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What would be the point of that? I can't say I've ever had a problem with Ken, but he has a temper and I've seen it in action on here. And I think I know what company you're talking about, and if I'm right, that totally doesn't sound like something they'd do.
But I don't see anything but good by letting folks who are good contributors but had "moments" come back after a short moratorium.
I dunno about U, but that annoyed ME.
I think that (as Jeff was, numerous times), being warned would make you and/or ANY intelligent participant here take pause and not continue in ban worthy behavior. Then you and/or Jeff wouldn't even GET banned in the first place.I'd hope that when I am inevitably banned, I'd be allowed to come back after a respectable interval of pennance.
Hadrien still posts from time to time. But he also used to send people angry PM's for saying they weren't fans of certain aspects of his playing.
Well, that's what happens when you put yourself out there. Part and parcel of doing business.
Yeah, the snark level can sometimes be pretty high from cats that never have to field a team.
Yeah, from what I've seen, he is hypersensitive to criticism of any kind. (And no, I haven't criticized him myself.)
Read the OP for this thread: Jeff Berlin is Back, But for How Long? Drumrole, Please!
just to clear the air, once and for all,i'll elaborate on the given (correct) explanations of why jeff berlin was banned from talkbass, along with illustrating a bit of history to put things in perspective. normally we (site administration) do not do this, but, just like with practically everything else jeff-related, i am going to make an exception.
jeff berlin once had a pro forum here on talkbass, hence the two user names. his pro forum went pretty much like every other public communication i have ever seen him participate in on the internet, and elsewhere. unfortunately, his provocative stance and verbiage earned him endless ire from a few folks who disagreed with him, including quite a few teenagers with axes to grind. also unfortunately, instead of ignoring these folks and just presenting his message (which to -me- should be the primary job of an educator) he got so embroiled in these pissing contests that he eventually felt the need to "pack up his toys and go home", not ony leaving talkbass in a huff, but also demanding that paul, the site owner, completely delete all his messages from the database and remove his pro forum, with heavily implied threat. i considered that an unfortunate approach for a self-proclaimed champion of education to take - removing all his positive contributions in a scorched earth maneuver - especially considering the vast majority of participants here welcomed his participation, and only a small minority gave him grief for his "metronomes are bad/impossible to not sound like jaco on a fretless/"i" invented slap" pronouncements, but i also understood that the internet can be hard on folks sometimes, especially folks who have better things to do than engage in e-wrestling, and i gave him the benefit of the doubt as to his motivations.
regardless, as soon as someone takes that stance with us, flinging threats and insinuating legal action if we do not comply with their wishes, the standard policy at talkbass is a) never allow them back to the site and b) never engage in any communication with them whatsoever outside of -snail mail-.
just like with a lot of other things when it came to jeff, though, we were flexibile when he came back to our site to post, under the 2nd nickname, and field folks' questions. just like most folks, we were excited and glad to have him.
these threads initially turned out great - there were many folks who participated and got positive interraction out of them, but they also required -constant- babysitting on the part of the mod/admin staff to maintain the standards of our site in the communication between members.
a word about thread babysitting. we get approx 10,000 posts a day at talkbass. we do not have the manpower to babysit -any- thread. even if jesus, jaco, buddy rich and muhammed were having an open forum discussing odd time polyrhythms in angelic free jazz, we do not have the ability to handhold ever poster in a particular thread. we have a single site owner, 3 employed administrators, and a couple dozen volunteer moderators to handle ~130,000 members, a substantial percentage of which are active, and, as i said, 10,000 posts a day.
so eventually, due to the demands of running this site, we were forced to allow jeff's threads to be free in the forum playground, just like every other thread on this forum, hopefully with the understanding that the participants recognized that the site rules still applied, as they do in every thread. apparently this was also expected to be an exception to our rule, since members on both sides of the fence soon made a habit of breaking these rules, pretty often, including jeff.
however, none of the individuals called on breaking our rules responded with repeatedly insulting the site and the moderators, or their motivations, -except- jeff. this is also something that we normally do not tolerate, nor should we. after all, this is our site, and we run it as we see fit to provide the best environment for -everyone- to share and grow. we have the rules for a reason, and believe it or not, even though i'm directly responsible for many of them, i don't agree with -all- of them. however, i do recognize that every one of them is required to maintain this site at the level of quality that it is.
i can only imagine how i would be treated should i go to player's school of music, for instance, and stand up in the middle of the classroom and disrupt everyone's day with insults about the school itself and the individuals involved in running it. this was exactly what jeff has done, repeatedly, and yet this too was not penalized. again, an exception for jeff berlin was made.
after being asked nicely repeatedly, and even warned, the first penalty that jeff received was for -calling another member a name-. jeff berlin, resorting to name calling folks whose views differ from his.. that was just a single penalty, however. he subsequently earned 3 -more-, despite further admonishments, requests and even warnings on the part of the site administration staff, to observe our rules. he was also allowed no less than -12- specific instances of violations of our usage agreement that had no action taken against them whatsoever.
he was finally permanently banned from the site when he not only resorted to sockpuppeting wihle on a temp ban (if you don't know what that is, look it up. doing -that- is a perma-ban offense) but also posted this thread :
Jeff Berlin is Back, But for How Long? Drumrole, Please!
he made it clear he was not going to respect the rules of this site, nor the individuals responsible for running it, in numerous posts that still exist, and will -continue- to exist in perpetuity (no more perma-wipe of his participation here like the last time, regardless of threats.) i don't care who you are, you will not be welcome in our community if you refuse to abide by our rules.
and i'd just like to add that nobody here is more disappointed at this outcome than i am - i really was hoping that jeff was back for good.apparently, though, a handful of folks who disagreed with him were too many for him to ignore long enough for us (site admin) to do our jobs and remove them.
as for ken smith, you can read his rants on his own forum about why he was banned from talkbass. you'll get a reasonable, albeit 1-sided, explanation of why that happened, although he doesn't mention the rampant attacks and threats he sent to chris fitzgerald (one of my fellow admins), among others, nor does he explain the promises he made after his -first- banning to play nice and behave. records of these have all been kept, however, and are available upon request.
