This was posted in the off topic room as well, but I imagine this forum gets a lot more foot traffic, so probably doesn't hurt to have it here too.

At Badger, take a look at the OT room, he posted the original topic there, this was just a repost.

Greetings Moritz.

@5 thanks for that. I couldn't find the topic in off topic. so I apologise and retract what I said about being petty and cowardly.

I'm not really sure on what to say about this. Is this blog post made in an in tempt to brake the whole Audiogames forum? Is it made to force Dark to give up on his job as a moderator? I don't really see the point of this blog post and the good things which should come out of this.
The blog post is only mentioning Dark as a moderator, but people properly don't know how much Dark are talking to the other moderators. How much help does he get from the other moderators to moderate the forum? How many disisions are he forced to make on his own? There are so many unanswered questions, so I only see this huge blog post as an extreme insult on Dark as an active moderator, and a big complaint of the forum in generel.
I'll say all the time which has been put into this huge blog post is a waist of time in my opinion, because for me, at leased, it's hard to get the conclusion of the blog post, and what the positive goal is about it.
I feer this blog post can end up braking the whole Audiogames forum and the whole moderation team.
I will never be a moderator for this forum because of all those complains, and mainly because of this blog post. All this bad stuff is simply not worth my time. This is what people get out of such many complains. People give up, people who might think about doing some volunteer jobs are being pushed away, because they feel they only get negative comments and complains out of it. I could do more here on the forum, but I don't want to, because I'm tired of all those complains no matter what people are doing. An other reason for I'll never be a moderator is simply because my english is not good enough.
Finally, if people are having such big issues with Dark or any other persons, they should have taken all this privately. Again, there are so many questions which has not been answered.
Well. We'll see what happens. I hope the best.

Also, to be honest if you're gonna discuss this it would probably be best to move it over to this topic over here. More of the discussion is over there. Originally this thread was in general game discussion and the other was in off topic, but now that they've both been moved it's probably best to stick to one thread when they're both in the same room.

It's kind of a shame we can't merge threads, but I agree the discussion has grown in the other topic, and I've contributed again although I don't have too much new to say. That topic has over 90 posts now.

@13, I'll reitterate what I said in the other BSG topic: I entirely disagree with ironcross's banning. He and I have similar ideas, and I bet you many, many other people do the same thing, and yet they haven't been banned themselves. Not just that but the reasoning behind it is indefensible. "Cumulative actions". What, exactly, does that mean? It means anything the mods want it to mean. It has no proscribed definition, and if the mods start hurling that around for ban justification, they're basically telling you that they can ban you for any reason, and will happily do so even if it violates their own rules, even if their actions make them look like a hypocrite, in the process. Whether ironcross had it coming is 100-percent irrelevant. What he said on the topic that got him banned was not a forum rule violation whatsoever. He only did what any of us would've done in his place on that topic; go read the topic where he was banned and then tell us, in this topic, honestly, if you could remain civil and calm to a person who did that to you. I sincerely doubt anyone has the patience and latitude to repeatedly tell someone practically the same time over and over and over endlessly because that someone refused to listen to anything they said and only came up with bullshit reasons to combat your arguments, reasons that were entirely invalid. So tell me, how is telling someone to stop their "blindy excuse bullshit" a violation of the forum rules? I assure you, it is not. Anywhere. Considering how violent other forums can get, that term adequately describes what catchio72 was doing, and if he had done that on another forum the exchange of words would've been a hell of a lot harsher. Hell, before post 69 Ironcross was actually trying to help, yet catchio72 wouldn't listen, and so Ironcross finally snapped. As anyone would in that situation.

I would have thought that the definition is quite obvious, but let me draw a comparison. Being on a forum like this and receiving moderation warnings is like being a few steps away from the edge of a cliff. Each time you do something that would give you a moderation warning on the forum, you are taking one step closer to the edge of the cliff. Of course, moderation warnings vary in their severity—some might only be a small shuffle closer to the edge of the cliff, while others are a leap. Eventually, the moderators have had enough of your lack of adherence to the forum rules and have banned you—you have stepped off the cliff.

But I imagine that you are protesting, "But that's all subjective." Yes, it is subjective, but most reasonable people would agree with the decisions of the moderators of this forum. Please do not take this as a personal attack, but your history of being banned on this forum shows that you obviously do not always agree with the moderators' judgements about acceptable behavior.

