Bustie Sisters, I know this is presumptuous and against protocol to add a thread and poll without first discussing it. I think you will all understand why I felt moved to take such extreme action. After reading ModSquad's reasoning for suspending GT, I am more confused than ever. We DO have the right to speak our minds in other feminist forums...even against the Lounge if we are so inclined. I'd like to know how the rest of you feel

Well, I am a little bit confused, after reading ModSquad's reasoning. There were other people (me among them) who were discussing going elsewhere/contacting advertisers/etc.
But, you know, I think GT was a bit out of line as far as her delivery. When you start throwing the f-bomb and other obscenities around to such a large extent, your message can get lost. Instead of looking like someone who wants to enact some positive change, you look like a troublemaker, plain and simple. There has to be some diplomacy in the delivery of one's message. One can certainly be forceful without throwing in an obscenity after every other word.
GT did make some excellent points. But the heart of her message was lost in a heap of bad language and brow-beating.
See where I'm coming from?

I DO see where you're coming from JS, I think most people in the Lounge know I, myself, try to be fairly diplomatic. I'm more likely to try and see another person's side and I can disagree without getting angry. But what I don't get is when Callie explained her reasoning for the suspension. I thought Callie had had threats made against her or her staff or something reasonable maybe. To suspend GT for turning the Lounge's name "to Mudd" is a different issue. I feel like we have the right to say whatever the fuck we want about the Lounge wherever we want. I LOVE the Lounge; I'm not trying to denigrate it. But talking about the Lounge in other forums is not interfering with the board. I feel like this reasoning is more of an excuse made from anger. But thanks for sharing your viewpoint...it's hard to feel like you are one of the lone dissenters. I love your chutzpah jsmith!!

"I feel like this reasoning is more of an excuse made from anger."
That does sound like a distinct possibility. After all, I might have been tempted to do the same.
However, I will definitely agree with you all that she has made great contributions to the Lounge, and that she is certainly not a troll.

That's a slippery slope you're talking about, jsmith. It sounds like you're suggesting that people should expect to have their accounts suspended for swearing. I'm a member of forums that have that rule, but if The Lounge were to adopt that policy, I'd definitely be out of here. Rules like that on a feminist message board make no sense whatsoever to me.

Note that we already have steps in place to handle conversations when they begin to get heated. We tell people to move their heated posts to the Take It Outside thread. Sometimes people move their conversation there on their own, but sometimes others have to suggest it. Maybe GT's more heated posts should have been posted in that other thread, but to suspend her account? Something that hasn't been done here in about a decade if ever? That's a HUGE step to take and sends a really ugly message.

I understand that diplomacy tends to work better than screaming. You draw more flies with honey, etc. etc. However, I still feel like this situation was handled clumsily. I think Callie acted out of anger when she should have kept a cooler head.

I understand that on other forums, GT would have been canned for her actions, but so would anyone else who suggested we contact advertisers. And so would anyone who ever used a harsh tone. And so would anyone who ever said "fuck". Or talked about anal sex. Or complained about their phone company by name. Or suggested that anyone should buy a pair of shoes that aren't made by the shoe company that sponsors the forum.

The thing I have always loved the most about The Lounge is the freedom to speak one's mind. Suddenly a lot of us feel that this freedom has been stripped away. That's scary.

jsmith, I agree that GT expressed herself in way that was rude and ineffective in what she was trying to accomplish. But, if the Lounge mods are saying that she was suspended for talking about the troll or threatening the livilhood of Bust then they way she was talking had little to do with her suspension. I have yet to hear Callie say that GT was suspended for her language, which is what I had at first suspected. I also did not see any warning that if GT did not stop doing, "A B & C..." she would get suspended. There should have been a warning, it should have been as public as the rest of the conversation. Then GT could have decided her next action with full understanding what it could lead to.

Now all we know is that we could take missteps that could get us suspended. And we do not know what the missteps are.

This whole thing is so stupid and frustrating! I can't figure out how we got here.

