What the heck happened to Maddy?

[dualstow]

I was just going to joke that kriegs posted a picture of her cabin without permission. (That is a beautiful cabin in the Solar thread).
I went to make sure I had her name right and- zero posts?

[Xan]

I was just going to joke that kriegs posted a picture of her cabin without permission. (That is a beautiful cabin in the Solar thread).
I went to make sure I had her name right and- zero posts?

Totally weird. I'm investigating...

[Xan]

I've restored Maddy's posts from a 1/19 backup, the most recent available that was before the deletion. Her access should be restored as well.

Pinging Maddy... Can you log in? Is it easy for you to restore your avatar? If not I can go back to the backup.

[Maddy]

It happened a couple of days ago, within an hour or two after I posted a comment to the "Political Realignment" thread. The comment, which seriously triggered at least one individual, promptly disappeared--followed by everything else.

[l82start]

It happened a couple of days ago, within an hour or two after I posted a comment to the "Political Realignment" thread. The comment, which seriously triggered at least one individual, promptly disappeared--followed by everything else.

very strange.. thanks for restoring her posts and account xan..

[Xan]

It happened a couple of days ago, within an hour or two after I posted a comment to the "Political Realignment" thread. The comment, which seriously triggered at least one individual, promptly disappeared--followed by everything else.

Do you have your avatar handy, or should I restore it from the backup?

[Maddy]

I'll put it back up. Thanks, Xan.

[Mountaineer]

Was this a conspiracy? (see who killed Kennedy thread) Should we take a poll?

[Maddy]

Xan, what do you think happened?

[Xan]

Xan, what do you think happened?

I'll PM you about it. Suffice to say here that I'm very sorry, and it shouldn't happen again.

[I Shrugged]

dumb joke deleted by I Shrugged.

[Xan]

Okay folks, the dust has settled a bit. It seems that a post that Maddy made torqued off a moderator, and he put Maddy on the ban list. By default, the option to delete all posts is checked, and it was accidentally left that way. So the deletion of posts was unintentional, but the banning (although largely an impulse) was intentional.

Sadly, the deletion of the posts means that the situation really can't be evaluated, because we don't know what was said.

In the fallout from this, the moderator has requested to be no longer a moderator, and has also requested his account be deleted.

In this election year, I'll take this opportunity to remind everyone (really: EVERYONE) that we need to keep things from getting personal around here. Personal attacks are pretty much the one way to actually get (permanently) banned here, and election years can get especially heated. I respectfully request that none of you go after each other, even if the other guy deserves it!

* We need to de-escalate conflict rather than escalate, or this forum will tear itself apart.
* Getting personal does not help your argument, quite the opposite.
* If there is an attempt to silence your viewpoints, then that will become apparent only if you don't give them any other ammunition to use against you, like personal attacks.

Back in the day, PS would point out that in discussions like this, it really isn't likely nor should it be your goal necessarily to convert the people you're arguing with. You should be writing with the on-the-fence, third-party observer in mind. Attacks and escalations drive those observers away from your view.

Treating each other like enemies is a really good way to suck all the fun out of this place, for everyone. Your fellow members are not your enemies. Convincing them of your opinion will make no difference in your life. At least, I'm pretty sure nobody here actually holds any kind of office! So let's lower the stakes in all our heads.

[WiseOne]

Hear, hear.

May we assume that Maddy's ban has been reversed?

I can guess who the moderator was...sad to see him go, especially because recently this person has not seemed to be the person we knew and greatly respected from a few years back.

[Xan]

Hear, hear.

May we assume that Maddy's ban has been reversed?

Yes, her access was restored and she's posted since. We recovered as many posts as possible.

[Maddy]

I have no quarrel with anything Xan has said. He has been an excellent administrator, and I intend to do my part to bring down the level of rancor on this forum. Hopefully we can do this without sacrificing our ability to engage in hard-hitting debates over controversial topics. Necessarily this involves the ability and willingness to distinguish between a post that challenges an idea and one that attacks a person, and to differentiate between a gratuitous insult and a comment that points out a logical fallacy, a questionable premise, or a personal bias.

