moderator of the regular forum. When I became aware of this, I contacted several of the people involved in this childish behavior and sent the following PM to the person who was using his personal forum for this purpose:
A lot of PMs passed between us, and the person indicated above that he was leaving this site, apparently because of the discussion we were having. So with that in mind, I removed him from being a moderator of the forum he was in charge of. Now in this discussion, I made a statement that will be significant later on, but let me post it here while it is in mind:
Well, long story made a little shorter, a couple of weeks later this person winds up completely DELETING all of the threads in his personal forum, in what I would have to opinion was a spiteful gesture. At which point I removed his moderator rights for his own personal forum. No other penalties were forthcoming except a PM to this member thanking him for that particular display.
So now we fast forward a bit to the closing days of May when I had another moderator of one of my forums getting into a rather heated discussion with another moderator over a thread posted within the Lonely Hearts Club Forum. From the tone of his postings and the fact that he actually threatened this other moderator with legal actions, I felt it unwise to keep him in the moderator position, and in so doing, sent him a PM explaining my actions and apologizing for what I felt was a necessary step.
Obviously this did not go over well either, with the results that this particular moderator deleted many of the posts he had made within he forum he was an ex-moderator for by simply editing out the text and replacing it with "######". At which point I banned him to stop immediately any further aims on his part of continuing with that activity.
Now bear in mind all along I was also fielding the issue about that thread in the Lonely Hearts Club as well as taking some pretty harsh invective from one member highly incensed that I took exception at his posting derogatory comments towards someone else in the BOI. So I was about tired of this crap coming from a lot of different directions.
Which brings us to the PM I received from someone around 2 am on 06/02 indicating I should view an interesting thread on Kelli Hammack's new forum.
Which was quite an eye opener, I have to admit, when what I had really wanted to do was to hit the hay. But I saw clear and present evidence of people I had entrusted with being moderators on this site (among others) plainly and obviously filled with hatred towards myself, this site, and some of my other moderators here. Now after the above two incidents mentioned above with former moderators deleting posts and threads, the first thought that popped into my head was that these people filled with such obvious hatred had the ability, and apparently the will, to cause myself and this site some significant damage. A moderator not only had the ability to edit and delete their own posts and threads, they could do that same thing to EVERY thread and post made by anyone within their forum. Sorry, but I just could NOT take that risk. And the quickest way to block such a possibility was to just outright ban then on the spot. Even only removing the moderator's powers was not sufficient because with the memberships they also had, this gave them the ability to edit and delete their own posts as was made starkly evident to me earlier. And yes, I did go a bit overboard and banned a few people who were not moderators. No excuse on my part except I guess that the shock and anger took over. Honestly, I just did not want those people on this site right then and that was the clearest way I could think of to send that signal to them. So with that out of the way, I sent an email to Kelli thanking her for what I read on her site, and went to bed for the night.
So here we are today.
Quite honestly the shock has worn off as has the anger and hurt. I guess what I feel now is mostly disappointment. Kelli obviously holds a deep rooted grudge against me for that issue involving Chris Johnson about a year ago, and my explanations of what happened have just fallen on deaf ears. Obviously she has chosen to not believe my perspective of it. Which is completely up to her. I have my opinion on the matter and she has hers, so that is that. And I guess some of the other people involved in that thread on her site were also greatly influenced by that event as well, so they just chose what they want to believe or not. That is their choice.
The shocking part of this was that they chose to basically hide those true feelings and yet still use this site as sponsors, advertisers, and even moderators for some of the forums. That, in my opinion, was just decietful. If they truly had those feelings, then why be here at all? Why pretend that this issue I spoke of had been ironed out and although certainly not healed over, at least at a point where there were no teeth grinding grudges. Yeah, I did see some subtle signs, such as those members posting positive karma for members who were beating up on me, but I guess I stupidly chose to ignore such things. I chose to select some of them as moderators even knowing about this undercurrent, but I decided that maybe it wasn't that bad and I was just seeing boogeymen under the bed.
Well, as some people say, "my bad". Lesson learned, yet again. I certainly cannot believe what has been told to me by the principal characters, so I have no choice but to make my own best guesses about what I have seen and what is really going on. So all I can say is "more power to you, Kelli. And your friends as well." I have never meant you any harm and I am sorry that you have interpretted anything I have done under that light. I have tried my best to explain my perspective with the truth, and that is really all I can do. You obviously have your own reasons for choosing what you wish to believe in, but that does not change the truth of my own involvement.
So, as far as I am concerned, this is really over and done with. Which brings me back to something I quoted up at the top of this rather long winded post:
That quote above is pretty much representative of my attitude about what is important about what I decide to do about members on this site. And I am certain I have said it many more times then in just that PM. What it means is that I should only judge people by what they do HERE and no where else. Not by what people may say to me about you that you said elsewhere, not by what I may see by my own eyes that you have posted elsewhere. As the admin for this site, what you do here is what I have to take into consideration as my criteria for how to treat you here. With one caveat that I think needs to be emphasized. Moderators on this site are expected to be, and will be, held to a higher level of responsibility for their actions elsewhere. Moderators are representatives of this site whereever else they may go. Someone who is a moderator for this site really should not engage in the type of talk I personally witnessed some ex-moderators here engaging in on Kelli's site. And Kelli, who was a moderator here, also engaging in that sort of talk, not just passively allowing it there. In a similar case such as this, such a person will be rendered incapable of inflicting potential damage to this site while they are here. This, I believe, is only being prudent. Any moderator who feels that they cannot live up to this responsibility really should not be holding that position here.
