Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Due to abuse by a retired staff member, I can no longer give retired staff access beyond that given to a normal user, and so I have removed the retired staff groups.

This was caused by Skin, who was listed as retired staff, posting on another website about staff posts and comments made in staff only areas and forums in violation of what every staff member was told, and agree too when they are chosen for the staff of this web site. "What is said in the staff areas, stays in the staff areas." It does not matter if you are current staff or retired.

So no one can say I am hiding criticism, this is what she said:

QuoteI also wish it wasn't so toxic. Recently, a pretty active member was banned and while she was there, she was a bit overly self critical and emotionally needy, but she was a transperson at a support forum so that should be expected, right? Well after she was banned her insecurities became a joke to the mods in the staff only forum.

Let me stop here and explain something.  The staff forums serve two purposes. The first and most important to the site is staff coordination.

The second and equally important is to give the staff a way to vent off of the public areas of the web site. Staff on a support site endure a significant amount of stress and pressure not felt by regular members. So, having a private area to vent lets staff members relieve pressure out of sight of the members, and prevents things from building up to the point of an explosion in the public areas of the site. If that happened I would have no choice but to fire them, no matter the cause. Most of the staff understand this and even appreciate it, but I guess Skin was simply too young and immature.

Cindy made this post in early April.

Quote from: Cindy on April 10, 2015, 04:50:13 AM
We have more staff across the whole site, which is great.

We need more.
There is a level of tolerance for staff posting in general areas. We can and should post our feelings and opinions and yes we carry our own RL experiences that we need to deal with.

But staff follow ToS strictly.

We are polite, which does not mean we cannot be controversial, but our language is moderate, understanding and supportive; at times Moderators may be firm, but fair.

All Admins have areas for their staff to have a personal space to have a 'sound off' away from the general forum. Both Admins and staff need this at times. I know I do. I know many of us do. These are safe places for staff to rant and rave or just cry; as need be.

I have seen a tendency for some staff members to be pushing the boundaries on the general forum. As the Forum Admin I will not allow this to continue.

Such behaviour is provocative, suggests an elitist culture and is against forum morale.

I do not wish for such behaviour to become entrenched or to continue.

Thank You

Cindy
Forum Administrator.

That being said I would not tolerate anyone being abusive to a member in the staff forums, any more than I would in the public forums.

QuoteIt was pretty disgusting.

The Conversation Skin is referencing was basically harmless. It was a hypothetical conversation between two members of the forum if they were put into a room alone together.

QuoteCould you imagine...

member1:  "I could listen to that broken ceiling fan all day.  It's like music to my ears."
member2:  "Do my ears out me?  Are you telling me my ears look too masculine?"
member1:  "Why would you care, even if they were?"
member2:  "Do I have ear hair? AAACCKKK!!!  I have ear hair, don't I?!!"
member1:  "You could fill in your bald spot with it."
member2:  "I know I don't have a bald spot.  I stare at my overly masculine hairline all day.  I'd know."
member1:   "Stop being such a schmuck."
member2:   "Oh, thanks for reminding me I'll never be able to afford GRS."
member1+member2:  "Why don't I have any friends?"

This was based on each individuals personality and posting history.  I chuckled, because it is spot on. But it was in bad taste, so I issued a private warning to the mod in question in that situation letting them know it wasn't acceptable.

Lets go back to Skin's complaint

QuoteI was a subject of the mods' jeers as well.

As far as I know they never reported it to an admin, but I do have a bad memory for things. Could it have happened yep it is definitely possible as I don't read every staff members comment on every moderator report; but it is not and would not be considered remotely acceptable.

If it was seen, more than likely a warning was issued even on a post made in the private staff areas, such warnings are not generally made public even to other non-involved staff members; but goes something like "What you posted was unacceptable... If you do anything like that ever again you will be fired..."

QuoteThere was a thread in which a member was having health issues and was looking for emotional support. Susan chimed in with a speech about how DIY is dangerous. I thought that even if I gave Susan the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't accusing the member of self-medding (which the member wasn't), it was an inappropriate place to go on a DIY rant. Since the forum has super strict staying on topic rules, I reported the post for going off topic.

Which Skin had every right to do, as does any forum member. However be aware that when I take action in my official capacity, such as when I make a general warning; it is always on topic. I wish I could find the details of that report, I would love to share the full details of the situation. I gave up after looking at 18 pages of closed post reports.

QuoteWell the other mods must have forgotten I had access to the mod log because a number of them felt the need to chime in on the report to take shots at me. One of them even misgendered me which was particularly painful because it was only a couple weeks after I made my forum avatar a real-life picture of myself. Before that I had used a clearly feminine cartoon.

Misgendering anyone is never acceptable on my site, even in private staff only areas. If Skin had brought it to Cindy's or my attention, and if it was intentional, the person who did so would have been suspended.

That being said not one of these things excuses Skin breaking their word to me, and to the staff of this site, as such they have been perm banned and are no longer welcome on this site. Ever.

Sorry, mea culpa. 

I guess I had to vent that day, and I promise to find a better outlet.

When I was younger I was driving an ambulance car. You don't want to know what they talk about when at their station. It's just emotional self care. I bet all mods would jump from a bridge if they wouldn't vent sometimes. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Jill, don't blame yourself, I can fully relate and venting is healthy.

Dragging private talk to the public is not. I'm sorry for the retired staff, but Susan was bound to do what she did.