Picking up from the discussion in the jp2 campaign item: Dan (cross), I have to say that I am puzzled by your perception of the character of mary's responses to your comments and actions. I find her to be a very compassionate, but very outspoken individual with little or no compunctions about saying what she thinks, but also without a detectable trace of vindictiveness or hubris about her. I can only think that you simply did not carefully read what she said to you, or that you responded to her comments defensively and without really taking the time to understand what she was saying. I think she was saying that she wished you would have taken a more collaborative approach to dealing with what looked like it might not have been a really cut-and-dried abuse case, especially in light of your relative inexperience in balancing the concerns that Grex staffers very carefully balance on a daily basis. That may appear to be totally at odds with the point of adding new staffers and energizing the staff with new blood, but it really isn't. There's no harm in asking first, even about things that seem clear, at least for a while until the responses to those questions consistently agree with your own conclusions about the appropriate actions. This is essentially analogous to a self-monitored training period. Grex's management philosophy pretty much seems to be that it is always good to check with people to make sure you're on the right track, especially if you think you don't need to.53 responses total.
hey, have you guys ever noticed how Grex is a layer above humanity? Be truthful, fags.
What "Abuse" exactly prompted locking out the accounts and the subsequent IP banning?
moved from the campaign item to here .. You all are just unclear on what to do when a case of mass mailing arises. On account of the past two instances does it mean I too can send 500 mails and get away with just gettting my account locked for 2 days ... Does grex have any set course of action in such cases? Or it's always ad hoc.
The limit is not the number of mail messages but rather the size of the bulk mailing. That makes sense when you consider the issue is our limited resources and how sending 500K of mail brings Grex to its knees. Our staff walks a fine line between setting hard and fast rules where everyone gets treated the same (as in what Valerie did recently with jp2) and trying to understand what's behind a problem and factor that into the staff intervention (as in what cross did). Most of the time individual staff members make at least reasonable decisions but they always leave themselves open to the opinion of other users and other staff members. And as uncomfortable as that might be for the staff member involved, it's part of the job. Always was and will be. Now, here is where I think Dan went a little wrong. He went past reacting to the facts of an incident of system abuse into building theories about who all was involved and their motivations and connections. He then used his staff power to lock accounts and tried to block the suspects access to Grex. And when it was shown his theories were incorrect he responded by stating: "I locked asddsa's account because I had reason to suspect he was the same person as dah. Both their comments in the bbs (I infrequently see both them in party) struck me as juvenille and immature. Their harassment of staff was annoying. Their continuing complaint about polytarp's account being locked was just stupid. Forgive me if I couldn't tell Tweedle-Dee from Tweedle-Dum." Coop, item 29, response #17 Maybe it's just me being Old Grex, but I found this response worthy of criticism. When you start using staff police powers based on assumptions instead of fact, you open yourself up to having to say, "I was wrong and I'm sorry", which is what the response should have been in this instance. I made four responses in item #17, and I won't bore people by entering them again, but if you're into it they are responses #21, 66, 96 and 118. That Dan's response to my comments was to quasi-resign from staff speaks for itself. It takes some patience and skin to be Grex staff. And it takes some experience to be really good at it. Dan, I hope this helps.
I might be wrong .. but I would think hard and fast rules are necessary to ensure everyone gets treated equally.
5: Well, that's really debatable. It is possible for justice to be blind in the absence of highly specific rules, it's just not very commen. In some ways, laying out a comprehensive set of rules would make Grex a lot easier to manage, but at what I think would be the cost of its character and driving philosophy. This might simply be an example of the kind of growing pains small organizations always experience when they begin to become larger organizations, and the things that worked before just don't work as well anymore because of the greater difficulty of applying the priciples to a larger and exponentially more complex structure.
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resp 3&4 It wasn't mass-mailing that caused the dah and asddsa accounts to be locked. re 7 Or unknown ones, as it may be.
7: Yep, and be able to trust them not to.
