"Latest OFM Poll" Topic

Hello John,

I complained to Bill on the Sponsors forum September last year about the poll he ran on John the OFM which caused both John and AE Curtis to get banned.

Now Bill has done it again after only 9 months. I have decided to no longer advertise on a site which bullies the people who frequent it.

Regards,
Graydon Gorby aka the Gorb
Left Hand Miniatures, LLC

I have never bought from LHM.

Thanks, Gorb.
I had thought that this crap had been put behind us.
Apparently not.

All he has to do if he wants me to leave is ask me. I promise I will make no dramatic "You are dead to me!" exit speech. No demands to remove offensive Polls or other drama. I will just stop.

This is not necessary.

Quite frankly, now that AE Curtis and Connard Sage have been driven away, JOFM's departure, if enforced, would be the last straw for me as a viewer/customer on TMP. This rubbish is just beyond belief.

Not that anyone cares, but I too would have to follow my home boy……

Ok, I think the poll is a bad idea as well. I was hoping this was all behind us. However, Connard Sage wasn't driven away. He had been banned 3-4 times before and crossed the line one more time. I'm stunned it didn't happen far earlier. I think Allen personally offended Bill but I'm not sure. I miss his posts on Ancients.

Thanks,

John

Where is this poll? I can't find it, and I want to vote.

John

B^)

Not to mention the Weavers (Mike and Neotacha), Mark (I forget his screen-name) and Goldwyrm,and so on, and so on, and so on.

But hey, at least we still have their opposite numbers, right?

…right?

- Monk

Yes, this poll was a bad idea. I have a great deal of respect for Bill and appreciation for all his hard work on TMP, but the choice to run that poll reeks of passive aggressiveness and poor judgement. I think John is taking this development with a stiff upper lip but wouldn't hold it against him for being ed off. I sure would be.

Come on, Bill. You can do better than this.

This is twaddle, leave the ofm alone and stop stirring the pot.

OK, what about all those with more stifles than John?

According to the list, John is 18th. Many of those above him have gone, but still?

Some potential polls should be treated with a great deal of contempt. This is one of them.

There are times when a poll request just needs to be denied. Any polls on specific members should fall into that category. If not, some member is going to request "Should the Editor be banned?" poll.

How about stopping the polls on members for whatever reason.

Erik

Because the TMP community has the privilege of policing its memberships. It's as simple as that.

Oh really?

In which case, I move that the Editor be no longer heard. Now, if the support for this proposition was to go in the same direction as the clear opposition for this disgraceful harassment of JOFM, would such 'policing' be binding?

I have never bought from LHM.

I am going to buy from Him today.

I thought there was a no harassment policy and a no personal
attack policy? This clearly violates those policies.

John and Bede had worked this problem out together as men
almost a year ago. John has even said please don't blame Bede. Bede came out and said he wanted no part of it.
At that point this should have been yanked since it was
obvious that Bede did not want the poll to be heard.

You said that Bede needs to take responsibility and he did
and yet you still say he has a right to be heard.

"Although my name is associated with this poll please note THAT I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS POLL NOR DID I HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH INITIATING IT."

"I don't agree with banning someone because I find them annoying. If I don't like someone's comments I can just stifle them."

Sounds like we heard him so why is the poll still running?

Bill has a bizarre view of bullying and harassment that belong sometime in the 1930's. It's an unfortunate blind spot.

I posted this on another of these threads but there are so many I think it applies here as well.

It's the distinction between a private club and a public forum. A private club should certainly have the power to expel members for any or no reason, purely at the whim of the members. A public forum on the other hand has posted rules, which will get you expelled if they are breached. Ideally these should be as clear and specific as possible. Violations are not a vote of popularity but a judgement of infraction and should be done by someone considered fair and impartial not a canvass of the members.

I think if this were a call for John to be taken to account for violation of the rules I wouldn't have a problem with it but it seems to be just because some people don't like his personality as evinced by his posts.

