Posted on 12/03/2004 6:10:40 AM PST by PJ-Comix
Bev Harris was just BANNED at DUmmyland!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x108750
Statement on the Bev Harris situation
Over the past two years Bev Harris has received a great deal of support from the members of Democratic Underground, in her research, publicity efforts, and fundraising. In return we have played host to an 18 month-long squabble between Ms. Harris and other verified voting activists, and have even been threatened with lawuits by Ms. Harris herself. Despite this, we have publicly remained mostly silent on the verified voting squabbles.
We believe verified voting is a topic of crucial importance, and have been uncomfortable taking sides on an issue which, frankly, we should all be on the same side of anyway. Therefore we have kept most of our correspondence with the various factions private and attempted to cool things down behind the scenes. Like all issues discussed at DU, we have tried to focus the discussion of verified voting on the topic at hand, and not on the personalities of the participants. However, in light of the recent troubles, we feel compelled to make a statement.
In 2003 Bev Harris, along with a few other verified voting activists, were banned from DU for engaging in personal squabbles on the message board after they were repeatedly instructed to stop. Around that time, Ms. Harris threatened us with a libel lawsuit, claiming that we could be held responsible for comments made by other message board members who doubted the credibility of her project. She never followed through on this threat and we never heard from her lawyers.
Ms. Harris was reinstated shortly afterwards, after agreeing to put an end to the problems that got her banned in the first place. Nonetheless, those problems periodically recurred after her reinstatement. A few weeks ago, Ms. Harris again used our website to threaten DU with lawsuits, in her postings, in private messages to other members, and in rude alerts she sent to the moderators.
We sent a message to Ms. Harris telling her to stop hassling our moderators and members, and informing her that if she had a legal concern, she needed to contact us directly. We also let her know that her continued participation on this message board was dependent upon her behavior. The legal threats stopped, but we received no response from either Ms. Harris or her lawyers.
This is our personal experience with Ms. Harris. We cannot confirm or deny the veracity of claims made by others, including many former colleagues, her former publisher, and Keith Olbermann. But we can confirm that the claims made by others about Ms. Harris are not inconsistent with our own experiences.
We have remained as patient as possible in our dealings with Ms. Harris because we believe that the topic of verified voting is a crucial one. We were prepared to sacrifice a certain amount of tranquility on the message board if verified voting was being discussed in a generally positive manner.
Ms. Harris's recent spat with Keith Olbermann has made positive discussion of verified voting increasingly difficult on DU. For over a year and a half, our members have been split into pro- and anti-Bev factions, and recent events have only exacerbated that division. Yet this morning Ms. Harris returned to DU and started posting as if nothing had happened, while making liberal use of the alert button to complain to the moderators about our enforcement of the message board rules. At this point our patience finally ran out.
The fact that the disruptions have continued, despite repeated warnings from the administrators, leaves us with no other option but to bar Bev Harris from posting on this website. We no longer believe that it is productive to allow her to use DU as a platform to promote herself while simultaneously trashing us, our moderators, and others who have been previously supportive of her cause.
We still remain firmly committed to promoting discussion of verified voting, and we wish Ms. Harris well in her efforts to shed light on this important issue. From now on, we encourage all of our members to focus on discussing the verified voting issue itself, rather than the personalities involved.
If you use people like that as the standard, and grade on the curve, you set your goals unbeliveably low.
You're right about the drama queen part, the demonrats should have hired 17,000 shrinks instead of lawyers...might have done them more good.
I'm a biker and I guess part of a "leather contingent" but I wear leather as armor not as plumage.
Gotta love the Jedi mind trick....good one.
Rovian that is pretty good.
Oh, get over yourself.
Touch a nerve there sweetie?
No... sweetie.
Well, there must be some reason for you to get your panties in a bunch,,,honey.
My panties aren't in a bunch, snookums. I just don't care for people who go out of their way to disrupt other peoples' fun. If you don't like the DUmmie FUnnies, then for heavens sake don't torture yourself by clicking on them.
You're now on AutoIgnore. Have a nice day.
Have a nice weekend honey bunch.
Later, darling!
Now, now sweetieums, you told a fib. You said I was on atuo-ignore. Ah, women, they change their minds so often. LOL
It funny how these idiots Blame Rove for everything. They turned the man into a mythical force of nature in their own little minds.
Just when I think it will never get too weird for me....
IT DOES.
This is tinfoil-hat stuff on a galactically brobdignagian scale....
Ms. Harris's recent spat with Keith Olbermann has made positive discussion of verified voting increasingly difficult on DU. For over a year and a half, our members have been split into pro- and anti-Bev factions, and recent events have only exacerbated that division. Yet this morning Ms. Harris returned to DU and started posting as if nothing had happened, while making liberal use of the alert button to complain to the moderators about our enforcement of the message board rules. At this point our patience finally ran out.
The fact that the disruptions have continued, despite repeated warnings from the administrators, leaves us with no other option but to bar Bev Harris from posting on this website. We no longer believe that it is productive to allow her to use DU as a platform to promote herself while simultaneously trashing us, our moderators, and others who have been previously supportive of her cause.
Okay - I'm tired of using the search function to find DUFU - put me on the Ping list. Thanks for all your work, I do enjoy sniggering and chortling.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.