I think #1 is a tad vague at the moment.
I agree. We can try to sharpen it up a bit if people have suggestions.
Again, it should really go without saying, but a simple "Treat others with respect. The commissioner reserves the right to remove anyone from the league at any time for inappropriate conduct" would be my suggestion.
I will sign off on this if pestering somebody after they ask not to be contacted is a bannable offense.
I get what you're saying. But to be clear, there's a difference between "Oh my god, he sent me one too many trade offers in a fantasy basketball league... oh my god, he thinks my player is worth a 2nd rounder... oh my god, he tried to tell me his fantasy basketball player is worth more than I think he is" vs... sending vile, disgusting and hateful insults for months and repeatedly escalating the level of harassment after repeated requests to stop.
To be clear, the level of insults and harassment I faced over the past several months (some publicly and many privately) is literally defined as illegal in several states within this country: http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/cyberstalking-and-cyberharassment-laws.aspx
And I want to nip this in the bud right now... I find it incredibly offensive that someone would equate my behavior (sending too many trade offers for Giannis Antetempoenko and writing admittedly annoying fake press releases) with the behavior of someone who made comments towards me that I can't repeat in this forum without getting a life-time ban.
There's a certain obvious line that someone shouldn't cross. It was crossed. If you need to put it in writing in our constitution that one should not cross that line, so be it.
You're right there is a difference between those two things LB33 -- making too many or low ball offers and outright harrrasment.
I don't think anyone has equated the two things. I think just about everyone in the league agrees that a line was crossed and that no member of the league should have to deal with harrassment. Case closed.
At the same time, I think that we all also agree that ignoring what people have said to you --- from "player x is not available" to "please stop sending me offers" to "please stop it with the fake twitter feed" --- is *also* a real problem. And that if any of us are doing that, yourself included, we need to stop ... out of respect for our leaguemates.
It's not illegal harrassment but it's at best really irritating and at worst really disrepectful (and possibly a violation of CBlog anti-trolling rules). I'll go so far as to say that even your "oh my god..." above shows a real lack of understanding/listening to what people have said in the past.
I'm not saying anything here I haven't also said to you via PM.
I'm not saying any of this to pile on or troll you.
I just don't want this discussion to be built on a mythological foundation either.
This is a great point. Glad it was made now before things piled up.
From this thread already, it is even more obvious that we need a league rule about GM behavior and what constitutes harassment.
A couple follow up things just to mix into the mix:
1. My point, not to belabor it, actually was that there's harassment (which is relatively easy to address IMO through a zero-tolerance policy) and then there's the huge gray area spectrum of irritation-to-disrespect that has reared its head from time-to-time (and then time-to-time again).
This is both harder to address through specific rules and sometimes harder to stop.
Unfortunately though too, when gone unchecked (either by a commish or the individual GMs themselves showing some <gasp> self restraint) this irritation-to-outright-disrespect spectrum has led to some crippling 100+ post flame wars on the Yahoo! boards and fairly pointless and usually counter-productive pages of posts here.
1A. The solution to the above has to be, in part, IMO a commitment by GMs to saying what they need to say as succinctly as possible (ed note: as he goes onto into his 4,000th word....) and let it go. If a reply is warranted fine. But we need to stop the "yes huh -- nuh uh! -- YES HUH!!! -- NU UHHHHHHH!!!!!" arguments of yesteryear followed by "he started it" and "I'll stop when he stops" justifications.
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2. Problems. They'll happen. But if there is a problem each GM, IMO, needs to (a) deal with the other GM you have a problem with with respect (b) needs to try and nip things in the bud not let them fester or grow and (c) tell the Commissioner if there is a problem that can't be resolved otherwise.
I'm not victim-blaming here LB33.... but if you were being harrassed "for months" you need to tell someone (preferably Byennie) and seek some resolution, not let it keep going. AND more importantly you and all us other GMs need to know that this is a place where you can do that w/o reprisals (which is why IMO the mods have set up rules and rightly act swiftly on them).
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3. It should go without saying, but all GMs need to think more about what they're doing/saying before doing/saying that thing.
"I didn't think *that* would bother them" or "I'm sorry i'm forgetful" or "other people don't have a problem with X" are not legitimate excuses to do stuff that falls on that irritation-to-outright-disrespect spectrum IMO.
Our last hiccup in the h2h league led me to write this below... which we then added as the preamble to the constitution which all GMs have to sign off on before each season:
This is a long-term league made up of 20 dedicated GMs. Most of us have invested 4, 5 6, up to 8 years of our time playing and building our teams. No one is forcing anyone to be a part of this league. But if you are going to be in it there is a reasonable expectation that you will (a) follow the rules that we?ve collectively decided on and (b) communicate with the commissioner if you have a question, issue or problem with the league, rules, another GM, etc.
Every GM has a different level of involvement in this league. The rules we?ve put together aren?t to make it more difficult, but rather to allow 20 different meatheads with differing levels of commitment, from all over the country/world, of different ages, different temprements, differing access to a computer during the day, etc. to coexist and have a kick-butt league.