BTW Gorb When are you going to collect that package? Perhaps you and Arnold could come by for dinner sometime?

Onward.

Bill,

You are being obtuse. You are exploiting a tenuous link (of your creation) between a question of Community Participation (whether member should have a voice in who is and is not allowed to be a member of this community) and the appropriateness of pointedly resurrecting a forgotten eight-month-out-of-context jab at one poster against another, disingenuously implying that the validity of the first topic justifies your actions in enacting the second. Nothing could be further from the truth.

These are two entirely separate matters, but like so many other lazy thinkers, you falsely attempt to conflate them anyway simply to confuse the matter post-facto in order to save yourself from obvious embarrassment. Bede is absolutely right to be incensed not only at your dragging this matter up so long out of context, but doubly so that you have the gall to assign sole blame for the ensuing backlash entirely on him.

You want to have a discussion on the role the community might take in policing its own membership, that's swell. Let's have that discussion. But hastily, hand-wavingly rasing the topic to CYA after making a provocative error in judgement not only is utter BS, but it makes you seem a terrible small person as well.

Admit this was a mistake, apologize to Bede, and move on. Else you lose what you have left of your credibility around here. It's that simply.

I thought there was a no harassment policy and a no personal
attack policy? This clearly violates those policies.

Not at all. Given that the privilege to petition the TMP community to ban a member exists, it therefore cannot be "harassment" for a member to exercise that privilege. And as Bede was critical of John the OFM's behavior on the forums, it is not a personal attack as defined by TMP's forum rules.

John and Bede had worked this problem out together as men
almost a year ago… Bede came out and said he wanted no part of it.

In the poll proposal discussion, John and Bede (and their supporters) did not "work this problem out" – it was page after page of disagreement, with Bede eventually walking away from that year-old discussion in frustration.

Sounds like we heard him so why is the poll still running?

Once a poll has started, it should run to a conclusion. It makes no sense for the author to be able to say, "Whoops, I don't like the results" or "Whoops, I don't like all the backlash" and try to retroactively retract what they've begun.

Bede is absolutely right to be incensed not only at your dragging this matter up so long out of context…

Nobody "dragged" this matter up – Bede posted a request for a vote, and the request became a poll in its due course. This is the normal course of action for polls.

The captain reports that the ship did not hit an iceberg, that steering towards an iceberg is normal maritime practice, and that it was only a very small iceberg.

Orchestra, play some more.

Blah, blah, blah. Is it that time of year already? I used to be able to set my calendar by this annual crapfest. Bill, I just paid my membership. Thank you.

Given that the privilege to petition the TMP community to ban a member exists, it therefore cannot be "harassment" for a member to exercise that privilege.

Hogwash! That a privilege exists on TMP does not mean that it cannot entail harassment, unless you happen to redefine "harassment" to exclude the exercise of a privilege.

But then, isn't the mere act of posting also a privilege? Indeed, we have already seen over the years that some posts (resulting from the exercise of a privilege) have entailed harassment…

Finally, and procedurally speaking, is a poll about banning a mamber really a "petition" to ban that member?

Not at all. Given that the privilege to petition the TMP community to ban a member exists, it therefore cannot be "harassment" for a member to exercise that privilege. And as Bede was critical of John the OFM's behavior on the forums, it is not a personal attack as defined by TMP's forum rules.

Bzzzzt wrong. A right or privilege can be exercised in such a way as to constitute harassment. I have the right to use my telephone, but if I repeatedly call someone to complain to them, then that may constitute harassment.

Well, from what I saw:

"It seems to me that, on principle, the members of TMP should have the ability to vote to ban members.

In the past, I believe there has been one previous case brought to a vote (members voted against it), and one case where a ban was proposed but the person left TMP before it came to a vote.

In this case, I shall vote against it, as I have always enjoyed the OFM's banter." From Bill.

And, if an argument was needed to retain the wisdom of OFM, then it would be his comment on the "hills" poll, where he gave a really apt description of difficult terrain – well, it made me smile anyway :-)