Okay , that brings back to my original question .. what will you do ... if I decide to send 500 KB ( this or whatever renders the system unusable ) now .. would I get my account locked for two days ? Just that or more .. I don't see any reason why I should be treated differently that the earlier two cases. What if all of the thousands of grex users decide to try it and do the same ? My point being in the absence of pre determined set of actions to such incidents .. it ended up bringing up conflicts amongs the staff . on both the earlier incidents. [quote]It is possible for justice to be blind in the absence of highly specific rules,[/quote] In the presence of rules, however, it would have been a lot easier to decide whether cross or anyone for that matter misused their staff power and the matter would have been just a minor thing.
Yes, your account would be locked. I don't know for how long. Possibly for ever.
If it's forever , would that go against equal treatment for everyone ?
Nope; just like aggravated assault brings a more serious penalty than simple assault. You know better, but you are weighing the penalty against the advantage. Thus, the penalty MUST be more severe for you.
I didn't read Mary's response #4 closely enough, so it took me a while to find her comments. (She refers to different item numbers; the correct one is #29.) She took Dan's comments in his response #17 to that item out of context and then criticised him for it. He was trying to explain why he considered several different accounts to belong to just one person. Blocking one of that person's accounts is worse than pointless: it's just plain stupid. Blocking the accounts of that person, but leaving them access to create new ones is also stupid. The only recourse in that instance is blocking the IP address (or addresses) that the vandal (for lack of a better term) is using. As was pointed out at the time, such blocking is standard practice here on grex. Mary's response #66 was directly preceded by a response from John. I'm going to include both here, in their entirety: } Item #29: Hackers (More tricks) } Response 65 (125) John H. Remmers (remmers) Sun, Nov 9, 2003 (11:59) 2 lines: } } I think that #61 contains a reasonable question, regardless of what } one may think of the person asking it. } } --------------------------------------------------------------------------- } Item #29: Hackers (More tricks) } Response 66 (125) Mary Remmers (mary) Sun, Nov 9, 2003 (12:14) 3 lines: } } I'm afraid the answer might be, "because I can". } } I hope we're learning here. } } --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Madam, that sure sounds like a personal attack, don't you think? Oh, the question in #61 was: ] Why do you continue to block them, when it remains fairly obvious I ] can connect to Grex anyway? Unfortunately, that particular question never did get addressed. In the face of continued criticism, AND ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT, Dan gave up. I echo that last sentence of Response 66 of Item 29. I hope you spend some time in front of a mirror, Mary.
By the way, I, too, bear cupability for leaving Dan twisting in the wind. My only excuse is inadequate: I was too new on staff to feel competent to speak for staff as a whole. That does not relieve me of my obligation to speak for myself. Dan, I'm sorry. As a person, as a staff member, and as a Director. You deserved better.
Regarding #4; I wish you would go back and reread all of item 29, Mary.
Mary writes:
"Now, here is where I think Dan went a little wrong. He went past
reacting to the facts of an incident of system abuse into building
theories about who all was involved and their motivations and
connections. He then used his staff power to lock accounts and
tried to block the suspects access to Grex."
So, according to you, I went wrong by locking the pseudo's of the
naftee account thinking it was polytarp. But, you neglect to mention
my statement that naftee himself complained his main account (login:
naftee) had been locked previously. Who did that? Not me; it was before
my time on staff. Let's have a look at the logs:
Wed Feb 6 12:01:20 2002 woot [naftee] another polytarp account
Woot is STeve Andre, and at the time, polytarp was being banned for
sending mass tel's. So it seems I wasn't that far out of line thinking
that naftee was polytarp, and I had legitimate reasons for thinking so
(hey, STeve Andre thought the same thing!). It should be noted that
STeve never unlocked the naftee account, even though he incorrectly
assumed naftee was polytarp, just as I did; naftee was recreated in June,
by the original person, after being reaped. You can't get much more
experienced at grex staff, or as oldgrex, as STeve.
I suppose quoting the above line from the log will be considered an
abuse of staff power. At least I'm not quoting the line two above that
in the log file!
