The State of the Union

[Weltall]

Okay, so there was a huge piece of earth-shattering action going on last night. I'm going to explain what happened, and the causes.

Basically, the flashpoint was the Reviews forum, which I recently revived. As soon as I did, I and Edenmaster drafted a series of rules and guidelines for reviews that were to be posted. These rules were not new to the Reviews forum. They have been in effect, if unwritten, since we started doing them four years ago. Some of them I tuned down or eliminated, by request.

OB1 writes a pair of "reviews" that totally, flagrantly disregard these rules. As such, I have Edenmaster remove them. This was done both with proper warning beforehand, and proper explanation afterwards.

OB1 decides to express his discontent by writing a thread that is inflammatory to say the least. I respond. As usual, it escalated. Soon, the flavor of the comments he posted about me go from merely inflammatory to rude, outright lies and personal insults. He makes ridiculous accusations towards me, and I respond with quite an unhappy tone.

This went on for several hours. And it resulted in him deciding to leave for good.

Now, I want to stress that I did not ban OB1. In no way was he forced or coerced into leaving Tendo City. What he did was of his own free will, including starting the argument and escalating it the way he did. I gave him many, many chances to stop without consequence. He was determined to push me until I gave up and let him have his way. I was not about to do that. I almost never make a point to mention, but this is my place, and while I always welcome advice from people, I do not enjoy getting second-guessed, nor do I like being threatened and pressured into doing anything.

So what has happened is that OB1 is gone, presumably. I have removed his administration abilities. I will not ban him, and he is welcome to return any time he pleases, as long as he remembers how to conduct his behavior. I will not restore his admin priveleges, because I no longer feel I could trust him with that sort of power, but I will not stop him if he has a change of heart and decides he can be a normal human being once again.

I was not at all happy to experience what I did, and I am not happy with the result. I did not want him gone. I never had the problems with him that some have,until last night anyway. It's been weighing on my mind all day. But I did what I had to do.

OB1, if you read this, and I'm quite sure you will, I don't want anything from you. I won't demand an apology or anything. The door's always open. I hope you have the chance to look back and see what you did, and see it for what it really was.

Oh, to clarify. The boards did go down for a good deal of the day, and I know some people suspected him. It was not his doing. It was actually mine, and it was an accident.