Some sort of Truth Commission along South African lines is the only way to get to the bottom of it all.

Some sort of Truth Commission along South African lines is the only way to get to the bottom of it all.

I strongly disagree. Too much of the relevent information IS confidential, and Eric is the only safe repository of that.

It will also bring the whole bitter past back onto the front stage in the present.

What's done is done. Let's move on.

Respectfully,


Beets

My own impressions of the whole thing thus far:

1. Some years ago there was some modding in the Cafe that those modded thought went too far.

2. Those modded fought back in a variety of ways.

3. The mods concerned are alleged to have used underhand tactics as a result of (2.) This may, according to the group, have gone as far as criminal activity.

4. There were many and various skirmishes fought all over the Internet and especially here in these pages.

5. In desperation at never getting "justice" rightly or wrongly, one faction set up their own board where they discussed various mods / former mods in both derogatory and non-derogatory terms and the action some of them took.

6. Evidence of what they perceived to be a mod "conspiracy" and other perfectly legitimate activity was ultimately obtained by the wrongful use of a dead mod's password.

7. This further access to present-time mod activities was wrongly used and circulated by a handful of the original group of 30, by no means all. Several strongly dissented from the activities.

8. ACTION. Admin finally took note of some of what has gone on and has terminated certain persons' access.

9. ACTION? Was anything ever done about the earlier allegations about the mods of the time?

10. The public and private rankle continues with some giving way to triumphalism, others to despair and the rest of us wondering if the "truth" will ever come out.

You want the truth?... You can't handle the truth!!

11. Several crunchers threaten to leave S@H for ever. More to follow?

12. A private and/or public enquiry into the whole mess needs to be undertaken with proper evidence taken from all concerned. I only want to know the end result and not the detail.

Look, truth will out eventually and if not handled properly it will be immensely damaging. At present there seem to be at the very least two completely opposing "truths". My own suspicion is that there just may have been some heavy-handed modding at some point in the past that was either not fully justified or was not reversed by Admin of the day. The resulting resentment has boiled and seethed on both sides ever since, just leading to further and greater resentment by all parties. Some sort of Truth Commission along South African lines is the only way to get to the bottom of it all. What I have written above is certain to be wholly inadequate and cannot possibly pass muster as a proper factual examination: I do not and cannot know more than a tiny proportion of the facts, only what I can divine from recent information published here.

This will not go away and will inevitably damage S@H both here and in the wider world. I want to get back to the basics of why we are here in the first place: crunching for S@H. There simply has to be a full resolution of all these differences and what has caused them. The shouting just has to stop.

Ekky,

Seeing as how I was one of the moderators caught in the middle during all of this, I have some comments on your comments, and some additional remarks:

My own impressions of the whole thing thus far:

1. Some years ago there was some modding in the Cafe that those modded thought went too far.

This mess predates the people in question being moderators here. Cliques formed in 'the cafe', and personality conflicts developed between various cliques. As the position of moderator was developed (in the code), and the ranks of moderators expanded (especially in the infamous 'auto-mod' experiment which snagged me into the mess as a moderator), it seems that members of one of two diametrically opposed cliques were made moderators, as was (at least) one with sympathies towards the other clique. Things developed into a guerrilla war with members of one clique breaking posting rules at seemingly every turn, causing massive headaches for the moderators. They proudly broke the posting rules and considered it a badge of honor to be put on a temporary ban from the forums. When one of the members of that clique got modded by one of the moderators of the opposing clique, the rest of them cried foul very publicly, misleading others here with no/very little knowledge of what went on.

Could things have been stopped at this point? Sure, if the mods in question had recused themselves from modding the troublemakers and let one of the neutral mods handle it, and/or if the troublemakers had stopped acting like a bunch of little kids with their instigations. Sadly, this turned out to not be what happened.

2. Those modded fought back in a variety of ways.

3. The mods concerned are alleged to have used underhand tactics as a result of (2.) This may, according to the group, have gone as far as criminal activity.