Now that doesn't mean that I have to personally like you, and anyone engaging in such invective towards me can pretty much guarantee that you won't be real high on my list of people I would want to spend time with, but as for the criteria for deciding if someone should be banned from this site, what you actually DO here has to be what I use for that kind of judgment call. And it does have to be this way. I have no interest in scouring the internet looking for people talking bad about me, this site, or other members here. That is up to the admins of those particular sites to have to deal with in whatever manner they choose to do so. I have no illusions about being popular and everyone liking me. Quite the contrary, as I see nearly every day people resenting the simple fact that I have rules here and do make an effort to enforce them. Comes with the turf and I accept that as just being the way it is.
So while I can still keep my eyes open, I need to finish this up as this has taken a much longer time to write then you are taking reading it.
So what does this all boil down to? Based on my above statements about my responsibility and authority in how I treat members here, I do not feel that it is in keeping with those statements to continue the bans against those people who were banned for the statements that made on Kelli's site. It just simply flies in the face of what I want to have as my stated responsibility. Now do I personally "like" those people and wish to welcome them back with open arms? Heck no. And likewise do I even expect that any of them WILL come back here? Again, heck no. But that will be their choice and not because of my locking the door on them. As the admin for this site, I believe that this is just the correct and proper way for me to have to administer fairness.
So I will be lifting those bans, but not until tomorrow as right now I am going to bed.
NOTE: Sorry, but I am just too tired to proofread this post. If I decide to do it later on, I will edit as necessary to correct the butchered statements. Sorry.....
It's alway a shock, I guess, to see blatant evidence of ill will bordering on hatred from someone directed at yourself. I expect people to dislike me for some of the decisions I have to make, but honestly, I expect that from the bad guys really not people I consider as "good guys". So I expect anyone faced with a slap in the face like that would probably react as I did. Shock, hurt, then later on anger. But the shock wears off quickly, as does the anger, but the hurt still lingers the longest.
But let me back up a bit and explain some of the background happenings that sort of primed me for the response I made.
Back around mid April, not long after I implemented the adding on of a bunch of forum moderators here, I had an issue arise where one of the moderators who also had his own personal forum got involved in a situation involved several other members not real pleased with my choice in moderator for one of the forums. What these people conspired to do, with the blessings of the moderator, was to use his personal forum to post threads of the topic matter more appropriate to be posted in the forum for that topic. In effect, using this personal forum to kind of compete with the regular forum and obviously done to antagonize the moderator of the regular forum. When I became aware of this, I contacted several of the people involved in this childish behavior and sent the following PM to the person who was using his personal forum for this purpose:
A lot of PMs passed between us, and the person indicated above that he was leaving this site, apparently because of the discussion we were having. So with that in mind, I removed him from being a moderator of the forum he was in charge of. Now in this discussion, I made a statement that will be significant later on, but let me post it here while it is in mind:
Well, long story made a little shorter, a couple of weeks later this person winds up completely DELETING all of the threads in his personal forum, in what I would have to opinion was a spiteful gesture. At which point I removed his moderator rights for his own personal forum. No other penalties were forthcoming except a PM to this member thanking him for that particular display.
So now we fast forward a bit to the closing days of May when I had another moderator of one of my forums getting into a rather heated discussion with another moderator over a thread posted within the Lonely Hearts Club Forum. From the tone of his postings and the fact that he actually threatened this other moderator with legal actions, I felt it unwise to keep him in the moderator position, and in so doing, sent him a PM explaining my actions and apologizing for what I felt was a necessary step.
Obviously this did not go over well either, with the results that this particular moderator deleted many of the posts he had made within he forum he was an ex-moderator for by simply editing out the text and replacing it with "######". At which point I banned him to stop immediately any further aims on his part of continuing with that activity.
Now bear in mind all along I was also fielding the issue about that thread in the Lonely Hearts Club as well as taking some pretty harsh invective from one member highly incensed that I took exception at his posting derogatory comments towards someone else in the BOI. So I was about tired of this crap coming from a lot of different directions.
Which brings us to the PM I received from someone around 2 am on 06/02 indicating I should view an interesting thread on Kelli Hammack's new forum.