Nope, that's not at all what I'm suggesting (I swear from time to time). I'm just trying to throw out a reason for why this might have happened. I think incivility and indignation as a response is at the root of it, even if ModSquad said something different. And I do agree that this could have been handled differently. I think warnings would have been in order, rather than jumping straight to suspension.

ETA: One of the points Turbojenn made in the busting trolls thread sums up the way I feel:
"So, the abuse needs to stop from our community, as we're being as hurtful as the troll has been to us, and it's not doing any of us any good."

I agree with you.

RV, I think feminism is not consistent with the validation to swear in a discussion with Bust regarding the troll situation.




I missed Turbo's comment! Great point, Turbo!

You know I can completely understand a forum having rules and guidelines which users agree to follow and I totally agree that anyone who disrupts the functioning of the board should be out of here. Steve disrupts the function of the board. He comes here because he loathes everything that is at the heart and soul of the Lounge (or he's afraid of it... but that's another topic). I still take Callie's words to mean that she suspended GT for saying we could talk negatively about Bust on other sites. If GT had threatened to contact all the newbies and tell them to keep away from the Lounge (not that she would), I could understand how an action like that would be interfering with a members experience here. But I sincerely cannot see how GT broke any of the Lounge Rules. ANd you guys are right about the warning situation.

Now I have to ask myself if our conversation will be seen as disruptive to the Lounge and deemed worthy of some type of punishment. I personally did not care for all the personal attacks on Callie or the way she was treated. However, that's only MY opinion and I can see why long-time Lounge users are more angry/frustrated and might hold more of a grudge against the office.

I definitely agree that we'll get further if we are civil. Most certainly! I try my utmost to remain civil. Just keep in mind that you can't force genuine civility.

Callie was on the right track at first. She addressed the problem, listened to suggestions, and accepted our ideas. Because she listened to the complaints of so many others, we will have a Bustie moderator soon. If her actions had ended there, this would all have blown over by now.

But she suspended GT's account - something that is COMPLETELY unheard of here - for doing something that many others have done. For reasons many of us still cannot understand, she chose to single out GT. That's done a lot more damage here than the troll.

Understand that I'm not a fan of GT's tone. She and I have gotten into kerfuffles over that before, but we got through it by talking it out, not by silencing or ignoring one another. Oddly enough, she has always said that she appreciates me for calling her on her shit. She's even called me "the sweet to [her] sour". I feel that it's a shame that I wasn't on-line when the shit hit the fan around here because nowadays I'm pretty good about talking GT off of the edge. If I'd been here to talk her down, maybe her account would not have been suspended. But then again, how could I have known that was even a possibility when [i]no one[/i[ has been suspended on this forum for at least a decade?

I find that when people are upset, sometimes they need to rant & vent a bit first before they can deal with the issue calmly and rationally. Once they get that out and once they feel that their pain has been heard and acknowledged, they can move on and deal with the problem calmly and rationally. They can then work towards fixing the problem that caused them to be so upset in the first place.

Note also that a lot of us tend to be quite calm and civil in our everyday lives and use The Lounge as a place to vent our frustrations. We feel a lot more free to let out those uglier feelings here. For years we've done so without punishment. I think that level of comfort and intimacy lead to many people using harsher words than they may have otherwise. Plus, there's just the simple fact that they love this place and are severely protective of it and its members.

Now, if Callie and the ModSquad decide that incivility is grounds for suspension, they may do so. This is their website and they're obviously in control here. But if that's what they want, then the least we deserve is a warning and a fair explanation of how they define incivility.






Stargazer, I'm sorry if my point wasn't clear. I was not trying to say that swearing in itself is feminist. However, I feel that as a feminist site, it's fair for us to assume a certain level of freedom of speech which includes the use of swear words.

If I understand what Callie is saying, it is not GT's tone that got her suspension but GT's threat to talk about Bust on other feminist websites and ruin the Lounge's reputation. I'm almost more troubled about GT being suspended for this reason that if she was suspended for her harsh self-expression.