The 'criminal activity'... Ha! If that refers to the incident I think it does, it was alleged, but to my knowledge never proven to any reasonable standard of proof. I was one of the first mods that called for an investigation of that allegation, and to my knowledge the admins looked into it, and decided that the allegation didn't have any merit.

4. There were many and various skirmishes fought all over the Internet and especially here in these pages.

5. In desperation at never getting "justice" rightly or wrongly, one faction set up their own board where they discussed various mods / former mods in both derogatory and non-derogatory terms and the action some of them took.

6. Evidence of what they perceived to be a mod "conspiracy" and other perfectly legitimate activity was ultimately obtained by the wrongful use of a dead mod's password.

It was obvious to me and to several other mods that there was a leak on the modlist. I asked a number of times for something to be done about it, with no results. This is one of the main reasons I left the project for a while. I could not do my job as a moderator without confidential deliberations with my fellow mods.

And this group of 'spies' better be looking over their shoulders for quite some time. Deliberate and willful accessing email that was not addressed to you is a crime in most jurisdictions (except under specific circumstances, such as law enforcement or are that person's employer (or the person designated by the company to do so)) and can have serious consequences. For instance, in the US State of Florida, it is a felony with a 15 year prison term.

7. This further access to present-time mod activities was wrongly used and circulated by a handful of the original group of 30, by no means all. Several strongly dissented from the activities.

8. ACTION. Admin finally took note of some of what has gone on and has terminated certain persons' access.

9. ACTION? Was anything ever done about the earlier allegations about the mods of the time?

10. The public and private rankle continues with some giving way to triumphalism, others to despair and the rest of us wondering if the "truth" will ever come out.

First thought:

You want the truth?... You can't handle the truth!!

Reality:

The truth is that two groups of people behaved badly. Not really very interesting, now is it?

11. Several crunchers threaten to leave S@H for ever. More to follow?

I didn't threaten to leave over this. No goodbye speech or anything. I just switched off, and didn't come back until sometime after I saw that I had been de-mod-ified. I had hoped that all this... STUFF... would have been over. I guess I was wrong.

12. A private and/or public enquiry into the whole mess needs to be undertaken with proper evidence taken from all concerned. I only want to know the end result and not the detail.

A private inquiry WAS undertaken. The end result? A number of people got banned. That is what this thread and it's predecessor are about.

Look, truth will out eventually and if not handled properly it will be immensely damaging. At present there seem to be at the very least two completely opposing "truths". My own suspicion is that there just may have been some heavy-handed modding at some point in the past that was either not fully justified or was not reversed by Admin of the day. The resulting resentment has boiled and seethed on both sides ever since, just leading to further and greater resentment by all parties. Some sort of Truth Commission along South African lines is the only way to get to the bottom of it all. What I have written above is certain to be wholly inadequate and cannot possibly pass muster as a proper factual examination: I do not and cannot know more than a tiny proportion of the facts, only what I can divine from recent information published here.

This will not go away and will inevitably damage S@H both here and in the wider world. I want to get back to the basics of why we are here in the first place: crunching for S@H. There simply has to be a full resolution of all these differences and what has caused them. The shouting just has to stop.

A 'truth commission' a la South Africa?!?!? Great Scott NO! Those things tend to degenerate into Witch Hunts. The BEST way to handle things is to perma-banninate (a la Predictor) those that behaved illegally, and the rest of us let it drop, move on, put this sorry mess behind us, and do our level best to be on our best behavior from now on.

I agree that we need to get back to the basics of why we are here. But there will NEVER be a full resolution that is acceptable to everyone. No matter WHAT is done it will anger/upset someone. If everyone here can't just put it behind us, then perhaps it would be time to reconsider the existence of forums here that do not DIRECTLY relate to the technical aspects of the project (such as Technical News, Number Crunching, etc.). I have supported the existence of the more social forums (The Cafe, Politics, etc.), but if strife continues they need to just go away. After all, the various teams have forums that can serve in that capacity, and other interested parties can always set up others.

