Zeemax deletion case

This page is meant to gather data on the case of the deletion of Zeemax (Pakistan)' profile. The aim is to figure out if the deletion was appropriate and, if it was not, do have some backing to a rehabilitation by the MDST.

TO MAYA AND ZEEMAX: You are both encouraged to add, reformulate and delete anything you feel relevant to. I will hack mercilessly into it if I feel it is done unfairly. Have no restraint, it is close to impossible to delete something in a wiki.

TO MODERATORS: If you edit, log in first. I will not revert your edits without checking with you first. But if you don't log in first, I will not see it is done by you.

Sitarane

Chronology of the enquiry
28/10/09 - Julien contacts Zeemax that sends him a long email. This email can be disclosed and will be, to anyone that asks. Some of it is quoted below.

08/11/09 - Creation of the wiki page. It was advertised publicly on the moderation subgroup of International Politics and privately to Zeemax and Maya.

08/11/09 - Julien gets an email from Maya, with permission to refer.

Chronology of the facts
I put the source in the beginning of each line. Keep the source in mind while reading a line. I have no information from MDST at all and will never have. MDST just doesn't talk.

BACKGROUND: In the thread What is terrorism, Maya and Zeemax get involved in a personal fight.


 * From the thread: Maya calls Zeemax by his given name, that is not apparent on his profile and that he claims he wants to stay confidential. She also states the quality of his occupation in a very vague way.
 * Maya knew the name through previous email exchange with Zeemax, and claims to have seachengined his occupation.


 * From the thread: User Guleny, that was active in the thread without taking sides in the clash, expresses her disagreement with the disclosing of personal details as a mean of discredit.


 * From the thread: Maya says to Guleny that she will send her a private message to clarify.


 * From Maya's email: Maya sends a private message to user Guleny that mention the name and phone number of Zeemax, as part of the copy paste of a long email exchange between Maya and Zeemax two month before (september).
 * I suppose that Maya had the intention to show that her and Zeemax used to be in good terms. Gulen had been neutral in the thread, but so had a lot of others.


 * From the Thread: Guleny acknowledges publicly the receipt of the mails and expresses her opposition to it.


 * From the thread: Zeemax publishes his given and family name, along with email, phone number and physical address. "to make it known that her underhand tactics in attacking my person won't defeat me"


 * Zeemax says in an email to Julien (Moderator) : Dec 2008, Zeemax does a MDST complaint about the publishing and forwarding of personal details by Maya.


 * Zeemax siaetJM: MDST reply on 17 Dec 2008 that they "have issued a very serious warning to the member in question."


 * Zeemax thanks them and receives another response on 19 Dec 2008 saying "Indeed, your personal information may not be revealed on the CS except with your explicit consent. Thank you also for refraining from further contact with Maya."


 * From Maya's email: Maya gets a formal message from MDST telling her off for sharing member information to a third party. It is very obviously a pre-written answer. Maya claims that the one she sent the message to was user Guleny.


 * From Maya's email: Following that Maya sends 3 messages to explain to MDST the circumstances, and to try to show that in fact, she was the one offended.


 * From Maya's email: Maya receives another MDST message, with the same content but this time personalized. The email mentions that Zeemax had sent his contact details to other people than her.
 * The latter probably refers to Zeemax's posting of his details on the thread.


 * From Maya's email: She keeps communicating about Zeemax to the MDST.


 * Zeemax siaetJM: Zeemax gets a warning from MDST (date undetermined) advising him "to refrain from either addressing or referring to Maya in any post"


 * From Maya's email: 25 jan. Maya receives a mail from MDST saying that future reference to her person in Zeemax's post will be considered harassment. They suggest her to let them know if that happens. They also say that if she refers to him, whether in response to his posts or not, they will not help her. In that message, there is no mention that the penalty for referring to Maya is deletion of profile.
 * One month after the facts?