Mary goes on to say:
"And when it was shown his theories were incorrect he responded by
stating:
"I locked asddsa's account because I had reason to suspect
he was the same person as dah. Both their comments in the bbs
(I infrequently see both them in party) struck me as juvenille
and immature. Their harassment of staff was annoying.
Their continuing complaint about polytarp's account being
locked was just stupid. Forgive me if I couldn't tell
Tweedle-Dee from Tweedle-Dum." Coop, item 29, response #17"
I made the same mistake other staffers did. Sorry.
But, this is quoted out of context. Here the entire post Mary quoted
parts of. I wrote:
"Nonsense. I told him I'd give him his account back if he said he
wouldn't damage the system. The response was something on the
lines of, ``CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO FIX MY TV!'' I concluded
after a couple more exchanges he wasn't serious about getting
anything unlocked, but just wanted to be irritating.
This is a hard issue; Freedom of speech is a rough thing.
It means, in exchange for the right to express one's own ideas,
periodically one has to put up with idiots who want to abuse
the system for kicks, who in effect take advantage of the right
to say whatever they want to say things just meant to annoy,
who push the limits just because they can. Sometimes the
latter is good; sometimes shocking people out of a complacent
existence can be beneficia, if that complacency is itself bad.
But sometimes, it's just irritating, and while it's an irritation
we have to put up with, but that doesn't oblige me, or anyone
else, to facilitate it.
I locked asddsa's account because I had reason to suspect he
was the same person as dah. Both their comments in the bbs
(I infrequently see both them in party) struck me as juvenille
and immature. Their harassment of staff was annoying. Their
continuing complaint about polytarp's account being locked
was just stupid. Forgive me if I couldn't tell Tweedle-Dee
from Tweedle-Dum.
A few people I trust have since said that
asddsa/naftee/soup/salad isn't polytarp/dah/scholar. Okay,
fine. However, I'm not going to play a series of games with
naftee over getting his account back; freedom of speech doesn't
entitle you to a specific login name. It's clear naftee, or
whatever his name is, knows how to run newuser, and it's clear
he's both figured out a way to access the BBS via the web, and
login interactively. As far as I'm concerned, he hasn't been
censored, and he can get his other accounts back after they've
been expired in the normal reap cycle. I have better things
to do than (a) fix naftee's TV, and (b) engage in juvenille
debate over this or that."
I still don't think there's anything particularly bad in there. I said
in words what STeve said in actions. Maybe I'm a bit gruff. Too bad,
I live in New York. Deal with it.
I tried talking to naftee (using his pseudo at the time) to determine
whether he really wasn't polytarp, and whether he was planning on
abusing the system in the future. I said, if I recall correctly, ``if
you tell me you won't abuse the system, I'll unlock your account.''
His response asked me whether I would fix his TV. Not knowing how to
fix TV's, I declined. But I also went away thinking he wasn't too
serious about getting his account back. Given that, I wasn't going
to waste a lot of time playing games with him over it. Eventually, I
unlocked his account and sent him the new password. That's more than
the old school grex staff did in the *exact same situation.* Yet,
Mary chooses to criticize me for mishandling the situation. Mary,
why didn't you criticize other grex staffers the first time this happened?
Mary makes vague statements that I should have asked before locking
dah et al. Actually, I did. In an email to the staff mailing list on
October 28, 2003, I wrote:
"Sure, I'll agree with that, too. I chmod'ed everything in his
home directory to be unwritable by group and other. Still,
I think, if we can ferrit out who's doing this (I'm reasonably
confident it's not Jamie), we should boot that person. Dah has
been paying a lot of attention to Jamie's account. I find that
a little weird."
The ``Sure, I'll agree with that, too'' is in reference to Valerie's
suggestion that we lock jp2's account if it gets vandalized again because
he had permissions on some files and other's could write into them.
By the way, Sapna, that was what dah did: he wrote about 400 megabytes
into a few of his files that were world writable, and filled up the
/d partition. He then posted somewhere, maybe in coop, that Jamie's
account should be locked because he had filled up the grex. Hence my
comments about abusing the system and trying to pin it on someone else:
he abused grex, and tried to pin it on Jamie. Evidently, to Mary, this
isn't a good reason to lock an account; doing so would be un-grexlike.