"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

As always, Majorkong, you are the voice of reason. Good to see you again. :-)

This time on this side of the fence. ;-)

The dicussion was that people have a right to express their opinion and not where they have that right. Or do you deny that people have the right to express themselves?
I am granted the privilege to express my opinion on this board. A board admin however has the right to take that privilege away but he can't take my right to express my privilege. My right to express is still existant even if my privilege is gone....

I tend to think many people don't understand the difference between 'rights' and 'privileges'.

Just banning someone without giving them a chance is also not the right way.
Do people get warned here in the the form of a PM?

Beefdog---my understanding was that there was a PM sent out a few weeks back explaining what could happen and that involved people were given an opportunity to step forward and lay out their position. If they chose not to take action on that PM then there's not much else to be said.

Just banning someone without giving them a chance is also not the right way.
Do people get warned here in the the form of a PM?

Beefdog---my understanding was that there was a PM sent out a few weeks back explaining what could happen and that involved people were given an opportunity to step forward and lay out their position. If they chose not to take action on that PM then there's not much else to be said.

Blurf, are you in possession of this PM? My understanding is that it didn't say this, but, then again, I didn't receive it, so cannot be sure. I have been told it said something to the effect of "if you believe you've received this message in error please let me know now, but if you wish to plead your case do not do so yet", and there may not have been a follow up to indicate when a person could plead their case.

Just banning someone without giving them a chance is also not the right way.
Do people get warned here in the the form of a PM?

Beefdog---my understanding was that there was a PM sent out a few weeks back explaining what could happen and that involved people were given an opportunity to step forward and lay out their position. If they chose not to take action on that PM then there's not much else to be said.

Blurf, are you in possession of this PM? My understanding is that it didn't say this, but, then again, I didn't receive it, so cannot be sure. I have been told it said something to the effect of "if you believe you've received this message in error please let me know now, but if you wish to plead your case do not do so yet", and there may not have been a follow up to indicate when a person could plead their case.

Bobby--no I am not in possession but we were told they were going out.

It was stressing me out WAY too much. It was affecting my health adversely, and I had to leave the project before I left this world (like Dog did).

Hi Kong, nice to see you back. Is it possible that I've flown with and against you in IL2 1946? Or is that another MajorKong? If it's you, you probably waxed me several times, since I only get maybe an hour a month flying time.

It was stressing me out WAY too much. It was affecting my health adversely, and I had to leave the project before I left this world (like Dog did).

That, to a very large degree explains why Wilma's job is no longer my job and why the maximum term (sentence?) for a moderator is 6 months. I don't think anyone can reasonably be subjected to that sort of hate for that long and stay sane.

We're currently chewing up moderators and spitting them out at a prodigious rate.

Eric

Hi Kong, nice to see you back. Is it possible that I've flown with and against you in IL2 1946? Or is that another MajorKong? If it's you, you probably waxed me several times, since I only get maybe an hour a month flying time.

It was stressing me out WAY too much. It was affecting my health adversely, and I had to leave the project before I left this world (like Dog did).

That, to a very large degree explains why Wilma's job is no longer my job and why the maximum term (sentence?) for a moderator is 6 months. I don't think anyone can reasonably be subjected to that sort of hate for that long and stay sane.

We're currently chewing up moderators and spitting them out at a prodigious rate.

Eric

Hi Kong, nice to see you back. Is it possible that I've flown with and against you in IL2 1946? Or is that another MajorKong? If it's you, you probably waxed me several times, since I only get maybe an hour a month flying time.

It was stressing me out WAY too much. It was affecting my health adversely, and I had to leave the project before I left this world (like Dog did).

That, to a very large degree explains why Wilma's job is no longer my job and why the maximum term (sentence?) for a moderator is 6 months. I don't think anyone can reasonably be subjected to that sort of hate for that long and stay sane.

We're currently chewing up moderators and spitting them out at a prodigious rate.

Eric

...

However. I think that there are certain people who should never again become moderators. Not because I think that they were particularly bad at the job (I only had personal issues with one of them) but because to do so would cause a mass exodus from the project.

Admittedly, being friends with many of those whose contracts were cancelled (and ‘real-world’ friends with a couple of them) makes my opinion somewhat less than objective in this regard.

:)

"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me