[Baalz]

It’s a bit distressing how many people seem to think “they’re the rules, so you have to follow them”. “The rules” are just something somebody with some form of power wants you to do. In human interaction there are many forms of power and “the authorities” only wield the most obvious and blunt. Community leaders also wield a form of power, it’s more subtle but can be just as powerful. Obviously the stakes are dramatically lower, but this is really no different than the pattern of behavior you see mirrored in the real world. People tend to riot/protest because of perceived government oppression. It’s caused by a break between “we’ve got the guns so you’re gonna do what we say for your own good” and “you are not the leaders we follow, you’re just bullies with guns”.

This whole episode doesn’t really have much to do with the specifics of he said she said, it’s really about considerable annoyance at feeling bullied. “The Rules” conflicted with the unspoken and informal rules of the community. “Don’t break the rules unless you want the consequences of doing so” cuts both ways…it’s just community rules are enforced by a kind of group persona and aren’t clearly listed anywhere. The rule that was broken by the admins was “thou shall not do things whose net effect is to remove value from the community” as well as “treat people with the respect that they’ve earned”. The admins presumably think they violated neither of these things, but the problem is that between having hidden exchanges/private messages as well as just different perspectives the feeling by those who are angry is that they did. Then compounded it by saying “well, that’s just the way it is because I said so”.

Sure, the powers that be have the power of force, but you can’t build/maintain a community with that. Presumably that’s the entire purpose for having these forums so there are limits to what they can do short of pulling the plug and saying screw the whole thing. I doubt they’d admit it, but I think that if it was possible to secretly go back and undo this whole affair that would be a no brainer. You just can’t do the equivalent of tossing a community leader in a jail with no (public) trial without expecting the equivalent of riots/protests and considerable collateral damage. That’s the consequence of this being a very mature community that’s developed over a considerable time. I guess we’ll see now how bad the fallout damage is.