The funny thing is, it's common practice with grex staff to lock accounts
that are over quota.
Anyway, my email received no objections, no one said, ``hold up before
you do that.'' So, it would appear that I *did* ask (in the form of
stating my intentions, to which no one disagreed) before doing what I did.
As for naftee getting caught in the sweep of polytarps access, well,
I've already explained that enough times. It's interesting to note
that the policy written up in jp2's campaign item is that, in cases of
mistaken identity, particularly when someone's actively attacking the
system, it's better to lock first and ask questions later. I thought
dah represented a serious threat to the system, as he had filled up a
user partition (making the system unusable for a significant number of
users, the offense jp2's account was locked for, which Mary seemed to
agree with); there was no reason to believe he wouldn't do it again.
I did what I thought was prudent. So if I was doing what Mary suggested
I do when she wrote:
"Oh for heaven's sake. Cross, you are brand spanking new to
staff. There is a learning curve. You have some rough edges.
None of this means you won't fit in nicely but you'll need
to ask some questions and listen to the answers to make that
process easier."
...
"And I'll compliment you on this - you are eager and willing to
help out. That's a huge plus right now. But, at least in the
beginning, think it through and maybe ask those who have been
doing this a very long time if your plan is sound."
Well, it seems I did ask some questions and listen for the answers (which
never came). What's more, I followed the *exact* *same* *path* ``those
who have been doing this for a very long time'' did (cf. steve locking the
naftee account back in February, not to mention all the account locking
that happens on a nearly continuous basis). I boggles the mind why Mary
criticized me for this, but not STeve. Maybe she wasn't aware of what
STeve did, but if she was, would her reaction have been any different?
At the end of the day, I think the only thing Mary can *really* take
exception to was that I didn't immediately reinstate the naftee account.
Okay, point taken, but that's not how she presented herself in item
29. For instance, dah, aka polytarp, the person who had filled up
the /d drive, asked the following:
"Why do you continue to block them, when it remains fairly
obvious I can connect to Grex anyway?"
This was in reference to blocking the IP addresses of his ISP. Remmers
went on to say:
"I think that #61 contains a reasonable question, regardless
of what one may think of the person asking it."
To which Mary responds:
"I'm afraid the answer might be, "because I can".
I hope we're learning here."
Never mind that I'd already explained why I had banned him. I'm not
sure what we're supposed to be learning; Mary never explained that
comment.
Scott did have this to say about one of Mary's comments:
"Actually we do on occasion site-block. We feel shitty about
having to do so, but at times it has been necessary."
She never responded to that comment. But then again, it didn't support
her thesis.
Later, I wrote:
"Regarding #70; Okay. I've unblocked all the Canadian ISP's
I blocked. Someone else can clean up these problems on grex;
I've got other things to do."
Then:
"I've unlocked the polytarp and dah accounts, and emailed
the new passwords for both to willcome."
Which polytarp followed up to by writing:
"And that's what I get for chasing away staff members, and
DoSing the system and blaming it on potentuak staff members.
(more than I started with)."
...
"I meant potential (impotent, importent) Board MEmbers."
So, the person who abused the system admits it, and proves my point
for me. Here are the lessons I learned:
1) While new to staff (I'm not new to Unix system administration,
or dealing with unruly users), don't do things other staffers have
done before you, because you're wrong while they were right.
2) The president of the board plays favorites and doesn't
listen to explanations of actions that go against her preconceptions.
3) It's okay to vandalize grex as long as you complain about
being punished later in BBS.
4) Users will not be held accountable for their actions if they staffer
who tries to do so isn't on the favorite person list of the president
of the board.
5) The grex old guard will defend itself. Note that no one has taken
Mary to task for her uneven reaction to different staffers doing the
*exact* *same* *thing*.
6) Attempting to public explain yourself will bring you nothing but
misery here.
(Joe slipped. Thanks for the support, Joe; I really do appreciate it. btw- my note shouldn't be construed as critical of STeve Andre; I just wanted to point out Mary's uneven dealing with different staffers.)
