[Hrum]

Originally Posted by Anaconda

This extremely - I underline extremely - good book on the topic; why rules are important and why it is very important people voluntarily follow them:

http://www.schneier.com/book-lo.html

From the end of the IEEE Spectrum review, the link to which is listed on Schneier's site:

"In other words, sometimes rule breakers are a threat to society, and sometimes they are its best hope. If that sounds like Thomas Jefferson’s "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it," we can still thank Schneier for updating this eternal truth for a digital age."

I would agree with this. Yes, rules are important, but there is a reason why it is preferrable to have them applied by a human intelligence that can make a judgement call, that can see gradations, that can interpret grey areas. Shrapnel is doing that, and to the extent that they do it correctly that's great. The problem is that there are a lot of us who are pointing to some very high profile instances when many of us feel that they got it wrong. This is one of those instances.

In this case, re: the banning of Calahan, I am in agreement with others here - I would like to know why Shrapnel banned Calahan. Based on what I've seen of his postings here, Calahan may have given the admins the justification they needed to do so, but there's no question in my mind that his contributions to the community outweigh any offense he may have given. Couldn't some warning have been given? Why can't there be an intermediate step between ignoring borderline behavior and a permaban?

Isn't that passive aggressive? Ignore the rule bending of certain major contributors to the community for months or years and then one day snap and ban them permanently without warning?