Quote:
Originally Posted by Annette
Maer,
I greatly appreciate your productive post. You are correct - while these forums are not a profit center for Shrapnel Games, they do exist as a sales tool. Two very important components of the tool are our customers who contribute valuable content and our moderators who volunteer their time to help us maintain a peaceful, productive environment. Without their unpaid help, Shrapnel Games would have a difficult time keeping these forums open for our customers' use.
We all understand that tempers will flare and posts will be made that violate the rules we've put in place. And we appreciate cooperation when a moderator must step in to calm things down. The problem in this situation, and the reason I exercised our right to escalate beyond our infraction system, is that Sombre indicated to us that he did not intend to honor our requests to follow the standards we expect of all our users and that he would ignore future private messages asking him to refrain from using personal attacks. Would a temporary ban change his mind? So we're faced with the question, do we allow one user to post in a manner that we would not tolerate from anyone else?
|
Well Annette. I think your posted policy of 2 temporary bans leading to a permanent ban would have been quite sufficient in this case. Put Sombre on probation. If he doesn't want to then follow the rules you've got a much stronger case. If the plan was to reduce disruption by removing a disruptive influence it failed miserably. Sombre's level of disruption is rarely that bad. Besides, a bit of disruption provides drama and keeps excitement going.
Unless I'm mistaken I didn't suggest that Sombre get off without consequence. But this decision to permanently ban him is extreme and I strongly believe it failed to serve your purposes. It also clearly pissed me off a lot. If you permanently banned me for the same infraction I'd work very hard to move all my friends and games over to Something Awful or some other dominions 3 environment. But I prefer to stay here.
When I acted in much the same manner as Sombre, you gave me a temporary ban. And honestly, when I go on a terror run here I make a much bigger mess than Sombre. Look at last night. The only difference appears to be I didn't tell you that I won't follow the rules in the future. But my offence was significantly greater than Sombre's. I got a polite warning this morning and replied positively. I stopped spamming.
Should you make a special case for certain members of this community? Why not? You have all the power and can rewrite the rules as required. You own these boards. The question is really why make a special case for Sombre. Because he's important to this community. Besides, you made a special case already. You immediately permanently banned him for what could very well be just a fit of anger.