Now, I want to remind you of something. As far as I am aware, you are not required to use this forum. Every time you open this website, read posts and write replies are personal choices that you are able to stop if you want to. If you disagree with the moderation decisions and the rules of conduct on this forum, you need to conciously ask yourself why you continually contribute to these discussions. While Orko may have faults, I admire how when he realized that he disagreed with some of the forum's moderation procedures, he decided to leave. You have that choice too. Please bear in mind that I am not telling you to leave—firstly, your user karma score shows that you are definitely held in high esteem by the community; and secondly, I am only stating it because that option can sometimes disappear in one's mind in the heat of anger.

I have had disagreements with people on this forum, and I always remind myself of the rules of conduct. I can either continue respectuflly contributing to the discussion, or can resign myself to the adage "we can agree to disagree" and stop contributing to that topic. that option was open to Ironcross32; he just continued to contribute to a discussion when most people could have assumed the discussion would have been fruitless.

Once again, I will state that I do not want to start another argument, so please either accept my opinions or respectfully disagree with them.

Defender's example doesn't fully work, but I see what he's getting at. He's trying to say that ultimately, if you snap and lose control, no matter the reason or the consequences, it is your decision, and you have to bear responsibility for what happens.

Ethin, in the thread (which I'd already read, btw), I'd either have walked away or continued being civil. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I've never gotten heated, but I don't think I've ever really and truly slammed someone before, not in the way some other forum users have. If I have, it's been rare and I've never followed it up with worse. I'm not perfect, and I know it. The point is, however, that Ironcross became particularly confrontational when there was no cause. If that example was taken all on its own, then no, he doesn't get a ban. Given his tendency to double down and challenge/confront/attack people, though? I'd say he had it coming.
The assumption that anyone in their right mind would've said something sharp is simply ludicrous. There was a long and rather convoluted discussion about politics a few weeks back. Lots of things to be upset about in that topic. And I'm pretty sure no mod warnings were handed out. Know why? Because even when people (self included) got a bit annoyed, we didn't really attack each other. We disagreed, sometimes vehemently, with the situation. I don't know what's so hard to understand here.

Regarding the whole blaming the victim thing:
1. I don't think 13 meant it as the victim is infallible and should be given the world on a silver platter, but while the victim should be believed, if punitive actions must be taken, a varification step has to be their, and the more serious the punishment, the more scrutiny has to be applied to the situation. The more serious the crime, the more chance we should give to the defendant. After all, the more serious the crime, the harsher the punishment. And severely punishing an innocent person makes us no better than the criminals we seek to catch. Where's the justice in criminals punishing other criminals?
(edit) I forgot my second point. Oops...
2. The matter of victim blaming is actually kind of irrelevant here. The evidence is now on the table. If  anyone still  is holding on to cards from that long ago, I guess now would be the time to play them, but that situation is passed. The only fault I'd give now is that this whole issue was never addressed sooner. It's been allowed to fester perhaps a little too long and should probably be resolved sooner rather than later. The rest of Smoke's post could be mostly helped with a rules update. Maybe some sentencing guidelines for the Mods would go a long way.

@15, I get what your getting at, but the comparison just doesn't really work. I, myself, act like the way Ironcross32 does, or they way others might, because I don't like to just "accept things" as how they work. Take, for example, the question of 'why'? When we asked that of the mods, the question of 'why'?, they only responded with some vague (and ambiguous) response of, "Oh, his cumulative behavior". Do note that one of Smoke's observations about that topic was 100-percent accurate: 3/4ths of the posters on that topic disagreed with the banning. No insults were exchanged, no outrageous angry marks were posted, just heated words (since the mods appeared to not be listening). Yet dark classified it as the "mob mentality" and/or "heated discussion" just because practically all of us who posted in that topic disagreed with his banning, and were basically demanding its revocation. Here's the thing: while I understand that it is ultimately up to the moderators on the forum, the forum moderators should listen to the users when they want the mods to do something like revoke a ban because an overwhelming majority considers the banning to be unjustified and said overwhelming majority isn't going to go through every single post of the bannee to figure out the 'cumulative behavior'. And that is exactly why I consider the banning reason to be entirely invalid and unjustifiable: the term 'cumulative behavior' could mean his behavior since he became a member here, his behavior within the last month, or his behavior within any other time frame. Hell, it could be entirely unrelated to his behavior within a certain time frame at all and could be related to his behavior on one topic, or his behavior in a few posts, etc. There is no true definition and it is up to the moderators to determine which interpretation fits the situation. The problem with that approach is that it gives the moderators dictatorial rights: they can choose who to ban, when to carry out the ban, and they can justify it with the reason of 'cumulative behavior' instead of actually giving a satisfactory answer like 'his repeated insulting and attacks on other members of this forum', which is a much more justifiable reason (and makes a lot more sense). Allow me to re-post the post that the mods banned him for:

