Solved Changed my mind

As I said and has been said over and over. This was not about one thing, it was about a lot of things over a long period of time, so the argument that he didn't do anything wrong does not hold weight.

If you wanted to get very technical, the BoD has a leg to stand on due to direct violations of the User Agreement.

Bylaws

So it's not as if we're just running around banning people for no good reason, like I said, it's rare. And it's usually for a really good reason or reasons.

 

One thing at a time. I believe it will be restored to the members section

 

I know...we all have lives and making a decision or a series of decisions doesn't always happen overnight. For instance last night I had to lock down the forum when the drama went off the charts while I was at the gym shooting hoops with my kid and his friend, because I didn't have time to do what I needed to do at that moment, and the drama needed to be stopped, screenshots of internal BoD discussions were being taken and shared online, etc. Racism was being accused even.

No editing or anything nefarious or secret is going on it's just cleaning up a mess. During the work day, and during the evening while family activities are going on and access to certain things is limited or not as easy

 

The racism comments are actually still up, those threads were never locked or hidden - they are in the members forum, on an elections nominations thread

 

Actually I was incorrect (not the voting thread), but it was on a thread in the members-only forum that is still open (in the Club Business sub-forum)

There was never a racial slur uttered.

The accusation of racism was and still is a complete mystery to me and the rest of us.

 

The racism accusation was made after Craig called someone out as the "mole" on the Board of Directors. To put it shortly, someone took a screenshot of an inappropriate comment that was made in a private BoD discussion forum (which was kind of heated, and admittedly it was kind of my fault that it got heated) and then that found it's way to a bunch of vendors who were at the show. One of them shared it with me and I talked to him and explained that it was a private (non-public) discussion, at which point he went forth to pass that information on to other vendors whom he knew had also seen it, basically in order to stop the social media explosion.

But the damage was done

Through a logical process of elimination (using things like seeing when certain users had last been online, looking at IP address, browser types being used, and other things like that) we (well, I) was able to eliminate most BoD members without even asking a question. But short of that there was not enough information to nail down one person. And short of some kind of security breach (none known of) or some open account with BoD access (none present) there didn't seem to be any other explanation other than there was someone breaking BoD conduct and someone having an agenda to bring Ray down, basically. I know that the target was Ray. We all know the target was Ray.

Someone thought that making the point to me directly so that I could address any inappropriate comments was not the right path. It was apparently better to start a firestorm with vendors, who already were coming off a show that for the most part was not profitable from a vendor perspective (but there were many many reasons for that...many...)

So now we were left with a BoD with a mole, someone who couldn't be trusted, but no one knew 100% for sure who that was.

But the math led to one person only a few people. One (of those) person people who happened to be, on or about the day the post was screenshotted, passing through DSM and getting salt from Donny. He is also an Admin on the same FB group as Donny. The vendor who originally received the screenshot is one that Donny brought in as a sponsor.

((^^ slight edits made))

I wanted to call someone out, but I knew that if I did that, that would be the end of me as a trustable leader.

Do you know how it feels to be stabbed in the back, and not know who did it? To have strong suspicions of who did it but not enough proof to draw a firm conclusion?

I am literally tearing up and shaking in sadness and anger and frustration as I am typing this, the tears are running down my face and I am sitting at my ****ing desk at work goddamnit all

DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE? DO YOU!!?!!

I was livid. I was distraught. That's the truth. Trustees walked because they didn't want to be part of a group that they couldn't trust. Everyone got busy and I could have cared less about bringing a new trustee into that hot mess.

That's why nothing got done this year. It's called intentional damage. It was only probably meant to damage one person but it damaged us all. I had no drive, I was completely depressed about the whole situation and what had transpired in the first few months of the year.

Craig wanted to call someone out, guess what. He hit is tipping point too.

So that's what he did, he called out the person whom he thought was the mole. That's it. No racial slur was uttered.

Donny's reaction was this:
"...I never did anything and of course you would blame the only minority on the bod Racist"
"YOUR A RACIST CRAIG PICKING AND ACCUSING ZACH"
"Its always been RACIST craig"
"First thought the mexican right craig racist. It was you the whole time craig you and only you always making it out to be me and I didnt do it"
"Bud blaming the minority also? Wow way to go bod"
^ not sure how I got added into the mix because I didn't post a thing

So, yeah. There's that. Really...no idea where that came from. But it's out there in plain sight for all members to see, the racial slur accusation spear was thrown and somehow this implies that an accusation of racism means that it must have happened, because man who would accuse someone of racism if it didn't, that's pretty serious right?

You're right. It is pretty serious to accuse someone of that and then blast that all over the internet and smear their name and smear GIRS all over the place publicly to people who don't have membership access and can't see what was said.

You know what else is really serious? When there is no real basis for that accusation.

 

^^ edited. additional anguish added.

You know if it wasn't Zach then he deserves an apology. I never treated him like he was the one because I never knew for 100% sure.

No one had the spine to stand up and take responsibility for what they did

The vendor wouldn't tell me who it was who sent it to him. Snitches get stitches was what they told me. I only found out that he was the recipient because of another vendor who got it from him, a vendor that is a great person.

 

Donny called Craig a racist for singling out Zach.