This is a PM I just sent to Jeff:
I'm sure you've noticed that the standards of civility on SI have significantly deteriorated as time has gone by. At this point I think maybe Jill really did have the right idea- -no profanity, and anything more than mild jesting name calling gets a jail term.
But that's not what we have. What we have is a situation rapidly deteriorating into chaos with little in the way of identifiable rules. What is harassment, anyway? If what Chris Hodgkin did to YlangYlangBreeze and Poet isn't, what is? And yet, as far I know, he never even received a warning. You did step in once and told them to break it up, but that was it.
In the absence of identifiable limits, it is impossible for people to know what is acceptable and what is not. If they can't tell when they've crossed a line, how can it be fair to punish them?
You've already probably guessed why I'm writing: jlallen. That Don't Start The War thread, I'm sure you've noticed, is quite a mudfest. I'd say it's worse than the GWB thread and that's saying a lot. There are very few, and possibly no, posters in Don't Start The War who could not be hung under a strict interpretation of the TOU. With the likes of Ray Duray, TigerPaw, Ed Huang, zonder, and Thomas M on one side and JLA, Bill, PROLIFE, and I on the other and no rules, what can be expected?
Now I'm not going to argue that he should not have been given a stiff warning for what he said. He should have. But given the current lack of identifiable limits, I do believe a jail sentence is too stiff. My understanding is that he has not even been told how long his sentence is. That, I believe, is also unfair.
At this point I'd say the minimum he is due is a defined sentence. And maybe the fair thing is to let him back on and announce that there will be strict limits and then enforce them |