That said, I do feel a need to address the ongoing inference that one or more of my posts during the last week might legitimately have warranted my being banned from the forum. It seems that while the majority of my posts have been recovered, those made over the last month or so have been permanently deleted. Accordingly, even Xan has been left wondering what was contained in the post that led to the action in question. The unfortunate result is that there is no way, at this point, of clearing my name or of allowing the group to assess for itself whether something I said warranted this action or whether the attack on my account was a purely vindictive act by someone who was angry at me and who no longer cared what damage he did to the forum.

The first observation I would make is that the "banning" was done by a former moderator who has been absent from the forum for approximately two years and who showed up again on the forum only shortly before the action in question. Due to both the length of time this person has been gone and the circumstances of his angry departure, it would be an unreasonable stretch to describe this person as a current "moderator." He was, in reality, a disgruntled former moderator who happened, due to an administrative oversight, to still have the credentials and "know how" to enter the system and to make a major "adjustment" that suited his political bent.

The post that appears to have precipitated my "disappearance" was on the Political Realignment thread, and it related to an earlier post in which a longtime member had launched an uncharacteristically venomous tirade against the conservative members of this forum over their objection to "open borders." I posted a response to that post in which I observed that someone who has the means to pay for his own health insurance but nonetheless opts for early retirement and claims the benefits of Medicaid really isn't in the position to lecture anyone about being "heartless" for not wanting to bear the cost of an even greater gravy train of illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, another member charged me with having "insulted" a fellow member and made the point that being on Medicaid when you have substantial assets "is not illegal." At some point, another poster launched a lengthy commentary about the perceived overall quality of my posts and his view that nothing I have ever posted has been particularly insightful. I refrained from responding to any of this. However, I did post a very short follow-up in which I stated something on the order of the following:

"If you choose to hear my post as an undirected insult, then you'll miss entirely the point I was making: that when you have no skin in the game, you have no claim to the soapbox when it comes to the question of illegal immigration."

That's the best I can do at recreating the post in question, but it's probably pretty close. That was the post that apparently caused my account, and my entire posting history, to be deleted.

I've now had the opportunity to say everything I have to say about this and will be getting back to business as usual.

[dualstow]

Welcome back. Keep posting, Maddy.

[Xan]

For the record the posts that are permanently gone are only a few days' worth: the deletion took place on the 23rd, and everything up until the 19th was recovered. So the missing bit is only 4 days. Of course that necessarily includes the post in question, unfortunately.

[dualstow]

For the record the posts that are permanently gone are only a few days' worth: the deletion took place on the 23rd, and everything up until the 19th was recovered. So the missing bit is only 4 days. Of course that necessarily includes the post in question, unfortunately.

I wonder why the wayback machine stopped archiving in summer. Maybe they just don't get around to such a small site that often and will again, soon.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190101000 ... esting.com

[Mountaineer]

Welcome back. Keep posting, Maddy.

+1
You are a valuable contributor, and I always enjoy your perspective.

Ditto

[Maddy]

Thanks, everyone. Glad to be back.

[I Shrugged]

Can we discuss in general the interesting point about the ethics of advocating for people to, well, I’m having a hard time coming up with a term....

Game the system, in a way. For instance there are quite a few people who travel the US west in RVs, staying on federal lands, etc. There’s nothing wrong with it until too many people do it, lol. They rail against the rat race, but if not for all of the normal schmucks working, building things, delivering things, paying taxes, buying goods and services, theses enlightened nomads would have no system to take advantage of.

I find this to be an interesting moral dilemma. The one view is obviously, “Hey, there is nothing immoral about using the rules to one’s advantage.” But again, if everyone did it, it would be catastrophic.

[Libertarian666]

Can we discuss in general the interesting point about the ethics of advocating for people to, well, I’m having a hard time coming up with a term....

Game the system, in a way. For instance there are quite a few people who travel the US west in RVs, staying on federal lands, etc. There’s nothing wrong with it until too many people do it, lol. They rail against the rat race, but if not for all of the normal schmucks working, building things, delivering things, paying taxes, buying goods and services, theses enlightened nomads would have no system to take advantage of.

I find this to be an interesting moral dilemma. The one view is obviously, “Hey, there is nothing immoral about using the rules to one’s advantage.” But again, if everyone did it, it would be catastrophic.

