Israel article

[Anonymous]

You pick and choose when to apply rules based on your emotional responses. Which, again, is your right as the owner of this site. But don't pretend to adhere to any values that you yourself flaunt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You pick and choose when to apply rules based on your emotional responses. Which, again, is your right as the owner of this site. But don't pretend to adhere to any values that you yourself flaunt.

I'm not any of the recent posters on this thread, but I side with Jeff. He has not violated anonymity. The real person is just as anonymous as before.

The poster in question has directly accused Jeff of being an antisemite. She more or less tried to drive others off the site. She then said she was leaving for good. This is an attempt to harm a real person, both in reputation and economically, since the site depends on ad revenue to cover its costs.

OK, she said her peace and supposedly left. But instead she comes back and posts again.

Jeff pokes her by his comment about starting a thread about OP's bigotry. At this point, it's basically a message, understandable only to her, that says "hey I know who you are and you're being hypocritical". It's not like anyone could organize an actual witch hunt for an anonymous poster. All we have is her post to criticize.

And it's not like he violated her expectation of privacy. Everyone but a fool knows the site owner can tell who is who. And in fact she has been attacking this very person, knowing he owns the site. He didn't out her. And he didn't block her address, tell people where she works (yes, any web admin can tell where you work if you post from your office), link some embarrassing posts about a personal problem she may have written about in the distant past. If he wanted to get abusive, there is plenty to do. All he did is let her know that he knows she's the one trying to organize the walkout.

[Anonymous]

PP-

All good points. I just think Jeff handled it poorly. He should have sent her a private email or made a post re-iterating the rules of discourse. I don't think he did a criminal act, just acted in poor form. I also think he abused his power. How many of the rest of us can figure out exactly who is who, even just by linking anonymous posts, to "out" someone as a hypocrite? We don't have that power. Jeff does as the admin of this site, as well he should. But to use it in this way seems to be an abuse of it.

[jsteele]

Just to clarify a couple of points, the original poster of this thread did not start the thread calling me a bigot. Rather, she participated in that thread by calling me an anti-Semite. Accordingly, she is also not the poster who seemed to suggest that users boycott this site and who threatened to quit herself. So, to that extent, her continued participation is not contradictory to her previous posts. What is contradictory and hypocritical is twice calling me an anti-Semite and then posting a bigoted article.

As for the poster who thinks I handled this poorly, again we are just going to have to agree to disagree. Or, more accurately, I don't really care what you think. The idea that I would allow someone to publicly defame me and then simply send them a private email is ludicrous. In fact, determining the poster's identify to an extent sufficient to send a private email would require a much greater invasion of privacy. Moreover, an anonymous poster who subsequently received a private email from me would probably freak out, and rightly so.

The idea that I should be little more than a pinata, allowing posters to club me at will, is similarly ludicrous. How would you react if a similar allegation were made about you? Are you even willing to post your name in this thread, let alone be called horrible things by name? Do you honestly expect me to believe that if you came here and found yourself being publicly named in such a fashion that you would want to do nothing more than have me reiterate the rules to whoever made the charge? You know full well that you would demand that the message be removed. If the message negatively impacted your business, you might even consider legal action. So, before you toss around terms such as "abuse of power", think about how you would react.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP-

All good points. I just think Jeff handled it poorly. He should have sent her a private email or made a post re-iterating the rules of discourse. I don't think he did a criminal act, just acted in poor form. I also think he abused his power. How many of the rest of us can figure out exactly who is who, even just by linking anonymous posts, to "out" someone as a hypocrite? We don't have that power. Jeff does as the admin of this site, as well he should. But to use it in this way seems to be an abuse of it.

The poster trying to stage a walkout was an abuse. "Leaving" the forum and then coming back to post is an abuse of etiquette. Calling a named person an anti-semite while hiding under a cloak of anonymity is just plain wrong.

The anonymous poster getting called out for it, all the while retaining the privilege of anonymity is in my opinion generous. Most people would do worse in retaliation. The protests that this is not fair are a bit childish, like school kids complaining to teacher about some trivial infraction. "It's not fair, teacher!!! wah". All he did was link two posts together, which is something posters here attempt to do all the time. So what. She can stop posting and no harm would come to her. In fact, she can post again and no harm will come to her. No harm. None. The idea that there is some sacred anonmity trust is farfetched enough. But to suggest that the mere linking of two anonymous posts, on a free forum, in defense of a real person against an anonymous user with malicious intent, is some sort of violation of the "contract" between users and admin, is just silly.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Just to clarify a couple of points, the original poster of this thread did not start the thread calling me a bigot. Rather, she participated in that thread by calling me an anti-Semite. Accordingly, she is also not the poster who seemed to suggest that users boycott this site and who threatened to quit herself. So, to that extent, her continued participation is not contradictory to her previous posts. What is contradictory and hypocritical is twice calling me an anti-Semite and then posting a bigoted article.

As for the poster who thinks I handled this poorly, again we are just going to have to agree to disagree. Or, more accurately, I don't really care what you think. The idea that I would allow someone to publicly defame me and then simply send them a private email is ludicrous. In fact, determining the poster's identify to an extent sufficient to send a private email would require a much greater invasion of privacy. Moreover, an anonymous poster who subsequently received a private email from me would probably freak out, and rightly so.

The idea that I should be little more than a pinata, allowing posters to club me at will, is similarly ludicrous. How would you react if a similar allegation were made about you? Are you even willing to post your name in this thread, let alone be called horrible things by name? Do you honestly expect me to believe that if you came here and found yourself being publicly named in such a fashion that you would want to do nothing more than have me reiterate the rules to whoever made the charge? You know full well that you would demand that the message be removed. If the message negatively impacted your business, you might even consider legal action. So, before you toss around terms such as "abuse of power", think about how you would react.

Jeff-

You still operate under the assumption that your participation here is the same as everyone else's. It is not. As the owner/moderator of the blog, your participation is different. Plain and simple. With power comes responsibility. You skirted your responsibility in this situation. I'm not saying you can't defend yourself. But you weren't doing that. You went on the offensive. And if that is what you want the culture on this site to be, so be it. But it is wrong of you to say one thing and then act in another way. You are advocating a "Do what I say, not what I do" mentality, which is irresponsible. If you really can't see that, you probably shouldn't be in this line of work. I'll leave it at that, since you seem pretty impervious to constructive criticism.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:But it is wrong of you to say one thing and then act in another way. You are advocating a "Do what I say, not what I do" mentality, which is irresponsible.

Can you explain where I have done that? Because the only example of which I know is when I say that anonymous posters can't attack named individuals, yet allow anonymous attacks on me.

[Anonymous]

I agree. I don't see how he has done that, either.