Especially since, as best as I can recall, there is no current rule against off-site images.
I had thought we'd implemented one but I can't find it.
I agree this shouldn't have happened, though I don't think it's even remotely in the same league as the harassment other users received from staff members, including the yoric thread (but also the extensive harassment that other users have gotten off scot-free with), so while that doesn't excuse it, I don't think it's the same situation. Intimidation? Really don't know about that. Excessive public embarrassment though yeah, and the level isn't cool here.
There is no excuse for a staff member signing something with a statement that they hate the guts of the user being addressed.
ilu Piffy but this is hardly the first time it's happened, even if a way we considered okay. And I think I'm in a special position to say this since I've taken time to chew out multiple staff members in secret chat, but as long as they also included constructive criticism and it wasn't just 'i hate you' it's been considered okay. The only real difference here is that Aelanna went farther in editing the article to display the message, as opposed to sticking to comments or PMs or #site19. That still is a problem, yes, but I'd prefer our perspectives be accurate here.
and would result in pretty much anyone else getting their asses kicked out.
I frankly just don't believe this.
I have no idea how we want to discipline her though because I oppose demotion but don't have a better idea and currently am a bit too upset to come up with better suggestions. And because she's incredibly bitter so who knows what would actually have any meaning. Although FYI, she's said she publicly that she doesn't consider herself staff.
And it's kind of hilarious and depressing to watch this happen. It's an open secret that Aelanna was outright harassed, often by staff, for years in some cases, because she was easy to bait and not shy about responding and people took that as an invitation. Yet this harassment was overlooked, or more recently addressed by scolding the users involved via PMs or in super secret chat. But if she gets demoted, now - ha, and/or publicly humiliated in this thread - it sure won't be a secret or behind closed doors.
You could make an argument that others of us put up with too much shit from her as well, not just because of her incredible usefulness to the site, but also because of the eternity she spent in the wilderness being super useful and being shat on 24/7. Our bad, I guess.
Few if any users got as much shit as she did simply for existing, or the amount of shit that she got when she did screw up. I've seen this for years. So it's hard for me to see what she 'deserves' here, and therefore what course of action I should support or recommend.
I don't mean to stir up shit here, though I'm obviously upset about this for multiple reasons. All of this post was partly a post I didn't make earlier when she left, in part because she did it in a less than graceful and rather unfair manner. But if this is going to end with her being kicked off the wiki permanently, which honestly wouldn't surprise me at this point, some of this shit needs to be shoveled. At the very least so we can avoid it happening again.
Again, this doesn't excuse her behavior. Or her past behavior, some of which has been seriously problematic. She tended to let shit build up, roll with the punches, and then reach the rope's end and shit on everyone at once, including those who didn't deserve it (you know what I'm talking about here, it didn't happen just once). Her lack of discrimination didn't help matters, it's true. I still want her back as a staff member eventually but maybe I'm wrong, who the fuck knows. Blegh.
tl;dr This was fucked up and she needs to be disciplined. But let's not pretend the situation is "we let her get away with murder because Project Foundation" or "we let her get away with murder because we liked her" or any of the other stuff I've been hearing. Because that isn't what happened.
BRB you guys, jumping off a cliff.