We have a serious problem here...

Yes, and there's also the parallel and valid accusation of speaking of people present in the third person, as if they were absent or excluded.

True. The real point is that if you aren't flashlight, you generally have to speak of him in the third person. And thank gods for that! Imagine the humiliation of being able to speak of him in the first person!

Hmm, you think the bolded part drove him off? I honestly don't think we can know. I will say that there was no rude intent there, and now a few weeks later, I still don't see how that is considered rude. Probably a cultural thing, but having also lived in California, I don't think most people there would see it as rude, either. All it meant was "I don't have all the answers right now."

Anyway, as I said, we don't really know why he left. I would hope that he might come back, but it is going to require some work on his part, either to overcome whatever it was that made his decision, or to give us some information about what he would want handled differently. I think people would take a look at any suggestions he has, although nobody here is going to change what we consider to be good rules simply for the sake of one poster. We would need to agree that his ideas are helpful to the board. The whole "do it my way or I'm out of here" approach is usually best ignored.

@gul
I think that he was probably frustrated that he'd been asking a pretty simple question (why is gturner banned?) for quite a while with no response while shit-stirrers were being responded to. When he finally got an answer, it basically boiled down to "because I say so" and the part in bold was just added insult. It sounds like how you would respond to an annoying kid that just wouldn't shut up, and yeah...it comes across as rude and dismissive.

He didn't say unban him or I'm leaving forever.

He asked why he was banned and when it was clear that the only answer he was going to get was the equivalent of "because I said so - now hush", he said fuck it.

I'm obviously not him and can't speak for him, but I would put my money on the explanation above. I guarantee it was more about the way the management here seems to change/enforce rules on a whim and refuses to give a logical explanation than it was about gturner's worthless ass. No one gives a fuck about gturner on a personal level, but people are getting tired of the attitude and the general sentiment of "we're doing what's best - quit asking about it." It is insulting.

Fair enough, but that's still all stuff that has already happened. What major change he wants to see in the future in order to come back remains unclear. Is no one in contact with him? Because unless we get some input from him, I don't see what the board can do, outside of trying to make sensible rules and policies and hope he'll like them from wherever he might or might not still be watching.

That's true.

Hmmm...

Well, maybe we can start with this: why was gturner banned? Lots of insufferable assholes 'round these parts. What made him so special?

If I can get an honest, rational answer to his question, maybe I can use that to try to convince him to come back? I don't know, but I want to try. We already lost Mewa. Funny mofo and a lighthearted, fun person to talk to. Can't just lose Paladin without a fight. There aren't many people as good at challenging my perspective without getting personal.

If someone who has access to paladin's email wants to send him mine and that is allowed, I'd appreciate it.

gturner had a ban caused by a thousand cuts. There wasn't any one sole reason, and banning him had been on the table for some time. He was made aware of how close he was to a ban, but he ignored admonishments by the Administrative staff, and continued his behavior. That is as straightforward as it gets.

Since I was the one that gave the order to ban him: it was solely for him fucking with the board by letting people into his account at the time. Nothing else. I didn't want to, but when we're getting dual notices flagging, I'd rather err on the side of board safety first.

I didn't get a chance to tell Paladin that because in all the shitstorm, I didn't even know about that thread until days later when it was brought up in the shelter.

Now, if Krieg can convince gul and shootER to give the fucker a chance and let him back in, I wouldn't protest. I'm not staff and I can block him with a free conscience now.

Hell, by the time we started seeing the notices come in, he had let at least 5 people into his account at that point. It may have been more.

Hey, I ressemble that remark!

Post reported for revealing personal information about Wordforge's "expert on everything."

Totally reasonable - thank you!

I honestly don't even think that's necessary. If I can get in touch with Paladin, I think it'll be all good.

Right. While he was initially banned by Anna for the reason she gave, he's stayed banned for violating the don't come here to be an asshole rule. He was only here to troll by spamming up every single thread with crazy conspiracy BS. You only need a couple people to take the bait and then the thread is done.

Seeing how much he can fuck up discussion and how long he can last at a board is his game. At TK he's bragged about his ability to do it from the left as well as the right.

Of course he gave people access to his account to see his situation after he'd been blown off by the admin staff, so...

Yeah, yeah, poor gturner, totally ignored by the Admins, I get it. While we're at it, I have a really nice bridge to sell you.

