- Recon Number 54
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- Master Forum Ninja
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Well, here we are. I guess that it was destined to come to this.
Posted by: Yax
To better explain the initial flowchart business, I should probably single out an example. The most prominent one in my mind would be a personal habit of Recon's. He has a zero-tolerance policy on pirating, which means that if anybody admits to illegally downloading content, he will permanently ban them.
Now that clearly falls under the second flowchart. They are breaking a rule and he bans them, regardless of how long they've been here or their previous ban history. This would be fine if it was a regular, (or even an extra long), ban but he stated himself that it is permanent.
Something like that is completely detrimental to the community and wouldn't happen if they stopped and thought along the lines of the first flowchart. The user could be somebody who posts insightful threads and contributes a great deal to the site, who is then never allowed to post again just because they admitted to downloading the new Miley Cyrus album.
I have a zero tolerance for the entire "Render unto Caesar" clause of the Code of Conduct. Any clear violation of which is putting our hosts (and therefor the existence of this community) at a very real risk.
Sorry, you can think that my actions are harmful to the community, but I am acting in the interests of this community and the foundation that allows it to exist. Our hosts and the site that they provide. Any member who violates their membership agreement so severely (by using this site to openly admit to, discuss, encourage or enable real crimes) is a danger to this community. All it would take is one lawyer, one pissed off parent, one news story, one prosecution any of which link or name this site and we're at risk. ALL of us. Any contributing and thoughtful member of the community should know that and act accordingly by following the promise they made when joining this community.
Someone can otherwise be a pillar of the community, and an all-around great guy, but put this site at legal risk of its existence? Any member who does that doesn't understand the consequences of their actions/statements and therefor is a loose cannon. I remove them.
Since we all know how "serious" and "unavoidable" those bans are, it's not like I executed the person. I killed their account's abilities to post on the public forums. Where they were recklessly endangering this site. Their account still exists and still has uses, but they have clearly shown that they did not understand the potential consequences of their actions. I would hope that they (and others) do now.