unban Jersey Girl

[_RayAgostini]

The reason there hasn't been any transparency yet is because the issue is still under discussion.

How long does it take to "discuss" the fact that a poster here was issued a death threat, and resorted to measures outside the board when she wasn't satisfied with the lack of action here? She gave you 15 minutes, after the death threat, yet days later you still can't decide whether her action was legitimate? What is there to "discuss"? Do enlighten me.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Ray you sumbitch, I miss having you in my Facebook stream.

[_Morley]

The reason there hasn't been any transparency yet is because the issue is still under discussion.

How long does it take to "discuss" the fact that a poster here was issued a death threat, and resorted to measures outside the board when she wasn't satisfied with the lack of action here? She gave you 15 minutes, after the death threat, yet days later you still can't decide whether her action was legitimate? What is there to "discuss"? Do enlighten me.

Yep.

[_ludwigm]

Ray you sumbitch, I miss having you in my Facebook stream.

Facebook? I like Facebook. It is sooo living.

[_beastie]

I don't know what the details of what happened, as I haven't been following many MD threads lately. But I will say a couple of things I feel are legitimate comments even without knowing the detailed history of what happened to Jersey Girl.

First, I consider Jersey Girl a friend. Certainly she can get feisty and "in your face" if you push the right button, but so can many, if not most, of us. Sometimes I think that personality trait is a prerequisite for wanting to participate in online discussions. But I know she is a fair and decent person who would not have threatened the board without feeling it necessary to do so to help the board in some way.

We all know that Shade's libertarian leanings make him loathe to ban people, and it takes extraordinary circumstances for him to do so. I understand that is probably the context of why he wanted to allow Darrick to continue posting his obviously mentally unbalanced rants, which often, frankly, had a disturbing misogynistic tone. I remember a believer from MAD warned us that he was dangerous and capable of making real threats. I stayed away from him most of the time. Given the dual evidences of his mental instability and obsession/hatred of LDS women, I thought it was better to give him a wide berth. I figured sooner or later he'd crack and display the behavior that earned him the reputation he had elsewhere, and didn't want to be involved when he did so. While internet board posters often are casual about these interactions and separate them from "real life", the fact is that some people really are mentally ill and dangerous, and capable of hunting you down.

While I don't know what happened, based on the comments I've read on this thread (and admittedly haven't read them all), I can easily imagine a scenario where Darrick threatened Jersey Girl in a way that she took quite seriously, and rightfully so. She had the expectation that this type of behavior would warrant an immediate ban, as it has in the past. But Shades has such a strong libertarian streak that perhaps he needed time to process it and be convinced Darrick had to be banned, and in that interim Jersey Girl felt it was possible that Darrick would not be banned, and this would be a board where real threats could be exchanged without consequence. Who wants to be on a board like that? Well, maybe some, but many would not. So, in a way, yeah, I can imagine she sacrificed her own relationship with this board to force Shade's hand.

I'm not saying this is what happened, because I don't know. But, knowing Jersey Girl and Shades, it is a scenario that makes sense to me, and I hope that Shades and the other mods take Jersey Girl's possible PERCEPTION of what was happening into consideration.

[_MsJack]

This episode reminds me a bit of when DCP threatened to use legal means to "go after the board" if Shades didn't comply with his censorship demands. (Incidentally, DCP was asked directly about this during the TIME Lightbox fiasco and he lied about it.) Of course, in that case, DCP didn't actually act (as far as I know), and it sounds like Jersey Girl did. Further, based on what I know, it seems like Jersey Girl had far, far better grounds for kicking up a stink than Dan did. Dan only cared about whether his crappy behavior would get wider exposure; Jersey Girl was looking to take the axe to actual threats. (At least as far as I know.)

But, then again, I know virtually nothing about what has gone on behind the scenes. Transparency, I agree, would be nice, but this is obviously the mods' decision in the end. C'est la vie.

Ok, just to clarify on something: Jersey Girl didn't sent any complaints in to DreamHost, although she did threaten to do so.

Instead, she backed off and sent an inquiry to DreamHost. Specifically, she wanted to know if Darrick's actions violated their policies as stated here:

General Acceptable Use Policy
Shared Hosting Addendum

General Acceptable Use Policy

PROHIBITED CONTENT AND ACTIVITIES
Illegal Activity
Customer may only use DreamHost Web Hosting’s Server for lawful purpose. Transmission of any material in violation of any Country, Federal, State or Local regulation is prohibited. To this effect, child pornography is strictly prohibited as well as housing any copyrighted information (to which the customer does not hold the copyright or an appropriate license) on DreamHost Web Hosting’s Server. Also, using DreamHost’s servers or network to conspire to commit or support the commission of illegal activities is forbidden as well.

They basically replied to her that they would not do anything about Darrick. So no, she didn't file a complaint with DreamHost, nor was she responsible for the boards being taken down. That was Keene trying to fix the virus problems.

Two other posters (not Jersey Girl) contacted their local law enforcement in the wake of Darrick's threats. So if you ask me, what Jersey Girl did was actually pretty mild.

Jersey Girl didn't actually do anything worse than what several other members of our community have done and not been perma-banned for. Seattle Ghost Writer actually took the forums down for a few days, and yet he was still welcomed to post here with the understanding that he not do it again and instead try to resolve copyright issues with the administration directly.

There's just no sense to making a ban on Jersey Girl permanent if she will agree to resolve issues with the administration in advance instead of threatening to complain to DreamHost. My feelings are that she would easily agree to that.

[_Hoops]

Does anyone know if Jersey Girl even wants to come back? Has anyone asked?

[_MCB]

I was concerned about the CoC lady who was misidentified as myself. If I had been online when that happened, I would have refuted the mis-identification.

Two other posters (not Jersey Girl) contacted their local law enforcement in the wake of Darrick's threats. So if you ask me, what Jersey Girl did was actually pretty mild.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

The idea that anyone would think a broke 50 year-old from SLC would travel anywhere to, uh, confront someone is beyond stupid. That said, Ms. Girl shouldn't be banned. That was an overreaction.

- VRDRC

[_EAllusion]

MsJack -

The basics are public knowledge if you look at the different threads, but you have to piece it together. Darrick behaved in the manner he did. Notably, he incorrectly speculated/asked about MCB's identity, got really vulgar with insults, and used innuendo that was threatening. The participants were informed that this was being taken seriously and evaluated. Jersey Girl did not think this was sufficient. She, in turn, gave me 15 minutes to ban Darrick under threat of taking legal action against this board and/or its admins if we did not. (Not Darrick, us.) She outlined her first step in a chain of legal action as going to file a complaint to dreamhost.

I did not ban Darrick right away because when the moderators discussed the possibility of this behavior from him and I advocated banning him right away, Shades had requested that I wait for him to make the call. I interpreted this to mean I should wait in this instance while we took stock of what was said. I was not going to let Jersey Girl's threat change that course of action.

Literally 15 min later, Jersey Girl did file an "inquiry" to dreamhost that can easily be read as passive-aggressively suggesting that this board was in violation of its acceptable use contract with them for failing to ban Darrick. Shortly after, Harm suspended Darrick and Jersey Girl didn't do anything else. The actual decision to ban was set about 2 hours later.