Shoot First, Explain Later

Nearly a month after the banning, Webmaster Alex finally offers up an explanation for the mass bannings at the DISboards. Rather than make an announcement that, effective immediately, those participating at the UnDIS will be banned, he opted to ban first then wait A MONTH to tell members why.

As your post is in the public domain, Alex, I am sharing it here. Why? So everyone can see your brilliance in action, silly!

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Explanation
We’re aware that many of you are confused over some recent bannings on the DIS and we felt it was overdue that we gave some explanation behind our actions.

We’ve been aware for years of other web sites that have formed from groups of people that had been banned from the DIS. Clearly, these sites disagree with our guidelines and how we choose to maintain the site. If that was the extent of this issue, we would have no problem at all with any of these sites. But unfortunately, it’s not. One group in particular has proven to be vindictive, petty and mean spirited on levels that belie the fact that many of them are adults who raise children. These are people who have chosen to spend their free time targeting DIS visitors in an effort to hold them up to public humiliation and ridicule. Their hateful tirades are especially heinous when the target is someone who is sick, or dealing with a disability. Not even children have escaped their unmitigated viciousness. In fact, some of these people even found it amusing that one of our team members recently passed away. These are not isolated incidents – this goes on daily and has for years.

After years of trying various approaches to keep their vacuous nonsense off these boards, the decision was made to take stronger action. No one that participates on that site can claim to be unaware of what goes on. Whether you participate directly in the harassment, or are just a sideline spectator – you offer your support to their efforts and not that’s not really the type of people we want on our site. So yes, in this instance we reversed a long standing policy that we would not ban people based on their activities on other sites. We're sorry that some bystanders appear to have been caught in the crossfire. Upon request we will review some of the bannings and some people may be reinstated with our apologies if they choose to return. But also, people must understand that sometimes when you associate with certain groups, you’re bound to painted with the same brush.

The purpose behind these forums is to give people a decent place to hang out and share a mutual passion for Disney. It baffles us that grown men and women spend this much of their free time trying to mess with that. And it should be made clear that some of these people are going to have to answer for some of the things they have chosen to say and do in public. Harassment, libel and tortious interference are not forms of protected speech. Free speech doesn’t give you the right to harass, humiliate, denigrate or otherwise publicly embarrass people just because you feel like bullying others. There’s a line that’s been crossed and until it stops we're going to take whatever reasonable measures are available to us to put a stop to it.

We’re fed up with watching our visitors be unfairly targeted and victimized by these people and we are going to start taking action to see that comes to an end once and for all thru any and all legal means available to us.
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Let's address this explanation, shall we?

Paragraph 1-Overdue? Heck, if this was a fetus, it would have died from being held FOUR weeks past due date. The time for explanations was when you DID the bannings, not now. Did it take you this long to come up with an explanation? (Besides, we all know the truth-you were embarrassed that you screwed up and banned us for laughing at your mistake)

Paragraph 2-Alex definitely wrote this-notice the run on paragraph? The UnDIS was not started by bannees and until recently, only had a few DIS bannees among the ranks of participants. Petty and vindictive? You may see ONE or TWO people behaving in that manner, but the majority of members of the UnDIS are people who see the hypocricy of your current members and call them out in a forum that allows them to do so.

For instance, the poster who spoke of charging over three grand in Disney Dollars on her credit cards, then declaring bankruptcy a month later? Do you not see insanity in that? This week, with a newly discharged bankruptcy, she brags about being debt free and planning a deluxe WDW vacation. This IS the member you want to keep? Or the one posting about how they love swinging and orgies? On a site for Disney fans?

As far as targets who are sick or disabled, good job on stretching the truth. The one person I could think of that you could be speaking of PRETENDS to be child like and has two mice for mommies. Go search out his user name (Google is your friend) and you'll see that it is all an act.

Meanwhile, two people ridiculed and posted pictures of Robin's (Del's Wife) children on YOUR website. She reported them (MarkRG and WDWLvr) and was ignored. Meanwhile, you made them moderators! So, you say something is happening on the UnDIS that isn't while it actually happens on YOUR website.

I would like to see where someone found it funny that Bob died. Nice lie there, Alex. No, what happened is that many people felt you were using Bob's death as a stalling tactic when you didn't answer the many questions about the bannings that showed up on YOUR website. One person posted this and got called out on it immediately.

Paragraph 3-Alex, nice lies again. If anything, many of us could sue you for libel. Actually, we could go after the website owner, Pete. What would really suck for Pete is that he let his corporation dissolve in 2003 and only recently created an LLC. This means that any legal case against the DIS or the travel agency that is found to have merit would result in Pete personally being financially liable.

My suggestion to you is to stop throwing around lies like these. You do realize there are some lawyers among the ranks of the banned and friends, right? As for bullying, banning people and telling them where they can post and what they can or cannot sure seems like bullying to me! You sound like a certain occupant of the White House!

Paragraph 4-Thank you. You've made it easy to part with the DIS. After all, a site that allows its members to circumvent Disney's rules regarding annual pass use, mug use or Photopass sharing is not one I want to participate in. I don't condone those activities-so I shouldn't belong to your site.

Also, by this token, because we belong to a site, the DIS, that would mean we all are:
-about to leave my husband for my lesbian lover that I met on the DIS
-a member of a swinger's club
-getting multiple free products at CVS with my rewards card that I'm going to try to sell at my yard sale (like glucose meters and preparation H)
-trying to scam people into giving me stuff for my sister's (imaginary) triplets, then selling the stuff on eBay less than a week later

I don't want to be painted with that brush. I'm glad you pointed this out. It makes it easy to walk away.

Paragraph 5-Are you threatening me? Any other blogger? The participants of the UnDIS? No lawyer who has been inside a courtroom would take your case. On the other hand, when you libel people, you run the risk of needing legal defense.

Victimized by Janet2K? DisneyPhD? HelenaBear? Chrisnsteph? Aidensmom? Whatever. The more you keep telling yourself that lie, the more you begin to believe it as the gospel truth. Keep believing it, because you are the only one who does.

If your current members believed it, why would they be starting so many threads questioning you about the bogus 'legal matter', the 'hacking' that happened and the redirect to the UnDIS that YOU did?

Webmaster Alex, thanks for giving your explanation. You have made it clear to many that the DISboards is not the place to be. After all, why would we want to be accused of the above mentioned things? Like you said, we're guilty by association. That goes for ALL websites, and your members are guilty of the things that are done on your boards.

Comments

Kari said…
Thanks, my fellow bannee....for pointing out so many of the issues. And, let's not forget that he never addressed the redirect (aka the hacking of the dis by Southern)
Anonymous said…
Wow! I haven't even read any boards today, this is the first I've turned on the computer, first link I've gone to, only to find that I am again accused of all kinds of hatred based on a board I belong to. WTH?

You know, when this whole thing went down, I wasn't even on the computer. I was, however, at an in-laws home where they asked me to help plan a Disney trip. As I had always had good fortune with Dreams Unlimited (yes, I WAS a customer), I was going to refer them. No way in hell after that.

Suzanne, thank you for posting this here.
Anonymous said…
Beautiful rebuttal to Webmaster Alex's post.

Thank you!

KoalaJanie
Anonymous said…
Woo Hoo! You go Suzanne! Great rebuttal!
Anonymous said…
Thank you Suzanne!

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