A Toast to Banned and Disappeared Posters

[jingofever]

I'm missing the monster.

Did he have his account deactivated?

[Perelandra]

Yeah.

I wonder what's become of erosoplier too.

[Jeff]

Monster requested his account be deactivated. I followed up with him in email, and he sent a nice reply that explained "I quit drinking cold turkey, I quit smoking cold turkey, and it's time to quit RI cold turkey. (And yes, it's a compliment to you that the site is like a drug.)"

[norton ash]

What's up with MacCruiskeen? I miss his gentle musings.

[barracuda]

norton, Mac got very pissed at the mods during the heat of the Gaza flotilla thread, and apparently has never forgiven us.

[freemason9]

i may become disappeared myself insofar as RI is concerned . . . someday. whenever, i don't think i will be missed in any event. i have precious little time to dedicate to posting, and it's become increasingly hostile here. i used to enjoy the role of devil's advocate, but something has changed. debate in RI has become unfriendly, paranoid, and fraught with relativism.

i suspect i'll quietly fade.

[Peregrine]

Nope, I think we'd miss you, freemason... And I miss mac, too...

[Perelandra]

Nope, I think we'd miss you, freemason... And I miss mac, too...

Seconded.

[beeline]

Nordic?

[Sweejak]

Nordic?

Barracuda is an arbitrary and overly involved moderator.

[barracuda]

I'm highly opinionated, that's for sure. But rest assured that all decisions regarding suspensions or banning are formed by discussion among the mods, and Jeff is the final arbiter, as you might imagine. Jeff didn't ask me to change my posting habits when he asked me to moderate. Just the opposite, in fact.

[Jeff]

The mods and I agreed that Nordic's conduct merited suspension. He can return on Friday.

[Sweejak]

You don't follow your own rules Barracuda, that's what makes it appear arbitrary. It's ok to be opinionated but rather less so for a moderator.

[Sweejak]

Fine, but the thing is, and everyone should be able to agree on this, that a moderator is supposed to be sort of like a judge, ie impartial and certainly not inflammatory. Barracuda is neither. It's a lot to expect from anybody so I see the difficulty. That's my take, I think the mods ought to think about it.

[Jeff]

There's no rule that says fools need to be suffered. In fact, I think it's inadvisable for moderators to do so.

Please refrain from directing obscenities towards other board members in the body of the post, on the other hand, is a rule.