[Trumanator]

Originally Posted by Baalz

To those who are angry, I'd like to ask that the discussion be elevated above what I'd expect out of other forums. Regardless of your grievance this isn't accomplishing anything other than making people look like petulant children. If you really feel fed up enough to leave then just do it.

To the admins I'd like to expound on the real reason people are angry, and I alluded to it in my previous post. Most of us identify with Sombre, even if we found him abrasive. He was part of the community and (at least those that are protesting think) he contributed much more than his abrasiveness subtracted. Your actions feel unilateral, arbitrary and an attack on our community. If he had been consistently unpalatable then not only would everyone understand why he was banned, they'd thank you for it. This feels like some outsider decided that enough respect was not paid to him and attacked our community, only to be fully supported by the powers that be. Let me be clear that I don't know or particularly care about the specifics of what happend, I'm just telling you why people are mad as they're not doing a good job articulating it.

It's not that there is a feeling that there should be no rules, it's that the feeling is that how this is enforced is an attack on our community. If you banned Sombre then who else? Obviously Sombre is not coming back, and I'd expect that several other people are gone for good over this...and the feeling is why in the hell are you swinging a big club around like that when nobody else saw a problem? This whole thing could have been greatly mitigated by publicly asking, then warning, then being clear about consequences for further behavior and bringing the community along with the decision. *Obviously* important members of the community deserve special consideration - they are what makes the community. If there is a compelling reason that one of the pillars of a community needs to be removed you can't just unilaterally do it with no transparency...unless you want considerable backlash.

To add to this, you might try having junior mods who the community actually respects, instead of mods who contribute nearly nothing to the community and therefore enjoy no respect from it.