Cal wrote:Congratulations, Karl, on the new forum rules. Just a shame your very first act (you claim, taken in concert with all the others Mods)
was to issue me with a lifetime ban from ever being able to post in the 'Stuff' section of the forum again.
Here is what you sent to me, late last night (11.08pm to be exact):
Dear Cal,
You will recall that we sent you a PM last year about your conduct on the forum. At the time, this was your response:
Cal wrote:
I'm sticking to the games topics on GRcade from now on - I'll do my political posting elsewhere and I think that's best for everyone (including me!).
Sadly, that is not a promise you kept. It is equally saddening that the PM from last year remains just as relevant today as it did then. We have tried to accommodate you to a degree afforded to nobody else, but after a long four year discussion we are forced to face the reality of the situation. There is nothing new we can really say, and so an update to last year's PM will have to do.
Dear Cal,
It is with a heavy heart that we must inform you that you are now banned from Stuff, the off-topic section of the forum.
Over the last four years your conduct has been found consistently lacking across the spectrum of current affairs and [discussion] threads in the off-topic section of the board. We think it is fair to say that in many threads you have repurposed this forum as a personal blog with this community as your unwilling audience. Your antagonistic posting style and refusal to engage in healthy debate has caused members to leave, moderators to go inactive, and (worst of all) stunted what could have been a great deal of interesting and engaging community-generated content.
The decision to take action has not been taken lightly. There are currently 136 against your name. The team have discussed this for countless hours. Every single active owner, administrator, moderator, and moderator-emeritus has had their say. We have tried warning you and thread-banning you; warning and thread-banning the people who we acknowledged were picking on you; changing our rules to clarify what we expect from you. This is our last resort.
The terms of your ban follow.
You will remain able to read but will no longer be capable of posting in any topic within the Stuff section of the forum. This process will be automatically handled by the forum software. You will remain able to use all other functionality on the site, and will still be able to post in the other sections, such as Games.
We are sad to note that you, a founding member who once gave so much to this site, now seem to care so little about its populace.
When Cal posts about corridor décor in videogames, when he posts about his adventures in Thailand, and when he posts about the gay culture he experienced in his youth, we see the same jovial and laid-back Cal we knew and loved all the way back in 2008. We wanted you to return him to us. You didn't have to post like a tabloid newspaper; it didn't have to be like this. It remains obvious to all that we are entering GRcade's twilight years and we did everything we could to accommodate a commenter who was once so entertaining and so positive. It is our genuine hope that you can take this as an opportunity to recapture the spark that once made us so glad to call you our friend.
Yours sincerely,
The GRcade Staff (Owners, Administrators, Moderators, and Moderators-Emeritus)
You cite no particular post of mine that might of given offence, no incident recently that might have upset someone, or any occasion where I had abused or insulted another forumite personally. Your entire rationale for exclusion therefore seems to be that 12 months ago I mentioned that I would be posting less in the Politics topics on GRcade and because I have failed to carry that through I am to be permanently banned from ever being able to do so again. How very random - and completely unfair - of you. How many of those '136 warnings' were for calling another forumite a c**t, or a racist, or a xenophobe, Karl?* How many were for my holding the wrong opinions?**
I'll be very interested to watch now to see if those who HAVE regularly abused me with openly vicious, vile and abusive language will be permitted to continue posting here (I think I know the answer, but we'll see).
I consider your actions to be the actions of an intellectual coward and a bully. You have banned me on the most shadiest, most slippery and morally indefensible of grounds because you can't own the fact that you simply don't like having to read opinions you disagree with. I hardly think yours is an impartial voice, Karl, let alone one that should be dictating issues of freedom of speech. But he who wields the power...right?
The only two mods I can safely say have acted in accordance with a respect for genuine freedom of speech here are KK and Eighthours.
Anyway, I couldn't just let myself get bundled out of the back door and into the courtyard for a metaphorical bullet to the back of the head without letting everyone know what is being done here - Erdogan-style - by Karl (who claims that all the mods support him).
The lifetime ban on me from posting in the Stuff section of this place is entirely unfair, impartial and without any justification whatsoever. Shame on you. Shame on you for becoming the doctrinaire, censorious bullies I desperately wanted to believe you really were not. Enjoy having one less voice in the discussion, not because I left in a huff or in sudden a fit of pique - but because late last night I was, so to speak, pushed into the back of a van and 'disappeared' from the Stuff folder by a kangaroo court on jumped-up charges.
Respect to the few other brave souls who occasionally dare to take the opposing side on the arguments here. You know who you are - keep it up. They'll come for you, too, eventually, but you should never be afraid to speak out against a set of narratives you believe to be fundamentally wrong.
- Cal
*The answer is none.**136 times, precisely.