This is an example of the "tragedy of the commons", a.k.a. "public ownership".
Anything that is "owned by everyone" is actually "owned by no one", and is overused and under-maintained.
However, it isn't primarily the fault of the over-users. The root of the problem is public ownership.

[drumminj]

I have no quarrel with anything Xan has said. He has been an excellent administrator, and I intend to do my part to bring down the level of rancor on this forum. Hopefully we can do this without sacrificing our ability to engage in hard-hitting debates over controversial topics. Necessarily this involves the ability and willingness to distinguish between a post that challenges an idea and one that attacks a person, and to differentiate between a gratuitous insult and a comment that points out a logical fallacy, a questionable premise, or a personal bias.

That said, I do feel a need to address the ongoing inference that one or more of my posts during the last week might legitimately have warranted my being banned from the forum. It seems that while the majority of my posts have been recovered, those made over the last month or so have been permanently deleted. Accordingly, even Xan has been left wondering what was contained in the post that led to the action in question. The unfortunate result is that there is no way, at this point, of clearing my name or of allowing the group to assess for itself whether something I said warranted this action or whether the attack on my account was a purely vindictive act by someone who was angry at me and who no longer cared what damage he did to the forum.

The first observation I would make is that the "banning" was done by a former moderator who has been absent from the forum for approximately two years and who showed up again on the forum only shortly before the action in question. Due to both the length of time this person has been gone and the circumstances of his angry departure, it would be an unreasonable stretch to describe this person as a current "moderator." He was, in reality, a disgruntled former moderator who happened, due to an administrative oversight, to still have the credentials and "know how" to enter the system and to make a major "adjustment" that suited his political bent.

The post that appears to have precipitated my "disappearance" was on the Political Realignment thread, and it related to an earlier post in which a longtime member had launched an uncharacteristically venomous tirade against the conservative members of this forum over their objection to "open borders." I posted a response to that post in which I observed that someone who has the means to pay for his own health insurance but nonetheless opts for early retirement and claims the benefits of Medicaid really isn't in the position to lecture anyone about being "heartless" for not wanting to bear the cost of an even greater gravy train of illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, another member charged me with having "insulted" a fellow member and made the point that being on Medicaid when you have substantial assets "is not illegal." At some point, another poster launched a lengthy commentary about the perceived overall quality of my posts and his view that nothing I have ever posted has been particularly insightful. I refrained from responding to any of this. However, I did post a very short follow-up in which I stated something on the order of the following:

"If you choose to hear my post as an undirected insult, then you'll miss entirely the point I was making: that when you have no skin in the game, you have no claim to the soapbox when it comes to the question of illegal immigration."

That's the best I can do at recreating the post in question, but it's probably pretty close. That was the post that apparently caused my account, and my entire posting history, to be deleted.

I've now had the opportunity to say everything I have to say about this and will be getting back to business as usual.

FWIW, Maddy's recollection/summary of the exchange seems fair/unbiased based on my recollection. Not expressing agreement or disagreement with the content, but at least wish to give Maddy the credit for (at the least) fairly summarizing her posts.

I'd also like to add my appreciate for Maddy's posts. I happen to usually agree or find commonality, but I appreciate the thought and consideration that appears to go into the points of view you express, Maddy.

I Shrugged I do think that's a very interesting topic -- tragedy of the commons, even looking at things like LL Bean and REI's return policies and how they've changed over time (at a small scale), but all the way up to "someone's got to produce/pay for what the others are consuming". Maybe spawn a new thread?

[I Shrugged]

Yes, and after sleeping on it, probably should let the dust settle for a while before discussing.

[WiseOne]

Maddy, I think your post fairly summed up the exchange. And, I'm very, very glad you've jumped right back into posting - and don't hold back on your views!

On the "it takes two to tango" theory, it would be useful to hear from the poster who contributed to that exchange and who is presumably still active. A good lesson to all of us: while we all want to be able to speak our minds on this forum, it would be good to think twice before posting deliberately inflammatory or insulting statements, which can quickly snowball if you have a couple of people so inclined in a single thread. (For the record, I remember just enough about Maddy's post that I did not think she was one of them.)