Should 420 Magazine Offer A General Amnesty To Suspended Accounts?

[420]

420 Magazine has been monitoring the success of Elon Musk's Twitter amnesty. The staff and I have been debating making the same offer to all of our previously banned members, except for those banned for harmful or illegal acts.

Our decision was to put the question to our members and accept the result, just as Elon did. If the vote is for amnesty, we intend to allow reactivation of old usernames where possible.

This is your site and we care what you think. We respectfully ask you to vote in our poll and encourage you to use this thread to express any thoughts or concerns you might have.

 

[Carmen Ray]

Hi. I have a few questions.
What rules and standards will you use to moderate the site? If they are the same rules and standards that applied at the time the transgressors had their accounts suspended, then what is the point of the amnesty?
I take it that members receive at least one warning before accounts are suspended, so they are given the opportunity to review their behaviour?
Is the proposed amnesty serving any practical purpose?
From what I've seen at 420 members are given quite a bit of latitude when it comes to the way we express and conduct ourselves.

 

[CaptainLucky]

420 Magazine has been monitoring the success of Elon Musk's Twitter amnesty. The staff and I have been debating making the same offer to all of our previously banned members, except for those banned for harmful or illegal acts.

Our decision was to put the question to our members and accept the result, just as Elon did. If the vote is for amnesty, we intend to allow reactivation of old usernames where possible.

This is your site and we care what you think. We respectfully ask you to vote in our poll and encourage you to use this thread to express any thoughts or concerns you might have.

I say yes but with a Probationary period. I believe in second chances but this site is a privilege and should be treated as such. Imho CL

 

[Melville Hobbes]

I say yes but with a Probationary period. I believe in second chances but this site is a privilege and should be treated as such. Imho CL

I like that. Maybe limit the privileges to those of new members during that period.

 

[DeltaDubie]

sounds like a lot of trouble... they will just get banned again in time .. maybe except for a few..

 

[Azimuth]

sounds like a lot of trouble... they will just get banned again in time .. maybe except for a few..

That probably depends on why they were banned.

This site now has a very well earned reputation for being a very welcoming and helpful growers site and I wouldn't want that to change. But I'm sure not all were banned for flaming or similar behavior.

But allowing them back would be an overall positive from my perspective. Should they conduct themselves in a way that leads to another ban, well, so be it.

 

[JoetheChro]

Opening up a can of worms comes to mind

 

[Graytail]

General? No. Makes no sense.

If there aren't hundreds of them, I'd like to see a case by case review instead. Some people just need to experience the consequences of their behavior. Others are just A-holes. Depends.

But no, not a "general" amnesty.

 

[Stunger]

Maybe limit the privileges to those of new members during that period.

I would venture to say yes to a general amnesty, but maybe with a probationary period like Mel suggested above. But any who prove themselves to be idiots should be quickly de-previleged!

 

[CaptainLucky]

I would venture to say yes to a general amnesty, but maybe with a probationary period like Mel suggested above. But any who prove themselves to be idiots should be quickly de-previleged!

I don’t want to quote the bible but I do live in a glass house and have been known to mess up from time to time + I know I would want a second chance to prove myself. That’s just the way I see it but I have been wrong before +prolly will be again. CL

 

[Janluna]

A simple NO, should suffice, but…
This is not Twitter, it’s better.
Musk-a-doodle-doo is running that site to the ground. Please don’t do the same. I really like it here.

 

[nivek]

looking at musk as an example of anything is a warning sign right there,,

folks have moved on,, and on

 

[Azimuth]

A simple NO, should suffice, but…
This is not Twitter, it’s better.
Musk-a-doodle-doo is running that site to the ground. Please don’t do the same. I really like it here.

Well, opening up free speech for both sides is a plus in my book.

 

[HappyHazmat88]

All good points above .... But the rules and guidelines for use on this site are simple to start and if they couldn't follow the simple rules in the first place, they probably won't follow again.... However a "probation period" does sound reasonable on an account to account basis, but the forgiveness/amnesty should not be for all of the banned/suspended accounts especially those who have deliberately violated the terms of the site.

 

[Janluna]

Well, opening up free speech for both sides is a plus in my book.

I love free speech. Works great when we’re all being respectful to each other. But lets not start that conversation here. Save that for twitter, facebook or truthsocial. Thanks.

 

[Azimuth]

Not looking to start anything. Just pointing out the (obvious and now confirmed) situation over there.

 

[420]

Everyone will be expected to comply with the same guidelines and we won't just open the floodgates without speaking with each member to confirm they will comply with our guidelines moving forward.

If they violate the guidelines again, they can be shown the door again as well.

Yes, all members usually get three strikes before they're out. Unless it's REALLY bad.

If you all approve, amnesty will be given on a case by case basis, some just went too far.

We have multiple reasons for offering the amnesty, I'll name a few that come to mind now and more later.

Elon Musk started it by leading by example and showing us a perspective we had never considered.

We believe in forgiveness and letting bygones be bygones, leaving negative energy in the past.

We believe anyone can learn, change, adapt and evolve, just like ourselves.

For thirty years we've been bringing people together from all over the world, we don't want to separate them.

We’ve been trying to relax our guidelines over time and are presently a lot more tolerant. We lost people early for things that are allowed today. For example, back in the day any mention of using USPS for seeds was a banning offense. The government used to be quite uptight about this and penalties were harsh.

Sometimes a member can passive aggressively troll someone to the point of snapping, then the snapper gets banned. Meanwhile the other member runs off into the corner chuckling victory while playing the victim. We're not social workers, psychologists or parents, we are cannabis activists running a legitimate business and mission to change international laws. So although we've tried our best to do the right thing everywhere we can, it's just isn't always possible, with the budget, tools, resources and experience we have.

The embarrassing truth inspiring a lot of this for me personally, stems from the fact that I recently got diagnosed with OCD, ADHD & Asperger's. This has been extremely eye opening, humbling and life changing for me, evolving my perspectives and bringing to surface numerous revelations that have me reassessing everything.

Looking back, I feel my mental disorders got in the way of handling some of the situations with much less patience than I would have liked and feel just terrible that it got so out of hand. The stress on all of us was immeasurable. I've learned that when someone verbally attacks a person with autism, it can cause a "meltdown" from stress and "sensory overload", and the natural response is to push those people away. Being in a position of power, that was easy for me to do.

I was bullied as a kid, so I guess I developed a protective nature to avoid that happening to our members. Being plagued with broken social skills, made it even more challenging to analyze and resolve some situations properly.

I'm not saying being autistic is an excuse for my behaviour, I'm just saying that autism is what contributed to it. I feel if I was not plagued with this curse/gift, and had thicker skin, I could have handled some of these situations a lot better. The experience has been traumatic for many of us and I'd really like to make amends where possible and clear any stagnant energy from the past. I know some people are incapable of forgiveness and will tell us to get lost, however I also know there are some who miss being with their friends here, as well as members here missing some who flew the coop.

We just want to do the right thing and resolve any situations where we could have done better.

 

[Azimuth]

Well said, Rob.

Here's to second chances.

 

[Jonny5]

Yes power is a double edged sword, I would think that 420 would need to go through the process, see why the individual was banned in the first place,,, was it a misdemeanour or something far worse,, maybe a statement of apology from each individual or similar criteria to 420 Magazine and it’s sponsors , or has it been “” time served “” and there debt to the 420 Community been payed ..

 

[DeltaDubie]

well i would not allow the conmen fraudsters back in ....