Si Bob -
I wish to state my disagreement with some aspects of your post. I would ask that your respond to my prior lengthy post or at least clarify your enforcement of TOU given the facts and circumstances of my most recent suspension and the next prior one.
On September 13, 2003, I posted the following lengthy post, detailing my recent history and problems with understanding how TOU was to be enforced and, implicitly, opining that you had arbitrarily made decisions, and that as Owner, that was within your rights (my opinion although questioned as a legal concept by others.)
Message 19302053
Before that post, I was suspended for 15 days by you with the following post to which I could not respond, having been suspended:
You just don't get this "No personal attacks" thing, do you?
15 days. Take note of the pattern. Once a 30 happens, the rope is only about an inch long.
Message 19238197
In the SI world, that was a pretty serious admonition. In fact, it was certainly no less than the one given to sirvinny by you yesterday.
The post to which you responded was this one.
Message 19233876
Admittedly, my post was similar to others that I have posted that did not mention any "attack target" by name and did not post to any "attack target." It was a post to another who had similar "run-ins" and was expressing an opinion. That opinion was that a poster who had previously used the type of scurrilous religious bigoted phrasiology (listed in the first cited post above by me) was a bigot and of low IQ and in fact "stupid" or the "stupidest." Note that although he was not mentioned by name in my posts, the phrase "self-knighted one" falls into the category "if the shoe fits, etc."
For that post and/or perhaps for others similar I was suspended for 15 days.
Can you state for the record that my post or posts from the period of the next prior suspension to the one that merited the 15 day suspension is the TOU-moral equivalent of sirvinny's rants? Again, I am not saying that you are wrong or that you have no power to suspend as you have. I would just like to have it on the record that you feel my posts were "TOU-just-as-bad" as sirvinny's.
As an aside, the posts leading up to my suspension culminated from a series of exchanges, which series was very similar to what happened on this thread. I had previously been suspended with sirvinny. Once reinstated, I attempted to avoid him. He persisted and followed me around. After several posts directly to me, as he did on this thread this week, with no response by me, and after notification to you SI Bob, I then responded to him. In my opinion, and I believe in the opinion of most readers, my responses were nowhere close to the level of "personal attack" as his. They may have been a bit cuter, a bit more sarcastic, but they were not "hook nose" "inbreed" "drunk sailor" "pedophile", etc., etc.
I was suspended for 15 days. I do not believe sirvinny was suspended at that time. If he was, it was not for 15 days as he was back posting almost immediately, with other "targets" in sight.
Getting back to the present. I was suspended by you yesterday. I would ask your permission to paste your PM to me. I think it is ok to paraphrase that you objected to my post which stated to sirvinny (after his repeated off topic personal attacks) as follows:
"Please refer to my previous post. With all due respect, I don't think this is the thread for your queery.
Because of the deleted and edited posts from sirvinny, it is impossible to reconstruct what happened but there are several other readers of this thread who are welcome to correct any inaccuracies stated here.
After my lengthy post cited first above, which did not name sirvinny and was not addressed to him and which did not address the substance of topics in which I had previously been involved with him, he made an appearance and attacked me and Albert who happened to respond to my post. My first post, not addressed to him, was to reiterate that this was the type of thing that happened in the past, that he would attack and, if challenged, become more and more vitriolic, particularly with the language of an extreme and perhaps demented bigot. When sirvinny persisted, I suggested more than once that this was not the thread for his views or mine on religious bigotry or the other topics which led to our previous controversies. He disregarded the request and continued to post to me and to Albert. I stopped posting after the post which earned the one day suspension, while Albert and sirvinny continued, sirvinny attacking and Albert usually requesting your attention relative to this personal bigoted attack.
OK - so what's the point?
Should I be grateful that I was suspended this time for only 1 day while sirvinny was apparently suspended for 15 days?
In my view, my posts for both this most recent 1 day suspension and my prior 15 day suspension, were of the type that recognized and stated that someone who continuously uses hate phrases to describe the religion which he perceives is followed by his target makes that person a bigot, a lowlife, and an individual of low IQ and even "stupid." I have (in my best memory) avoided obscenities or direct name-calling, usually trying to get the point across indirectly.
Simply speaking, I would like to get it on the record that it is your opinion that calling a bigot a bigot is a TOU violation, for which you will suspend someone for 15 days and then threaten to cut the "rope" which is very "thin." I do want to make it clear that I tried repeatedly to avoid sirvinny and not to post directly to him. As he did on this thread, he follows his "target" around without a direct post to him. I am not the only person who has had this happen to him.
If one compares histories, I do not post strictly on coffee shop threads, prefering stock discussions, while sirvinny seems to make his life's work anti-American and anti-semitic haunts.
This is not a post arguing what rights an owner of a private message board has to suspend posters. It is not a post arguing whether behavior or posts which use outright racial slurs, blood libels, passages from ancient tomes to characterize a group, religion or race in a negative way, particularly when used by someone who feels that he is posting to someone of that group, religion or race, are good or bad. (As an aside, I might suggest that if you read some of the threads, you might be quite amazed at the level of bigotry which has found a home on your property. I do believe, but do not rely on the "lesser evil" theory, that if you compare the posting history which got me suspended for 15 days with what goes on every day in many of the Coffee Shop threads, my posts are much less of a "personal attack." Many have written to me expressing astonishment with the treatment that I have received here. Again, I'm not complaining but rather asking for you to "put it on the record" exactly what constitutes a TOU in the context of my case.)
Rather it is a post which cries out for guidance. Put it on the record that calling a bigot a bigot, even in discussion with someone other than the perceived bigot, is grounds for a 15 day suspension and quite likely permanent suspension. Put it on the record that the most vile of posts from an obvious bigot may be expunged by deletion coupled with a 15 day suspension in one case (and with no suspension in a prior case,) with that poster free to come back and commit similar abuse. Put it on the record that the level of religous bigotry, anti-American attack that currently exists here, is welcome on SI, or perhaps that it will not be a violation of TOU unless it rises to a "personal attack" and, in that context, what is a "personal attack?"
Tell all that to posters who have lost family members or friends as a result of racial or religious fanatics or fanatical theorists. Have it here in black and white that there is a moral equivalency, from an Si-TOU enforcement standpoint, of sirvinny's rants with posts suggesting that he is a bigot and not a very bright one at that. (As a further aside, will I be suspended for expressing this very thing here? If so, my parting best wishes to all, even to Self-Knighted ones in getting the appropriate attention they so crave.) |
