@Jen it is a free speech site. When someone attempts to shut down the speech of others there will be consequences.
I gave verv an official warning on his post (see below) and explained that just because he didn’t like the content, didn’t mean it wasn’t worthy of debate. I also told him that he shouldn’t personally attack others, especially new members who were being respectful and who put a lot of effort into their posts. That type of treatment stops new members from posting.
When I brought all of this up to Verv he gave me a single response:
I think this is also a good time to remind everyone of the difference between Political Bullpen and Freebird.
Here at PB, anything goes in the private group areas. There is no moderation that happens there outside of what the group owners want to see happen. We have two big private groups GC and RH.
On the main threads there is light moderation to keep us in compliance with webcrawlers for search/findability purposes. We all talked about this at length before the move and when we first arrived.
When we do provide some moderation on the main threads the least I expect is for people to be respectful of what we’re asking. There’s probably a good reason for it since we only provide hands-on moderation when it is absolutely needed. Those of you who have been on other forums know how aggressive moderators usually are. None of you can honestly say that we behave that way here.
This is like a narrow decision of the supreme court. It’s hard to imagine it being applicable to many other cases here. There were some one-offs that @KVN pointed out that justified protecting that thread from rude comments devoid of substance. And then the “I dont care” sealed the deal.
It does not matter that verv was right in his thinking. He was wrong in his posting.
Looking at the thread that started the interaction is really illuminating. Those two went to town laying out their positions and arguing them. They also mentioned that they were banned from another forum for doing so - probably too much for the mods to read.
Then no sooner than their thread goes public here, verv comes in with what looks to me was an attempt to stifle the debate, derail the thread, and insult the two who were clearly interested in having a longform discussion (remember those days?).
To dig his own grave just a little deeper, he essentially dismissed the concerns of moderation. Not smart. I don’t disagree with his position on the subject - his delivery was the problem.
Is this private property? Do the owners of said property not have the right to physically remove those who violate the covenants of the private property?
Yeah I see all sides of this issue. Verve was expressing an opinion, but the way it was phrased towards the end of his statement could have been worded differently that might not have invited the moderator to give him a warning. Knowing Verve he probably didn’t care and thus was suspended when he expressed that sentiment to Kelly. All in all, I can’t take issue with the action enacted by the moderator. I hope he will be allowed to come back eventually, because I value his opinions and is an astute sharp mind that is beneficial in most diverse complicated debates, and discussions in general.
Yes, we are very grateful for that. However this is another matter. I am not a grass and I prefer transparency, but I respect your opinion that this should be a private conversation. That’s ok.
@KVN I think many of us have at some time or other been guilty of being arseholes. If Verv had personally attacked others, then perhaps that should have been the reason, so would have been clearer why.
Anyhow, I hope we are all clearer on the matter now. Thank you @Patriot for spelling out some things. We all make mistakes, so I hope you will give Verv another chance.
After reading the initial showboating OP and then seeing what actually happened, all I can say is, isn’t great that we can speak so freely, and have the right to express our disdain publicly, even to the ONE person that has consistently stepped up and covered our asses when there is a full all out war on conservative thought and expression.
I don’t like everything I read here but then again I don’t like most people either. You either believe in free speech or you don’t. That means expressing your own views and making sure others can express theirs without persecution - even if you disagree with them.
If not for @Patriot and his work you’d have NO place to bitch and whine. That said, remember, we still live in a country of free enterprise so anyone can go start their own company and do what @Patriot has done. I challenge any of you bitching and making demands to do so.
What’s sadder is not caring about what the people running the community are trying to achieve. In this case they didn’t want the views of respectful newcomers to be silenced. Sad.
Yes, they were engaged in their own little bunch of communist blah-blah, and just floating in with a sarcastic insult was probably worth a little scolding. However, there was no microphone drop - that would be worth a thousand years with extreme prejudice.
That’s why I issued an official warning to him and provided an explanation. I was hoping to have a positive exchange and we could have simply deleted that last line of his post…and moved on.
This is where I disagree with you. He wasn’t willing to work with me on this. He simply said that he didn’t care. If he doesn’t care about this community, or what I was trying to do as moderator of this community, then he has no place here.
My dad used to say, you get further in life with a little bit of honey than you do with vinegar. God rest his soul. The man was right about everything.
