My vote might surprise Anthony.
Before I cast it, I need to say a few things.
I do not know why Anthony got kicked off the site. I never followed his thread and I never followed his posts. The only things I recall seeing that were written by him were vitriolic attacks on SI after he was kicked off.
So basically you (Bryan) are asking me to judge a man's right to be a member of SI without giving me the specifics about why he got kicked off.
I don't expect you to publish the reasons why he got kicked off, that is not what I am saying here.
What I am saying is this:
I ASSUME that the violation(s) had to do with:
Using the service for illegal purposes or for the transmission of material that is unlawful, harassing, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, tortious or otherwise objectionable.
I ASSUME that he really really broke the rules; that he violated the Terms of Use of the Site so blatantly that despite a large following, it was adjudicated by more than one person at SI that his membership be terminated.
I ASSUME that Anthony's on-line behavior fell somewhere between some viscous insect like Emile Vidrine, a person who has been viscously personally attacking other members for years and would be shown the door at my house in the amount of time it took me to voice the words, "Leave now"; and some spammer-jammer or rude dude that feels the need to see his multiple felonies or cuss words in print.
That is not my call. If it were my site, and my call, anyone that personally attacked another member would be gone. No Purgatory. But it's not my call. Any stock tout that blatantly and obviously broke the law on my site would be gone. No Purgatory. But that is not my call.
It's supposed to be your call. With all due respect, by putting this to a vote, I think you have put the Terms of Use in a dangerous position.
I remember SI back when the boys lived in Kansas and Jill had to call and remind them she needed that check. I guess there were dillweeds that showed up on the site from time to time, since it was a free site at that point, and I don't know whether it was Jeff or Brad or Jill that had the virtual machete, but I cannot imagine one of them putting a thread up that said "We booted this guy for [insert valid violation(s)] but now we want you guys to vote on it and maybe we were wrong."
So I ASSUME that things are different now. <G>
I'll say right here that if Anthony was booted unjustly, then there is no argument, he should be allowed back on the site with an apology. But I don't think that's what happened. I think he broke the rules.
I've been suspended more than once. You can ask Jill what my response was. I sent her a polite e-mail saying "I understand why you booted me. I am not mad about it. I believe it was unjust, and I believe I did not violate the Terms of Use. Here is what happened: [insert the actual sequence of events]. Each time I was back on the site quickly, because I was right. I knew I was right, but I also knew that it was not my call.
I was polite, and I assumed responsibility for my screw-up. Yes, I screwed up. The evidence that I had somehow screwed up was the fact that the person that had the key to the door had changed the lock on me.
Reminds me of my second ex-wife, but that's a different post altogether.
Part of this Grand Experiment we call the Internet is responsibility. It comes with the territory. You ask a man that spent 4 years in a large sausage made of steel cruising around under the ocean with nuclear warheads if he had some responsibility for what was going on in the world. Ask a man that walked 40 miles a day with a full field pack for 7 days straight in the winter in some place five thousand miles from where he went to high school if he had some responsibility. Ask a woman that raised a fine son and then got the Bad Letter from Uncle Sam if she had some responsibility, and they all will tell you they did.
It's the same here. It's no different. SI is no different than anything else in that regard. You have people that take responsibility for their actions and you have people that don't. Very simple.
This is Silly friggin' con Investor. This is part of The Force. This is not The Dark Side. This is what Yoda was talking about. We have it! We have a tool here that has the potential to link up every human being on this planet. It's a big deal. This is not some bullshit back porch somewhere where you can get toasted on Jim Beam and act like a moron, scream about how the Canadian Buddhists have taken control of the AM radio stations and are hurting your ability to survive and then puke and fall asleep on the lawn. This is not some place where you can walk in, pay fifty bucks, and take off your clothes and do unusual things with your body parts and not have The Law breathing down your neck.
This is a PRIVATE PAID SITE. There is such a thing as "public access/private domain". I don't know about you, but I swear to God I did not pay to read somebody's psychotic hallucinations and offensive personal attacks on SI. I can get that stuff for friggin' free on Channel [insert any channel]. That's why I don't own a television.
If, for example, I walk into the GNET shopping mall and start yelling at a stranger and telling him he is an evil POS and he is going to hell and I just might help him out with my weapon because he is [insert misunderstood race or religious affiliation], then the security guard should escort me to the parking lot and ask me not to come back. He might suggest I go to the Psychotic [insert misunderstood race or religious affiliation] Hating Twistoid's Mall, or back to my cave, or wherever I want, but not to show my face here again. And when he walks back in the mall, everybody smiles and say thanks and gets back to whatever they were doing before that interruption in the Force.
This sounds pretty simple to me.
That's the way I like it. If you ACT LIKE a deluxe dildohead, you go to the parking lot. I like that. I don't think there is anything wrong with that system. You are not judging the person. The person has the right to be whatever he wants. YOU ARE JUDGING HIS ACTIONS ON THE SITE. And the shoppers don't have time to play cop. They are SHOPPING. They are BUSY.
I have two choices while I am standing in the parking lot. I can look at what happened and I can think two things.
1. These guys are all a**holes, I'm right, they just don't understand that [insert misunderstood race or religious affiliation] are evil and they have failed to read my script. (In this case, I can start yelling at the guard that HE is evil for protecting the damned [insert misunderstood race or religious affiliation]. Ask any cop, ANY COP, what he does in this situation.)
2. I can walk back up to the guard, apologize for my behavior, promise to follow the rules, and ASK HIM VERY HUMBLY if I might be allowed to go back inside pretty please with sugar on it.
Simple.
But I didn't see that from Anthony. What I saw was yapping about "injustice". That just pissed me off. All that does is show me that he has not fully accepted responsibility for whatever he did AND I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HE DID. I don't know Anthony. Anthony might be a fine upstanding fellow. I don't know. All I know is he yapped a lot after he got booted, and that tells me that he probably deserved what he got, BUT I DON'T KNOW FOR SURE. What I know is some bonehead pal of his came on the site and started unjustly attacking me and a friend of mine personally. So Anthony and his Minister of Communication While Anthony is Indisposed and Not Ever Coming Back ain't right up there in my "Let Him Back On the Site Tonight Please" list right now.
But why is it my call in the first place?
Tell ya what, here is my vote: If I get a choice of either Anthony or Emile Vidrine, then Anthony is one of the finest human beings I have ever met in my entire life and let him back on right now. Bye bye Emile, nice not knowing ya, don't call me, I won't call you. Anthony, love ya, let's have lunch.
All I see is Anthony maybe broke the rules and then got really antagonistic. You make the call, because I don't understand your criteria and I don't know what happened. You leave this stuff up to the shoppers, and you might as well fire the security guard because he now looks like the biggest fool in 4 square blocks.
I've been sitting down all day, so now I have to lie down. |