 * Zeemax siaetJM: Zeemax respects the advice all through the year. Mainly by falling out of sight.


 * From the thread: October 17th, 2009 - 8:56 am, Zeemax posts this, where he refers to Maya. He mentions a medieval death penalty in relation to her temporary ban from the group.


 * From Maya's emails: Soon after that, Maya sends the MDST a message containing only a link, not to the post mentioning her, but to this post, that is a comment on the post mentioning her by another user.


 * FMe: Maya receives a reply from MDST full of happy talk about how it is difficult to get along with each other but that we must all try our best, blah blah blah... This emails does not mention the deletion of Zeemax.


 * Zeemax siaetJM: "the day after posting the reference to Maya" Zeemax' profile is deleted from CS.

Comments
The issue concentrates on two threads:

What is terrorism
What is terrorism, Spanning from 2008-12-03 to 2008-12-19 From the opening of the thread, a very lively on-topic discussion develops. Tension builds up between Maya and Zeemax. I failed to clearly identify who started it. It's rather subtle. Gulen does not seem to take sides in this clash until she gets involved with Maya's personal message.

Polanski
Polansky. Sept/Oct 2009 Span irrelevant. In this thread, Zeemax does not participate in the discussion. Maya gets challenged by the moderation and receives a second warning which entails a 2 weeks ban. Zeemax only comments on that event and when Maya, banned from the group for 2 weekes, is not present in the group, in two consecutive short but off-topic posts.

Reliability
The only sources are the threads and my private communication with the people involved. Through careful lies or bending of the truth, it is possible that one or more of the involved people skew the picture.

So far, both parties have provided me a lot of information. At no point the information from one side contradicts the information on the other. The only place where there could have been data forgery is on the date of the "no mentioning the name" MDST message. Zeemax doesn't know when it was sent and Maya claims it was sent 1 month after the fact, which is a bit long.

Argument
Zeemax claims he did not host nor surf
 * The website states, when opening a new account, that it is not necessary to host or surf to be the owner of an account

Zeemax is guilty of the charges
 * It is my feeling that the "do not post the letters M, A, Y, and A one after another" was a very inadequate sentence.
 * He was not told that not respecting the sentence would result in deletion penalty.

Moderation
It has been argued that the forum was unmoderated at the time of the first thread, and that the only recourse was MDST. In facts, there was one moderator at the time. It is true that he never posts, but, if nobody tried to get a reaction from him first, going straight to MDST was a bad idea.

It can be argued that MDST should have first gotten in contact with the moderator before acting at all. It might have been done, but I know that in more recent deletion cases they bypass even active moderation.

Conclusion
The following is to be sent to MDST by Zeemax:

Elements

 * Zeemax can be accused of harrasment on Maya. But the opposite may be true. The amount of content that one needs to analyse in order to figure out who started it is astronomical.
 * Zeemax received the "capital penalty" of CS while he had not commited a capital abuse.
 * At the moment most of the facts linked to the case happened, the group was not moderated and it was of MDST responsibility to do the policing. However, at the time the sentence was carried out, the group was moderated and the controversy should have been handled by the moderation.
 * I'd like to point out the FAQ "I would like to report an inappropriate post or member in a group." in the CUQ process: "Please contact the group moderator(s), as he/she/they may already know how to deal with the issue. If you are the group moderator, or if the group is not moderated, please click on the button below to send us a message, and be sure to include all links to the relevant posts (click on "Permalink" at the top of the post in question and copy the URL from your browser's address bar)."
 * It is possible that the MDST volunteer that carried out the sentence was not aware of the fact that the group was moderated.

Procedure

 * Maya was never told that if she reported Zeemax mentioning her name to the MDST, it would entail the deletion of Zeemax's profile
 * Zeemax was not informed that if he was to ever post the name of Maya, the consequence would be deletion.
 * I'm confident that, had they known, they would have acted differently.

Conclusion

 * Zeemax should be given back his profile and face the moderation of the group.