Had STeve's actions come to my attention I would have voiced my opinion, just as I did with you. Don't believe me, ask STeve. We've had animated discussions. We are also friends.
I do like Mary a lot, but I don't think she is aware of everything staff has to do on occasion. Yes, we site-block, ard in this case supported Dan's use of that method.
Maybe I've do have it wrong. I realize you have to lock account and site block. But when you assume someone deserves such treatment, take the action, then find out you spanked the wrong person, what is staff's response? Accepted response?
And thanks for the honest response, Joe. I respect your opinion a lot. I'll take another look at that entire item, tomorrow morning, and see if I come to another conclusion.
There's a pope in Paris.
re 14 >In the face of continued criticism, actually, it was needling by willcome. Something cross should've ignored. AND ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT, Dan gave up. This is absolutely not true. Here's proof from item 29 #2 of 125: by Scott Helmke (scott) on Fri, Oct 31, 2003 (22:59): I'd side with cross on this one. #7 of 125: by Sindi Keesan (keesan) on Sat, Nov 1, 2003 (04:41): Thanks, cross. #20 of 125: by El Capitan se habla espanol (jaklumen) on Mon, Nov 3, 2003 (01:44): of course you do, tweedle-dum. #24 of 125: by S M (mynxcat) on Mon, Nov 3, 2003 (11:45): I agree with cross on this. #31 of 125: by Eric R Bassey (other) on Mon, Nov 3, 2003 (18:15): And you are a stupid ignorant fuck. What of it? #57 of 125: by Scott Helmke (scott) on Fri, Nov 7, 2003 (23:20): Staff *has* explained its actions. You've yet to explain *yours*, however. #72 of 125: by Bruce Howard (bhoward) on Sun, Nov 9, 2003 (22:31): Goodness gracious, this item does goes on and on and round and round. #77 of 125: by Bruce Howard (bhoward) on Mon, Nov 10, 2003 (05:22): Perhaps an unfortunate lesson for all concerned? #80 of 125: by S M (mynxcat) on Mon, Nov 10, 2003 (16:55): I hear ya, Dan. You did your best. #81 of 125: by Abhijit Ray (sholmes) on Mon, Nov 10, 2003 (20:19): I would agree with mynxcat. #85 of 125: by Sindi Keesan (keesan) on Mon, Nov 10, 2003 (21:38): Please don't resign. #90 of 125: by John Ellis Perry Jr. (jep) on Mon, Nov 10, 2003 (23:34): Dan, I'd appreciate it if you'd stay on the staff, too. I think you contribute a lot. Specifically, NextGrex needs you very much. #91 of 125: by Glenda F. Andre (glenda) on Mon, Nov 10, 2003 (23:49): Don't listen to twirps, and don't let them drive you away. gelinas, quit writing about how cross had no support. Unlike my identity, you have no excuse to pretend to believe cross had no support. resp 16 >Woot is STeve Andre, and at the time, polytarp >was being banned for sending mass tel's. >So it seems I wasn't that far out of line thinking >that naftee was polytarp, and I had legitimate reasons for thinking so >(hey, STeve Andre thought the same thing!). Yes, I ran polytarp's mass-tel program at the same time and location as him. >But I also went away thinking he wasn't too serious about getting his account back. I explained in item 29 why I responded like that. Here it is again: #16 of 125: by saladman (salad) on Sun, Nov 2, 2003 (18:48): re 9 You should read the series of writes cross and myself exchanged. It started with cross saying something like, "I'll give you a cookie if you promise to be nice". #17 of 125: by Dan Cross (cross) on Sun, Nov 2, 2003 (21:20): Nonsense. I told him I'd give him his account back if he said he wouldn't damage the system. The response was something on the lines of, ``CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO FIX MY TV!'' I concluded after a couple more exchanges he wasn't serious about getting anything unlocked, but just wanted to be irritating. ... #18 of 125: by saladman (salad) on Sun, Nov 2, 2003 (22:59): You're arguments are so silly. Response #16 is an excellent paraphrase of what you wrote. An occaisional user of GreX suddenly finds his account locked and most of the IPs he comes from banned, and a staff member writes to him that he's abused the system and'll only give the account (and access) back if he promises to do this or that. And then this staff member wonders why this user is so mad at him. Well, gee golly, don't think to hard. >As for naftee getting caught in the sweep of polytarps >access, well, I've already explained that enough times. And you eventually fixed it. I thank you for that. > 3) It's okay to vandalize grex as long as you complain about > being punished later in BBS. In willcome's case, no; but after jp2, yes.
