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And I'm not so sure 'the community' has spoken.
The moderators of necessity do get a disproportianate weight in where we end up. If I was to guess, I'd say more people are pretty uncomfortable with banning anyone except obvious trolls and suchlike, than there are those like me who think it needs to be done until people give a very compelling case that there is a specific alternative that will work better.
On the other hand, those of you have big problems with banning are more vocal. So its hard to say what the community thinks [more or less].
There's something fundamentally flawed alright. I wasn't focusing on banning as a result of uptightness surrounding different political points of view. I was talking more about style of delivery.
I'd agree with KenS (and SJ, too, I suppose) that it comes down more to personal style than politics. I can think of a couple of people who simply did not stop personal attacks even when told repeatedly to do so. And I don't want to talk of the dearly departed, but I can think of a few who stood out far more for me than this recent case, and who I was frankly glad to see gone. There comes a point where the choice is ultimately made bythe person who gets banned.
I don't actually see the need for any set rules or voting procedure, because ultimately most of these bannings and timeouts have their own unique set of circumstances, and I expect there is a fair bit going on in private that the rest of us aren't privy to. I think it would be far more damaging in the long run if there were something in place which tied the moderators' hands and prevented them from acting when they needed to.
So while of course we are all going to have disagreements with them, sometimes strong enough to think that they should change, it is quite another thing to not trust the moderators to do their jobs, and insist that power be taken out of their hands and given over to straw polls.
I especially don't think it would work if there is another root problem that is the cause of the tension.
I don't think that kind of system would be sustainable in the long run, I think keeping channels like this thread open where we can voice our concerns openly is far more productive.
And again, I don't believe banning is actually forever; if someone wants to come back badly enough, nothing is written in stone.
In another vein....
Every time I see this thread title in the list of topics, its still so fresh.
Uplifting even. So this thread can never be replaced or succeeded.
Sez you.
Is that read right to left?
Depends on how you approach it.
[I detect revisionism, by the way.]
Yes. We were commanded to always move toward the left. That's the eleventh one. And no, Ken, no revisionism there. Though it was tempting.
Point taken, but I wouldn't say I see the moderators as THAT infallible.
Infallible, eh?
Secret history facts seldom talked about:
A lot of people in the crowd gave rude hand gestures when Moses brought those out.
Not so different from the babble 'flock'.
I blame the religious leaders of history for not stamping heresy out entirely when they had the chance.
I'd personally rather see a decision tied to a particularly egregious example, or a series of them culminating in some final doozy, than say, waking up one morning and deciding 'you know what, I'm sick and tired of so and so, who's with me?' Maybe it's just my fear of running out of antagonists or something, I don't know. Like I'm mostly down to Fidel and Catchfire now with G gone. Where's my consideration in all of this? Anyway..sniff....I probably need a break from this thread before I'm fit to be tied.
I agree with this... especially the part in bold.
I'd also add that although I understand why people are saddened to see longtime babblers depart, I think we tend to pay more notice when people are banned, as opposed to when people simply stop posting because they're feeling bullied or can't deal with all of the negativity. Both involve losses of voices and perspectives to babble. I see the mods' role as trying to strike a balance that minimizes those losses, and sometimes those interests are at odds with each other. Obviously banning babblers is a loss for this little online 'community' of ours, but it's harder to measure exactly what the impact is of not banning someone who contributes more than their share of toxicity to babble.
Indeed.
There is no shortage of snotty babble here. As for toxic - well, the thread title should underscore that it certainly happens. No bannings there (except briefly mine). I think that Gaian's contribution to the 'toxicity' is hardly the worst of this and hope that the PTB here will reconsider their decision.
So you support his banning or not?
Interesting that there does seem to be a divergence on what is 'most toxic'.
Maybe it goes something like this:
** Some people are button pushers. In fact, if you were to task us all with listing the say "top ten button pushers", there would probably be a lot of correspondence in the lists.
** But ask "who is the worst?" or the worst two, and the consistency falls away. Because when it comes down to it, that is driven by whether the person pushes one of YOUR buttons.
[And that button is not necessarily a personal weak point or something like that.]
@ KenS
Absolutely.
Same goes for the feeling that some people have it easier than others, and that some are more harshly judged. Of course that is true to some degree, but I doubt that any two people here would be in perfect agreement on that bias either. I am sure we all think we are the most hard done by.