OK ladies...here's the deal. (and by the way, I resent the fact that I have to do this parental thing I'm about to do).
I am extremely dissapointed in you chatters for not taking care of business last night. I am an idealist. And I believe in the ability of community to manage itself and create an environment that best suits everyone's needs. It's about taking time out of your own space, to respect and care for the space of others. It's part of the Brewer's Code...you know...the part that says don't be a dick. There doesn't have to be page of rules to understand what don't be a dick means. (or maybe now there does).
One of my favorite quotes of all time (Ben Franklin??) is "My rights stop where yours begin." Well that is the new edict of the chat room folks. I want you all to be in control of the community's fate and be able to get what you want out of the chat. But what you want stops, where your fellow chat mates wants' begin. To that end, and I seriously hate this, you will now be banned from the chat for being drunk and disorderly, obscene, or just downright offensive.
Part of me feels really stupid and responsible in all this because people who I have tons of respect for have told me that our open philosophy would never work and I would eventually need to moderate. I always responded with "have a little faith in the community and watch it moderate itself". I'm bummed about being wrong.
Ultimately, H2, a member of our community and also a sponsor (like other members of our community as well you should know) is absolutely right. And my responsibilty is to the sposnors as well as the community. And by the way...the current sponsors are giving to
you, not necessarily us. It occurs to me that The BN has a couple of strong reputations in our industry. One is being very good and proffessional at what we do. The other is that we may be a bit of a loose cannon. I'm ok with not fitting a mold, but I'm not ok with not being a trustworthy resource, as i feel that misrepresents our intentions.
Hopefully this will be the last time we need to have shitty time-waisting threads on our forum about disordely chatters. If you were in the chat and you feel this message does not pertain to you...fair enough. Thank you for being an intelligent and responsible person (did it ever occur to anyone that
I would have to speak of intelligence
?)
For the rest, we will ensure from now on that new members of our community feel comfortable and safe using our resources, as well as long time users and supporters should not feel violated in what they have created.
Sorry folks. But let's now move forward and take the lessons with us so we get better at what we do here.
Justin
