The_Jazz

What we have here is a difference of opinion. And you know what? That's just fine. I'm all for it. But when people get all huffy and threatening about disagreements, the fun stops. Clearly there are parties here that are misunderstanding one another.

So, before someone gets all angry and makes threats about owning firearms and being ready to use them on folks, let's realize that part of the free flow of ideas is dealing with ideas that differ from your own. Especially if those are preconceived. If you can't figure out a way to do that, you don't belong here.

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It's not often that we give post-mortems on why we ban people, but this one seems to call for it. We can produce chat logs if need be, and this seems like the best venue for this comment given the circumstances.

Makhnov felt that he was being physically threatened by folks in this thread and libeled (he said slandered but that's not what he meant) by several. He decided that his best course of action was to go to chat and vent. He was frustrated that several of his threads were closed without being given a chance to develop and did not like the responses to this thread. He was given adequate opportunity to propose solutions for what he perceived as problems but ultimatedly elected that "fuck you" was his best bet.

Yeah. That's usually not a good course of action anywhere that at least tries to err on the side of "mature". He is not welcome to come back in the future.

You're welcome to search and find his threads that were locked. I think that the majority will agree that those that were locked did not provide much fodder for discussion. Those that did tended to take on an adversarial tone fairly quickly (although, in his defense, not all). I feel very confident when I say that we consistently upheld our standards for Original Posts with those actions. We would have done the same regardless of the poster (and I did today, for that matter).

There is also the matter of perception here. I'm painfully aware that perception is almost always reality on the internet, but there are times where two very different realities exist side-by-side. In this instance, there was a reality that existed for a single member and one that, it seems, existed for the entire rest of the board. We do not take threats against our members very lightly (ask around), and we took this one very seriously. Ultimately, though, it was obvious that no threat existed.

We really try hard to treat complaints evenly and with no favoritism. Ultimately, I think that we suceeded in this case, even though that meant that we've permanently parted ways with Mahknov.

We're going to leave this thread open and active for now. That may change in the near future, depending on the responses.

Finally, as always, the staff is always available to answer any questions privately.

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