#1

Dear all,

As @anon82218317 has pointed out in other threads today, I’ve fallen below my own standards in the past in some of my posts on here, and I wish to publicly apologise to anyone I have not believed nor treated with the respect that they deserve.

I’m truly sorry.

Sean

2 Likes
#2

Continuing the discussion from Ryan Adams 2019:

#3

Regarding the Cabbage article I think the reason so many people ‘liked’ Sean’s post banning the user in question wasn’t because of the fact that they were criticizing Sean but because of the fact that it appeared at the time that they were specifically accusing Sean of lying about dealing with the issue when it appeared as if Sean was doing everything he could.

I agree that probably shouldn’t have been enough to get them banned but particularly to people who might not be familiar with how the site has been in the past I could see why they might have had more sympathy for Sean in that particular instance.

2 Likes
DiS' response to rape accusations posted on these forums in the past
Ryan Adams is a prick (rolling)
#5

Sean’s an admin as listed here

https://community.drownedinsound.com/about

I can’t really speak to how Sean chooses or not to interact with our general ideas around codes of conduct since iirc it’s not really something that’s been brought up before.

#6

It is Sean’s site so the bottom line is he really can do what he wants.

I criticised that banning although I didn’t see it until it was too late to step in and try to sort things. Sean absolutely did the wrong thing there. Unfortunately Sean isn’t the level-headed person I am. I don’t think he should moderate these boards really although - and legally I don’t know - I guess he may be liable for stuff on here? If that’s the case then I guess he can’t not be able to delete things, etc.

In terms of the views of links in this thread etc, I think there is still a huge gulf between music and social board users and there are always a lot of lurkers on the boards. (It also can’t distinguish between multiple openings. I frequently open a link more than once because I am scatterbrained and go back to check things.)

I don’t know if the people you’re asking to account for themselves even realise what they’ve done. Maybe it is worth directly calling them out. In_limbo was pretty shit in that thread but I have no idea who they are now. Have a feeling they’re on these boards as someone else.

#7

And he wasn’t ‘banned’. He was pretty angry and therefore was given a 24 hour suspension IIRC.

#8

No it was a week I think. No suspension was justified though

1 Like
#9

I disagree but anyway.

#10

I’m off to bed now. I’ll try to think how best to address this. Maybe I’ll start a thread on the social board to begin the discussion

#11

Then find me a precedent on these boards for a banning based on a one time anger outburst like this, ie two people with equal societal power over an important topic and no priors?

I don’t know if there is btw. I just don’t feel like these are banning/suspension situations we’re talking about. If that’s often happened then I’ll reconsider.

#13

On the basis that something said on here genuinely amounted to libel (and this is a big assumption), Sean, as the owner of the message board, could potentially by liable under the The Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013. This said, an awful lot of things would have to happen before he incurred any liability, most pertinently that he did not respond properly to a complaint that had been initiated pursuant to the Regulation (as well as other things). I very highly doubt that this would ever happen. So, while I understand that he may have concerns, there isn’t really a ‘legal’ justification for arbitrarily removing or deleting posts.

4 Likes
#14

Professional reputation and future income to think about though

1 Like
#15

Sure - there may be all sorts of non-legal reasons why he would want to delete posts, and as Theo says, it’s his site and it’s up to him. Was just saying that ‘well I might get sued’ isn’t really a justification because a lot of stuff has to happen (including Sean refusing to remove the offending post) before he incurs liability.

(Not sure if you were being serious or not tbh - sorry for super serious response if you were joking)

#16

I think Sean as owner of the site and board can do what he wants tbh. Many people on here seemed to think that giving Ruffers some time off was a sensible thing to do, given how quickly things were developing and how it was clearly a lot for Sean to deal with. Just looked back on that thread and he was being pretty antagonistic when to most people it seemed Sean was doing as much as he could to sort things.

I think with the benefit of hindsight the ‘like’ pile-on wasn’t good. I don’t really know Ruffers but if it was the amount of likes that contributed to him deciding not to come back then that’s not great. Ruffers is a great guy and it’s a shame he’s not on here anymore.

1 Like
#17

Was being serious :+1:

#20

How do you think we should approach this, as a board in its entirety?

#21

Was this on the current site?!

#22

It was five years ago, regarding the Conor Oberst situation.

Sean deleted a few posts believing they were libellous. I don’t know enough about that kind of thing to say if they were or not, but I trust DDs judgement that they weren’t

2 Likes
#23

(As I mention above it’s worth noting that a few accounts have been deleted and so the thread probably seems more supportive of DD than it actually was when it was “live”)

#25

I was replying to him asking if it was the current site, sorry. I recall there being several threads, that was just the first one I found.