Author: KarinsDad
Date: 00:58:25 01/13/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 12, 2000 at 19:15:03, odell hall wrote:
>On January 12, 2000 at 13:36:34, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>
[snip]
>>
>>I don't believe we've made any announcements when people have been suspended,
>>and perhaps we can be criticized for this, although it is the opposite of your
>>concern. I replied to Odell Hall regarding his, because he made it a public
>>issue.
>>
>
>
> Bruce this is completely untrue!! I never brought up my suspension in any of
>my post and was rather shocked when the moderators brought it up, and
>selectively displayed the post which makes me look bad.
You are correct. I will explain how I think that happened. Your post (87780)
appears to make you out as a victim and it attacks the moderators ("We need
moderators who are more inteliigent, less emotional, and who are not prone to
favoritism"). So, I can understand Bruce responding as to how you were not a
victim and the reason for your suspension. Even though you did not bring up the
suspension in post 87780, you did bring up the implication that you were a
victim. Although you were talking about being a victim here on the forum via the
posts of other people, it is easy to confuse it with being a victim of the
moderators suspending you (since the post you were responding to was talking
about unfair treatment by the moderators and hence Bruce talked about the
suspension).
By the way, Bruce, Dann, and I sympathized with your position that people were
jumping on your posts and had multiple Email messages about at the time, but
when your abusive posts continued on and on, that eventually no longer became a
factor in the decision. By "attacking back", you are effectively saying that it
is ok for you to be abusive since someone else started it. This is not true and
the reason this is a moderated forum.
No one here was even
>aware of my suspension and nothing I said was in reference to my suspension. I
>was talking about unfairness in moderation and never even remotely used the word
>suspension nor did I even suggest it. I think it was completely irresponsible
>for the moderators to dig up all these post from months ago. First of all they
>selectively brought out the post that would make me look bad. Remember there was
>month's of negative post and threads that were the cause to me making some of
>those nasty remarks.
Of course we are going to talk about your bad posts since the idea is that you
do NOT have the right to attack back.
You cannot say you are being treated unfairly by the moderators and expect them
to not say "Hey Odell, what about this post?". Quite frankly, I have read your
posts for over a year and was shocked that you felt unfairly treated by us. You
have been here for a long time and know that if you post a half dozen or so
profane posts that the moderators will suspend you.
It's not like I just suddenly lost my mind and started
>attacking people for nothing. This is the picture that the moderators would like
>to portray. There were attacks against my post that began to form an abusive
>pattern which eventually led up to me using some of the unfortunate language
>that I did. Everytime I would make a post expressing my opionion on the GM
>Question for instance, Robert hyatt would make some kind of sarcastic comment
>attacking my intelligence, calling me foolish or using an insulting metaphor,
>When i tried to respond to these insults, they were simply ignored or some of
>his disciples would try and justify his comments. Once i complained to
>moderation and was told that they would speak to him about it. Over time i knew
>I was fighting a losing battle and it was clear that nothing was going to be
>done about it because hyatt had much more support than i could hope to get.
>Which led to increasing frustration and eventually I reached a limit to where I
>simply exploded. Ofcourse based on the threads that you displayed it makes me
>look like a mad raving lunatic who exploded with little provaction. I am sure
>that any reasonable person if they could see the "complete" picture over months
>of abuse, certainly would understand how one could lose his cool.
Yes, I can understand and even empathize with this. But you should understand
something as well. At the time you were making these posts, you were in the
process of "losing your cool". No matter how justified in your own mind a given
post was (how reasonable, how obviously correct, how non-offensive), it does not
mean that other people see it that way.
For example, as a programmer, I was slightly bothered by your "Why don't
programmers share their programs" post. I found the tone of it to be somewhat
arrogant and the questions within it appeared to insult the intelligence of
chess programmers. That was the post that started the entire mess (from my point
of view, you may have thought that some earlier posts indicated a problem as
well). The questions appeared to be naive and intended to start a fight. I have
re-read that post over and over and still I get that impression (even if the
people you showed that post to do not get that impression).
However, I can see where as the writer, you do not have that impression and that
was not your intention. But I can also see where a bunch of people here thought
you were "trolling for attention" with it. And you jumped fairly severely over
some rather bland criticisms of it (in addition to the not so bland criticisms).
So, please consider the following: You were in the process of losing your cool
in that timeframe and from the moderators point of view, you were acting
irrationally to any sort of disagreements with your point of view. As you lose
your cool, your ability to objectively look at what is actually written becomes
less and less dependable and you start seeing meanings where none may be
intended (just like I and others saw meaning in your Programmer post where maybe
none was intended).
It is a self destructive cycle. The more you think people are abusive to you,
the more you see any slight commment to be more than it is and the more you
start losing your cool. The suspension was meant as a cooling off period.
However, can you not understand Bruce bringing it up in response to your post
87780? You were gone for a month and within a week of coming back, you attack
the moderators and indicate that you were a victim, just because someone else
got annoyed at the moderators and claimed that he was being unfairly treated.
When does it stop? When do people finally cool down?
You are a good contributor Odell. Frankly, I like (most of) your posts.
I do apologize for posting what I did in response, but it just so happened to be
one of those nights that I was in the mood to write a bunch of messages here and
I overreacted to your messages. I apologize for that, but I do not believe I
wrote any untruths in what I wrote. You made a series of serious mistakes. You
were suspended. End of story as far as I am concerned. My only caveat is that
next time, send an Email to the moderators and let them handle it. Do not attack
back on your own. We really do try to be fair.
KarinsDad :)
PS. I am not trying to get in the last word here (as per your other message).
Feel free to respond. I hope you drop this chip off your shoulder and especially
do not carry it into the next moderation session. It would be good to have the
old, not so heavily persecuted Odell back.
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