Night of the Long Knives?

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Peter Ebbesen

And yes... I too have valued Sombre's positive contributions to this community but I value a well-moderated forum even more.

Well said.

Originally Posted by Annette

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?

The strange thing is that Sombre is being presented as a victim. He was asked to stop making personal attacks and refused to do so. I gather his defenders would say that the importance of his contributions outweighs the importance of forum rules. I disagree. To me, having the type of civilized forums Peter Ebessen refers to is more important (even than something crucial to the MP community like the hosting llamabeast and Gandalf provide).