That was the most confused post ever.
re: 13 ..No Joe , you would know I am weighing the penalty against the
advantages because I am putting it here on BBS. Okay forget me, .. does
that imply only those who make it known beforehand their intentions will
be treated severly while anyone who does it quietly can get away with
it. Why I can even create new ids and spam from there and you would not
even knwo it was me and then later complain that I am being victimized
in co-op.
My point is exactly what cross mentions in #16
3) It's okay to vandalize grex as long as you complain about
being punished later in BBS.
somehow the above needs to be addressed I feel .. if willcome can get
away with it .. anyone else can and maybe with further damage in the
form of another staff resigning because staff themselves are unclear on
what is the correct course of action ...
Well, I reread the entire discussion, and I end up in the same place, having concerns about how this was managed. Three of my four responses I'd make again. I agree that my comment "Because he can" was personal and unnecessary, and I apologize to Dan for making it. I'm still interested in an answer to my question, above, which I'll state again. I realize that sometimes staff has to lock user accounts and block access. But when you assume someone deserves such treatment, take the action, then find out you spanked the wrong person, what is the acceptable response?
To apologise to the person wronged.
I disagree with Mary on this one. Dan did the most rational thing he could with the information he had at the time. he did ask how to handle it; he did do what other staff members had done in the same situation. To hold him publically to a different standard even after you know other staff members advised him differently than you would have done it, is not rational. Rational is to say, ok, I didn't know staff was doing it this way, let's talk about how _staff_ handles these kinds of situations, not how _cross_ handled this one. And I still dont think he was _wrong_. He did it differently than you would have liked. That does not make it wrong. That does not make it "admit you were wrong and apologize". I think he did the _right_ thing. with what he knew at the time. To say, you should have known that I would disagree with staff behavior does not make what he did wrong. For jumping to conclusions about an account, he owes that account an apology. But not a global 'mea culpa'.
Uhm yea, apologise to the account all ya want.
I'm pretty sure the only way to live properly is to classify everything you dislike as wrong. YEah, pretty sure.
I agree with resp:28. It seems to me that mary was holding cross to a different standard than she would other staff members, and trying to micromanage him to a much greater extent. It doesn't surprise me he felt she was forcing him out. It's impossible from here to know whether this was just because he was new and hence untrusted, or for more personal reasons.
Dan, I think it's fair to say that most of the people who responded, myself included, to your actions on this matter did so without having the full picture available. We could see effects, but we couldn't see the process of decision-making. I'd like to apologize for anything I've said which was reflectve of ignorance of the full story at the time. I think you were caught in a complex situation which you handled the best way you could, and there were a number of remarks from several people which appear to have been mistaken or misinterpreted. The best thing we can do with this is try to figure out how to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again. Perhaps we need a more clearly defined structure of rules and appropriate responses to their breakage. Perhaps simply a better system of communication. Whichever the case, I'd like to see us move past the recriminations and focus on fixing the problem. It's important for staff to be a part of this discussion because it is staff who will really implement the fixes. Board should be aware and supportive of the effort, but it isn't the board that will be handling these things.
I agree that this needs to be fixed. If I were a potential staff member and I saw this go on, I'd think twice about agreeing to join staff.
