[militarist]

I was not on a irc channel when Sombre explained what happened, and for me it's hard to imagine that sombre was punished for what he thought. It looks for me that he was punished for what he said. There is always a difference between these 2. From my understanding - he just had a conflict with some inexperienced admin. And then another, more experienced admin, who probably is higher in hierarchy, made a decision to save face of organization in eyes of all admins, and not demotivate them by letting Sombre ignore them. Nobody likes to be ignored, and even less like to hear something like what sombre told. But this move of administration smells like Chinese style of governance - they feel they should sacrifice 1 person to keep admins happy and the system unharmed. There is a big difference between China and the other world. And since we are not employees of Shrapnel, and internet is associated with the word freedom and pluralism, what administration does can be understood but it really hurts. And if administration pays so much affords to develop modders and players community, it would be smart to consider such people as Sombre more as investors, who have voice, rather then employees who can be just fired from forum. It's your business, and you can legal right to o whatever you want, but if you want us to feel as a community, let us be this community. Otherwise many of us will have huge issues with own integrity, and that's not really good for anyone.

Shrapnel is not only a forum, it's a niche social network and it's value is in it's members.

Anyway, I would like to thank you, Shrapnel, for parental attention. I appreciate your affords and resources you spend on game and community. But are we really so little children that we deserve such kinds of punishment and control ? Or criminals? I would really understand if Sombre have shown some public disrespect to Shrapnel. But banning for Private messages exchange with one admin, whose input can be much lower then Sombre's? That's hard to understand.