Which was quite an eye opener, I have to admit, when what I had really wanted to do was to hit the hay. But I saw clear and present evidence of people I had entrusted with being moderators on this site (among others) plainly and obviously filled with hatred towards myself, this site, and some of my other moderators here. Now after the above two incidents mentioned above with former moderators deleting posts and threads, the first thought that popped into my head was that these people filled with such obvious hatred had the ability, and apparently the will, to cause myself and this site some significant damage. A moderator not only had the ability to edit and delete their own posts and threads, they could do that same thing to EVERY thread and post made by anyone within their forum. Sorry, but I just could NOT take that risk. And the quickest way to block such a possibility was to just outright ban then on the spot. Even only removing the moderator's powers was not sufficient because with the memberships they also had, this gave them the ability to edit and delete their own posts as was made starkly evident to me earlier. And yes, I did go a bit overboard and banned a few people who were not moderators. No excuse on my part except I guess that the shock and anger took over. Honestly, I just did not want those people on this site right then and that was the clearest way I could think of to send that signal to them. So with that out of the way, I sent an email to Kelli thanking her for what I read on her site, and went to bed for the night.
So here we are today.
Quite honestly the shock has worn off as has the anger and hurt. I guess what I feel now is mostly disappointment. Kelli obviously holds a deep rooted grudge against me for that issue involving Chris Johnson about a year ago, and my explanations of what happened have just fallen on deaf ears. Obviously she has chosen to not believe my perspective of it. Which is completely up to her. I have my opinion on the matter and she has hers, so that is that. And I guess some of the other people involved in that thread on her site were also greatly influenced by that event as well, so they just chose what they want to believe or not. That is their choice.
The shocking part of this was that they chose to basically hide those true feelings and yet still use this site as sponsors, advertisers, and even moderators for some of the forums. That, in my opinion, was just decietful. If they truly had those feelings, then why be here at all? Why pretend that this issue I spoke of had been ironed out and although certainly not healed over, at least at a point where there were no teeth grinding grudges. Yeah, I did see some subtle signs, such as those members posting positive karma for members who were beating up on me, but I guess I stupidly chose to ignore such things. I chose to select some of them as moderators even knowing about this undercurrent, but I decided that maybe it wasn't that bad and I was just seeing boogeymen under the bed.
Well, as some people say, "my bad". Lesson learned, yet again. I certainly cannot believe what has been told to me by the principal characters, so I have no choice but to make my own best guesses about what I have seen and what is really going on. So all I can say is "more power to you, Kelli. And your friends as well." I have never meant you any harm and I am sorry that you have interpretted anything I have done under that light. I have tried my best to explain my perspective with the truth, and that is really all I can do. You obviously have your own reasons for choosing what you wish to believe in, but that does not change the truth of my own involvement.
So, as far as I am concerned, this is really over and done with. Which brings me back to something I quoted up at the top of this rather long winded post:
That quote above is pretty much representative of my attitude about what is important about what I decide to do about members on this site. And I am certain I have said it many more times then in just that PM. What it means is that I should only judge people by what they do HERE and no where else. Not by what people may say to me about you that you said elsewhere, not by what I may see by my own eyes that you have posted elsewhere. As the admin for this site, what you do here is what I have to take into consideration as my criteria for how to treat you here. With one caveat that I think needs to be emphasized. Moderators on this site are expected to be, and will be, held to a higher level of responsibility for their actions elsewhere. Moderators are representatives of this site whereever else they may go. Someone who is a moderator for this site really should not engage in the type of talk I personally witnessed some ex-moderators here engaging in on Kelli's site. And Kelli, who was a moderator here, also engaging in that sort of talk, not just passively allowing it there. In a similar case such as this, such a person will be rendered incapable of inflicting potential damage to this site while they are here. This, I believe, is only being prudent. Any moderator who feels that they cannot live up to this responsibility really should not be holding that position here.
Now that doesn't mean that I have to personally like you, and anyone engaging in such invective towards me can pretty much guarantee that you won't be real high on my list of people I would want to spend time with, but as for the criteria for deciding if someone should be banned from this site, what you actually DO here has to be what I use for that kind of judgment call. And it does have to be this way. I have no interest in scouring the internet looking for people talking bad about me, this site, or other members here. That is up to the admins of those particular sites to have to deal with in whatever manner they choose to do so. I have no illusions about being popular and everyone liking me. Quite the contrary, as I see nearly every day people resenting the simple fact that I have rules here and do make an effort to enforce them. Comes with the turf and I accept that as just being the way it is.
So while I can still keep my eyes open, I need to finish this up as this has taken a much longer time to write then you are taking reading it.
So what does this all boil down to? Based on my above statements about my responsibility and authority in how I treat members here, I do not feel that it is in keeping with those statements to continue the bans against those people who were banned for the statements that made on Kelli's site. It just simply flies in the face of what I want to have as my stated responsibility. Now do I personally "like" those people and wish to welcome them back with open arms? Heck no. And likewise do I even expect that any of them WILL come back here? Again, heck no. But that will be their choice and not because of my locking the door on them. As the admin for this site, I believe that this is just the correct and proper way for me to have to administer fairness.
So I will be lifting those bans, but not until tomorrow as right now I am going to bed.
NOTE: Sorry, but I am just too tired to proofread this post. If I decide to do it later on, I will edit as necessary to correct the butchered statements. Sorry.....
I kind of like the idea of when someone shows their 
, they get the boot. Rich, I think we have another volunteer !