Nice one, Koffewitch.
Being a newbie I had no idea we had access to starting a poll, so I was just gonna chant "I want a poll" every day till ModSquad buckled.
I couldn't agree more that Callie's explanation of the suspensions made the whole thing glow with ridiculousness.
As someone who has repeatedly called GT my hero, I was wincing when she was tossing the fuck-yous and horse excrement. Like, yo, not representing me right now, GT, kind of wince. But one of the good reasons I am on this forum is that I don't have to type the monkey letters between F and K to bring a point home. So, as not my thing as it was, I am ready to fight for her right to it.
Now I said somewhere I understand the human urge to ban her, it's a kneejerk "oh my god that hurts, stop it now".
And that is precisely the issue with moderators we have to be careful about - they are human, with nerve endings spreading to their trigger finger. They have that urge. On a forum like this, it must be tough having that power. Whoever I own Busty mod will be, she better be a saint;) And yes, I am sure it's possible.
But when Callie started acting like that was NOT an impulsive decision and defending it by bringing poor rationale out in leaking buckets, THAT made me furious.
Now I am a hothead and beyond in my private reactions, but when faced with a political goal, I am of the firm but polite, in some cases artistic school of protest (Serbian students did a lot of that under their last dictator. It worked and was so beautiful to watch); protest that gets attention with its elegance and wit. Not saying I was doing that here, but it is always a temptation. I got my first subversive skills under actual communism, which many of you here think was a completely authoritarian system. It wasn't. There was A LOT that could be achieved my making your protest contagious (esthetically and emotionally) and getting enough people to chant/ sign/talk about what you disagree with. Granted, you couldn't turn the whole Party ship off course with a song, but things like getting a hotheaded comrade out of trouble, reinstating a suspended classmate, getting that class excursion that got canceled for bad discipline back on the calendar? Finger snap. (Sorry, I was 14 when the Wall came down, hence my school life examples).
(ETA: Or maybe they just wanted kids that age to believe that people had the power, so they let it work for us. But I'd like to think it was all over.)
So props, dear Koffee, for finding the poll button to start this. This is the kind of action I place my trust in.
The difference between this and going to the advertisers - and why I wasn't going to pursue that route?
It's the direction of the pressure to change one's behavior. I believe in human dignity, in evolution towards a state where humans do what is right because they cannot overlook the voice of consciousness inside. (Yup, that is a true commi.)
So Callie doing what we want because the advertisers made her is not the same as Callie doing what we want because she sees that is truly what the people want and have spoken for. I will not feel as good about posting here under advertiser pressure as I would because enough of us Busties carried out a protesting action long and well enough and convinced TPTB that they made a mistake, and they felt we are right. Call me naive, that's how I like my world to turn.

And that said, I am so honored to be one of you ladies, on a board that is making enough of an issue to vote on this and restore/confirm my faith in human dignity.
Respect.

Hasta la victoria, Siempre!

Correction: I meant, " whoever OUR own Bustie mod will be" but the edit function stopped working.
Hm. Why does the edit function only last 10 minutes now?

moved to the Troll thread.

Okay, let's see. We've had three troll handles last night here and three votes that agree with the GT suspension. INTERESTING, n'est pas?

I don't think there is anything I can add to this. I've said all I can, plus saying more would be like beating a dead horse.

Well, the one thing we can say is that today is December 7th. Callie is quickly running out of time to make things right.

I feel suspending GT was 100 times more disruptive to the Lounge than the troll. Personally, I had no problem ignoring Steve. I am thrilled shitless we get another mod, and Goddess knows it should really cut out work for the office staff. But when you veteran Lounge members say you can NEVER recall a member (a true Bustie member) being suspended, I find this to be especially unjust. Roseviolet, you are right on. Obviously Callie is comfortable with her decision and is sticking to her guns. I was hoping to elicit an olive branch from her by starting this poll.

GT is no longer suspended!! Think she'll come back or is she too pissed??