It was late last night and I probably could have done a better job expressing my point, but there are 2,000 people on this board, and I doubt that the majority of them know who Brian McQueen is, have ever met him, or understand that it is him posting under the name "Shammus". Certainly, Brandon Brown's potential employers wouldn't if they were to do a Google check on him.
Just because someone changed their mind on a baseball card deal, doesn't mean they should be called out to, if you think about it, not only the board here, but really anyone on the planet who does a search on their name. The punishment does not fit the crime. I can understand the point of outting someone who was stealing cards; that is breaking the law. But to "out" someone who agreed to a few deals that were not legally binding, just because they ran out of funds, to me is a lot more unethical than the original misdoings.
I'm really just trying to bring light to that point. Personally, I think this whole thread should be deleted. As for suspending him from the B/S/T, I have no problem with that. Frankly, I believe that "suspension" is a much more appropriate word than "ban", especially if you plan on re-instating him in six months or a year. "Ban" really has a much more violent connotation.
To summarize, if you post defamatory information about someone online, using their full name, then it is only ethical to disclose yours, as opposed to hiding behind the moniker "shammus". But to do that, especially considering that the person's misdoing was not even illegal, they just ran out of funds, meaning that their refusal to buy the cards was borne out of fiscal responsibility, is like the modern-day equivalent of a tar-and-feathering. Brandon Brown's last post says as much, and as I said before, I do not want to complain on here without offering a solution; that the whole thread should be deleted.
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