It's true that board members don't have access to all the information staff has. We don't get staff email, and most of us don't read the staff conference (though I think we can). I wasn't aware of all the details that cross explained above, and some of his actions make more sense in light of them. I, too, find myself with some concerns about the practice of locking an account because it is suspected to be used by a known vandal. I think it deserves further discussion, as does the idea of what to do when a user account is locked mistakenly -- but those things have nothing to do with cross individually. I really think it's important to be supportive of staff, especially right now. We have a couple of people on grex that have discovered a way to attack them personally, by doing borderline-abusive behavior, then coming to coop and complaining loudly about anything staff does to them as a result. And because it *is* pretty borderline stuff, they are finding some support among the normal denizens of coop. Instead of running malicious software, these vandals are trying to infect the community of Grex with malicious memes. What we can do about it is be supportive of our staff volunteers, and -- this is important -- cut them some slack. If we disagree with the way staff handles something, we still need to talk about it, that's what we do on Grex, but let's be particularly careful to use tact. Let's discuss what we should do the next time something similar happens rather than pick apart an individual staff member's actions. Let's talk about what the proper solution to the problem is rather than questioning a staff member's qualifications. Mary, I think you could do a little better at this. Dan... *let* us be supportive of you. Do you know what being the high'n'mighty "President of Grex" means? It means you get to hold the gavel at board meetings. Well, and call Zingerman's to reserve a room, too. But that's pretty much it. Mary doesn't speak for the rest of us, any more than jp2 speaks for the rest of us. Would you get this upset because jp2 disagreed with your decisions?
This response has been erased.
flem, when you put it that way, yes, it does seem that cross gives mary's opinion a little too much credit than it deserves. But when it is the president that says such thing, and the president is supposed to be the representative of the board and the members, it's easy to see why her opinion and public commentary on the situation would upset him. (Just like most countries' ideas of Americans are based on what they hear Bush say). Especially when very few people stood up for him. And it wasn't only cross that got the feeling that he was being singled out. It was nearly everyone who read that item. Not too great an image of board being portrayed, I'm afraid,
Re resp:35: I'm not sure there's a pattern of abuse here. I think resp:34 is correct that we have a group of users who are deliberately trying to provoke staff into doing something questionable. That's not really something we've had often in the past on Grex.
mary has done a lot for grex in the past and present, and I hope will continue to do so in the future. That being said, I think she should keep her nose out of the day-to-day running of staff matters - let them censor themselves, if necessary. I think they are more than capable of doing so in a "grexlike" manner, without aid of the fist of policy being wielded in public comments.
> the president is supposed to be the representative of the > board and the members, This is exactly the conclusion I was trying to deny. I don't believe the Grex president is supposed to be anybody's representative, except perhaps as a representative of Cyberspace Communications, Inc. for legal purposes, such as if we get sued. The president bangs the gavel. That's it. No more. As far as I'm aware, the only reason we have a president is that we are required to by law. re #35: That's just it. There is no WMD^H^H^Hpattern of abuse. And nobody is giving you a hug.
What a snake pit. ;-) Look, I disagreed with the way this was handled. Most people, if not everyone else disagrees with me. I'm fine with that. Really. I have a pretty healthy relationship with critism. But take a deep breath and do the same, please. Be okay with my opinion being different from yours. Because that's all this is.
Er, I have a healthy relationship with *criticism* too. ;-)
But surely you realize that as president, your opinion carries more weight .
Yeah. THe President shouldn't be divisive + cruel.
I hereby decree, by order of my authority as President of Grex, that tomorrow no one shall utter a single negative word on Grex. Not a single staff member, nor board member, nor generous member, nor humble user. All shall be pleasant and kind for the entire 24 hours. Any questions?
(I had no idea...)
re 36 >cross that got the feeling that he was being >singled out. Cross had that feeling because he was the one that made the mistake, and refused to acknowledge the error. Of course he was centered out, and for good reason.
Pattern of abuse, my hairy white ass. And *that*'s part of why I really don't want to be root staff. I'm just not that interested in censoring myself when someone says something as patently stupid as that.
Jew ass.
Donkeys don't have religions. Even albino ones.
Don't purposely misinterpret what I say. It makes you look stupid and Grex look arbitrary.
Hey, willcome, quit insulting other users, you ass. Don't you have any respect for mary's decrees?
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TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
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