Reply #98: Thank you for this OP, Skinner

[yardwork]

and thank you for reinstating me and many other GLBTQ people and allies.

Since my name was prominently referenced in your recent post in the Ask the Administrators thread, I appreciate this opportunity to tell my side of some things.

I'd like to address the accusation that a lot of posters "ganged up" on a moderator, and that that was the reason that we had to be banned. I have a question. When did it become ok for DU moderators to start threads in which they take strong positions on controversial subjects?

Because during the two terms that I served as a volunteer mod for DU, there was a rule that mods were not to take positions on controversial subjects. We were asked not to post in such threads unless we were posting in our roles as mods, and we were strongly urged never to start threads.

Many of us became frustrated on the afternoon of May 3, 2009 because a senior mod started yet another thread that we perceived to be an attack on GLBTQ posters. The OP in question looks innocuous enough today. You can't tell by reading it now that it was posted on a week when an openly gay candidate was being considered for the Supreme Court,and that it was probable that this candidate would not be nominated, and that it was entirely possible that some GLBTQ posters were going to start some threads pointing out that Obama had nominated very few openly gay officials. Also, without ocntext you wouldn't know that the OP in question was a clear reference to previous OPs by the same mod-author that had taken GLBTQ posters to task. In fact, by that time that moderator had garnered quite a reputation in the GLBTQ forum for his outspoken statements. And you probably wouldn't have noticed the seemingly mild reference to "ponies" unless you had been on the receiving end for months of bullying in which every single time a poster said anything remotely hopeful about gay rights they were ridiculed for "not getting your pony." Even today I have a visceral reaction to that phrase.

If you had been on the receiving end of this kind of relentless bullying - that had gone on for months and months - then you might have reacted as some of us did on the afternoon of May 3, 2009. In my case, I posted in the moderator's thread that he was being a "jerk." Yes, I used that word. Jerk. I called a moderator a jerk to his face and I also said that he was taking advantage of his position as a moderator. Shocking, isn't it?

I also sent an email to you that afternoon, Skinner, in which I asked you why you were allowing a moderator to break this long-time rule about not posting OPs or taking sides on controversial subjects. Your response was to ban me.

In all my years posting on DU I received one mod warning. I believe it was in January 2009. The mods said that I was alerting too much. It was actually a very kindly worded message. They noted that I had been a long-time valuable member of DU and that I had a pretty clean record, but that lately I'd been alerting too much and could I stop that. That's it. I was never suspended.

The reasons for my ramped up alerting are detailed pretty well in the OP to this thread. The atmosphere on DU had become absolutely hostile to gay people and gay rights. And I got angry. I got angry with posters who were posting every day, with impunity, saying that all GLBTQ DUers were racist. (This especially irritated me because I supported Obama in the primary in my state and on DU. I sent him money. I was, needless to say, delighted when he was elected. So was my partner and every single other gay person I know in real life. However, none of this mattered on DU, where all gay people were automatically assumed to be racist Obama-haters by a very vocal and large group of bullies. Even EarlG seems to have believed that gay people were Hilary supporters, as you reference in your OP here. Not true. Not true at all, and just another stereotype that is unfairly pinned on GLBTQ posters.) I got angry with the people here who responded to any post about gay rights with a picture of a pink cartoon pony. I got angry with straight posters coming into the GLBTQ forum just to taunt and ridicule us. And I got angry with you, Skinner, for letting that happen and letting it go on and on and on.

I'm sure that I had more posts deleted in the six months before I was banned than I'd had deleted in all my previous years on DU. But even so, I know that the things I posted were not as bad as the things posted against me and every GLBTQ person and every GLBTQ ally on this board every single day. And, those posters who attacked us lasted months and sometimes years after we were banned. Some of them are still here.

We were banned and nobody was allowed to say our name on DU and nobody was allowed to even talk about it but the posters who had made careers out of attacking and taunting and ridiculing us remained members in good standing here on DU for years. Some of them were even made mods, as a mod in this very thread admits.

I appreciate this step that you are taking, Skinner, but I have to say that it is just the first of many steps that must be taken if your goal is to make DU a place where GLBTQ posters and GLBTQ issues are respected.