I’ve been banned from Ravelry and have been given no evidence to support any of the claims they have made against me., nor given any opportunity to defend myself.
I have clicked from an off-site board into Ravelry, but it was not done with intent to harm or harass anyone. There is no way that I have clicked enough times to disrupt service or crash a server (both of which are rumors started on Ravelry ). I have clicked the little buttons on Ravelry posts, but I was under the impression that everyone was allowed to click them. Casey encouraged and gave his blessing for my group to have an off-site board. Apparently he had a change of heart and failed to notify any of us.
I have been informed by Casey’s real estate attorney, Craig Stelmach that due to my membership on the off-site group, I will not be able to appeal the decision to ban me. Fair enough. I clicked, I’ll pay the price. There were members of this group that didn’t participate in any of the alleged shenanigans and they were told they can’t appeal either because they are members of the off-site board. There were also several family members, friends, places of business, etc that were banned because some of our members used their computers to log onto Ravelry - MIL is included in this list.
My post history speaks for itself. I‘ve had the grand-total of three fights with people on Ravelry and only one remained unresolved. I was called a “War Criminal“ for knitting hats for our deployed troops, and when I defended myself, I was censored by the moderator of the group - the person who started the fight was allowed to continue to post harassing remarks. I left the group, the other party didn’t. I had a run-in with two people on the Bunker (they were not members) and both times the disputes were settled amicably and I felt that all parties involved were left with no ill-will.
I didn’t use controversial avatars. I have never once sent any hateful mail or conducted myself in a way that could be deemed offensive. I used the word Libtard when describing people, but I saw some equally naughty names being used to describe “my kind” as well and didn’t much care. While I disagreed with opposing political views, I also disagreed with plenty of the folks on my own board. I never flagged posts that I found offensive nor did I create any drama that had to be dealt with by the site owners.
There were no coordinated off-site attacks - I know who was online on the offsite board at the time of the alleged attacks, and there is no possible way that clicking from that board over to Ravelry could have disrupted service. I do think that there were plenty of disruptive posts made that evening, but what I saw was many people behaving questionably and the end result was my people being banned and the other parties still have their membership.
I'm left feeling a little confused at the inconsistency of the way that Casey and Jess deal out punishment for breaking their ever-changing TOS. There are quite a few groups and people on Ravelry that wreak havoc and cause problems. There are quite a few groups that have off-site boards that link back to Ravelry for the sole purpose to cause drama. There are hundreds, if not thousands of blogs that link back to Ravelry and none of those users or groups have been banned. Not one.
Ultimately, this is Casey’s site, and he can do what he wants with it. I wouldn’t ever go back to Ravelry for any reason. There is a double-standard that is going on there that I find offensive.
Do I think our ousting was political? Yes and no. I believe that Casey couldn’t care less who I voted for. What he does care about it losing money. The ugly truth is banning 150 bunkerites is less expensive and much less damaging than banning thousands of other badly behaved people.