There's not a single word of this tripe that's true.

Not. One. Single. Word.

What in the world makes you think Paladin doesn't understand the basics of what happened? He left because he understands perfectly what happened.

The solution to getting Paladin back isn't trying to convince him that JAG-ER & KAGER's shit smells like cinnamon & spice.

The solution is for KAGER to fuck off and stop messing with the board and the membership.

Honestly Mrs. A, stop with the "Team Mom" routine.

Why don't you worry about your own "flamboyant dipshit" routine and stop telling others how to act.

Well, I can't make them change their minds about how to run the board. Apparently we're not allowing trolling anymore. I think it's a dumb rule, but there's literally nothing I can do about it. The people who own the board have made it pretty clear at this point that the objections of shit stirrers and reasonable posters both have been heard and considered and they are choosing to change the board anyway. What exactly do you think we should do about it? Just watch as more and more good posters leave? Throw a tantrum?

Sometimes the "team mom" approach works with people who are invested. Maybe that's not the case with Paladin. Maybe you're right and he's sticking up for his principles in the most effective way. I'm not going to become a bitter bitch to entertain you, though. If my too-nice posts offend you, you're free to put me on ignore, just as I was free to put gturner on ignore.

For the last time, he did NOT tell us about his access to the board being cut off. We only intended to punt him outta Red Room. That's part of the shit stirring bullshit Anc was talking about with him. As far as I'm aware, he wasn't blocked from using PM to the staff. Yeah, yeah, distrust and all that. He could've emailed any of the mods first. That's why we have others.

Flaming/trolling isn't banned, obvious racial bullshit of last week aside. The staff can confirm this themselves.

If trolling isn't banned and the account sharing wasn't the actual reason for the permaban, then it shouldn't be surprising that so many people here are like

Changing wordforge and alienating long time posters to stick it to THIS assclown?!?!?!?

Having been verbal about bringing gturner back, now I really don't care. His noise was drowning out actual discussion in the RR. If it's as Gul states, he was purposely trying to get banned, then it's a win-win.

Just out of curiosity, what board safety issues are caused by duals?

Seriously? People are now going to be banned for being assholes on a message board? If you plan on applying that with any consistency you better get ready to ban everyone because we're all guilty of that.

IGNORE is your friend. If the thread dies due to an argunent it's just as much the fault of the people responding as it is to gturner. If a gturner post gets sand in your vagina then use the ignore feature or just don't respond.

Someone breached @gturner's account. Therefore gturner was banned for his own protection.

Sarcasm aside, it's been done in the past...back when my brother was using my account on our shared computer to post his shitty music videos, I got a PM cuz his posting style was so much like a spammed and the mod (I think it might have been Anc) thought I'd been hacked.

I agree, actually. Ten gturners aren't worth losing Paladin over. There was talk of banning him outright, which is why I put the VR out there. Apart from gturner, having a non-indexed room isn't the worst thing, especially if you've got people going on a shitfest, but unlike John I'm not wasting any more time convincing anyone here of that.

But given his comments at TK about his playing both sides, whether he's lying about that as he does about every single other thing he's posted here or not, it's hard to be to be upset that he's not here.

Neither gul or ShootER are going to let him back even if Krieg were open to it.

Agreed about the usefulness of the room. Using gturner as the poster boy for having this room was a terrible idea though, since his posts being indexed had nothing to do with why people wanted him gone.

For sure. He's a douche. I don't miss him any more than I'd miss any of the other trolls, spammers, and racist fuckwads who are still here. I still don't get what made him such a special snowflake.

Edit: I fail at quote tags, apparently.

Honestly, it was propably a combination of things...the election results, the shitstirring gloating from Ramen, Volpone and M. Bison (who coincidentally has been MIA since the election) who circled around this stuttering clusterfuck of a miserable failure and his whirlygig "debate" style of just flat out, idiotic, moronic, twisted LIES.

Any poster on the liberal end who came close to that kind of crap left WF before I signed up here or in one case, has toned her trolling down considerably over the years. But it was still just as grating.

If and when tardo is sprung here, I plan to use ignore like a mofo.

Stop lying. We know exactly why Paladin left and his problem was with you banning GTurner unjustly. He said as much if you would bloody read it.