I also disagree with muting Walter. The minutes from the board agreed that Walter was the victim of a threat on Talk, and then in an odd move, they decided to censor him instead. Go figure …
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I also disagree with the total mute of Walter,. I often
disagreed with him, but I have seen his dedication to
the space and to helping other members,
I feel that we are having some growing pains right now and
some really hate to discuss them, Lot s of ruffled feathers
including mine!
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Y’all could always put it on the member meeting to overturn the board decision.
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Since those offended seem to be on this forum, this is probably the appropriate place for this sort of petition.
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But not a formal method. Gather your support, plan it out and have everyone show up to the next meeting to vote.
I’d join for what it’s worth
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In a few weeks the man will actually show up to a board meeting, profess his rehabilitation, and then he will be reinstated. Except for the small detail about him threatening to sue DMS, it will go swimmingly.
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He was in the building at the time of the BoD meeting… FWIW.
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Ok. That’s funny.
He’s been called up a couple of times according to the minutes. He didn’t show up for either. And this time he was in the building?
(PS I was too for a while. I ran away. You guys still scare me. Plus, I got everything I wanted without even entering the room, so I’m good with that outcome.)
I was in the board meeting as well. The proceedings on this particular agenda item reminded me of one of my favorite lines from Silverado: “We’re going to give him a fair trial, immediately followed by a first class hanging.”
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I to agree with much of the sentiment shared in this thread. The board doesn’t have the tact needed to dole out punishment for behavior issues. Read the minutes and try to under stand any reasoning for perpetual blocking of Walter. I’m actually surprised they are not going after @Photomancer for subverting their ruling and posting on Walters behalf. If we hold the ruling of the board as an example of excellence, David’s subverting it is nothing less than unexcellent and a direct undermining. I hope the board can see the errors of their ways and correct them before it is taken further.
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Obviously there is more context and history than captured in less than 1,800 characters. Anyone wishing to run things differently can run for the board and be 1/5 of deciding contentious issues, or you can just complain on the internet and see where that gets you.
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I will be honest, I was at the space on Sun, I had intended
to attend the board meeting, but I decided that I didn t have
the Patience I needed that day. In my old age, I have a lot
less, I am not pleased with a lot of what I have been seeing,
and it seems that I need to come to the space more and leanr
to ignore a lot of what happens on talk,
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I vehemently disagree with the banning of Walter, even moreso if the ban is indefinite as has been intimated in this thread. Everyone has the option to just not read his posts if they are bothersome. Maybe talk should implement the equivalent of an ‘ignore’ function, if it doesn’t already exist.
Contrarians can be annoying, but censorship is definitely…NOT excellent.
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One of my favorite lines too! (No “immediately” BTW)
The ignore function can be found in the Preferences page under your profile. Scroll all the way down to the bottom. Immediately above “Save Changes”, there is a box that allows you to enter the names of users you want to mute. Entering a name will suppress notifications from that user. I don’t know how extensive it is nor how well it works, as I’ve never had to use it.
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I don’t always agree with Walter, but then I don’t think anyone agrees with anyone else all the time either. One of the greatest things in this country is the ability to speak your mind. Censorship is to be avoided at all costs. Perhaps criminal activity merits some form of censorship, but I don’t think Walter committed a crime.
Who’s to say that the BOD wouldn’t censor others to silence them? Clearly, Walter has other options. He can trash DMS on any number of other forums, he could masquerade as another user on this forum, or he could antagonize people in person through other means (legal). None of which are the outcome we want.
Walter is a reasonable guy and I think a very valuable contributor to DMS. My personal experiences with him have all been very good. None of us are perfect and certainly we can all use a little coaching from time to time, but I feel that censorship was too strong an action for Walter, I admit I don’t have all of the details nor did I attend the BOD, but I feel his right to post on Talk should be reinstated promptly.
Perhaps, however, these actions will draw more attention to Walter and get him elected to the BOD. So maybe it will end up in Walter’s favor after all. It is widely believed philosophy that all publicity is good publicity since it draws attention to the candidate, product or service.
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bring back Walter.
987654321…blast off
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Note: I moved this back to Infrastructure (Andrew Lecody moved it to Members Only). Since we are talking about an action which affects Talk as a whole, not just DMS members, I think it is the appropriate forum for this thread.
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I consider Walter a friend, and vehemently objected to the last attempt to ban him from Talk. I object to this one as well, but I think for the broader audience, it helps to kind of understand Walter.
Walter is the kind of person who will help you for hours with a project on the lathe, and say the only reason he did it was he didn’t want you to break HIS lathe with YOUR stupidity. He’s just a bit spiky in his verbal communication, but I don’t think he’s a bad dude from his actions, and I think he genuinely loves DMS and some of his prickly behavior is in defense of DMS. I am considerably more easily offended than nearly everyone at DMS, and I didn’t find the specific message he sent offensive, nor do I think it was by current DMS community standards.
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Could someone look up the # of members to make quorum for the next membership meeting? It would be greatly appreciated.
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