Nothing in this post is a violation of the forum rules, yet the moderators banned him because he posted that. Yes, he swor, but that's perfectly fine (if it hasn't and the moderators have decided to limit our right of free speech, I haven't heard), and he used the term "blindy excuse bullshit", which is (a slightly less polite) way of saying "your disability to get your way". Let's now look at my post, post 46.

This post is a hell of a lot harsher than post 69 was. Yet I got absolutely no warning, no ban, nothing. That makes me think the mods are committing the act of favoritism, which really hurts the entire mods team. If the mods are going to ban Ironcross for a post that really didn't violate the forum rules at all, then they should go an ban well over 40 percent of the posters on there for "cumulative behavior". Wouldn't that then make all the bans fair? No? I didn't think so. My behavior on this forum has been far, far worse than Ironcross32's has ever been, and if the mods are going to ban him for the post above (yes, they did site the post above for his initial reason before backtracking and siting cumulative behavior as the other reason after the community practically demanded a fuller explanation), they might as well ban me too -- after all, its "cumulative behavior", right? And that means the mods can ban anyone so long as they can classify it as "cumulative behavior" which could mean anything under the sun? Right? Yeah, I didn't think you'd agree with that idea either. But it underscores my point that this ban was certainly unjustifiable; if Ironcross had it coming, you could technically argue that I not only have gotten into far worse fights than he has, but I've also exchanged far harsher words with others than he has, and yet only he gets banned. Yep, looks like favoritism to me. Then again, the ban really isn't effective; it takes only a deletion of the AG.NET cookie from your browse, a VPN (if they banned your IP) and boom, you can circumvent the ban and view the posts as a guest -- which is pretty much like viewing them like a member accept for the fact that you can't post. And yes, I said that, strictly because its practically an open secret and I'm guessing everyone who's ever banned has used it. Its not that hard to do.

@23, OK... lets address your points:
1. Not necessarily, no, the choice would not be laid at my feet. Its not that hard to figure out, and anyone who has contacts with those who have been banned before can just ask that person and learn how. So while suspicion can be laid at my feet, said suspicion won't do much. Doing that is a classic ban evading technique. Its nothing knew, I assure you.
2. No, I'm not. Their sole reason for banning him, before we practically forced them to alter their reasoning, was because of post 69. That was entirely the reason. Then they changed it to cumulative behavior. That, in turn, only cast even greater doubt on the reason and its validity; someone who does something for a flimsy reason that doesn't hold up to scrutiny and then alters their reason to something that is ambiguous at best and downright invalid at worst only makes the logic behind such reasoning even harder to grasp. That person can try and explain it, but it will only earn then questions since the first reason they gave made the community doubt them, so all that altering their reasoning is doing is making the community doubt their reasoning even greater. The only way to fix that is to come up with a reason that makes sense to a majority of the community at best (since that can't be attained for everyone), or a majority of those involved, something that did not happen in this situation.
3. Your right. We don't know everything that the mods know. But being someone who has been an administrator of a PunB forum before (not this one, but one I ran once), I can tell you that most of the information they can gather isn't really that much: IP addresses, geolocation (though that's external and not in PunBB), user-filed reports (which includes reports filed by moderators and administrators alike), controls over the site as a hole, the ability to install and remove plugins, the ability to set the forum in maintenance mode (which denies everyone but administrators), access to debug mode, and a few more, most of which are entirely unrelated to user information. Other than that, the mods can look through user post/topic history (which anyone can do) and can forcibly alter a users profile information. (I think the PM plugin lets them also read users PMs, though I don't know.) The only other way of gathering information is to contact users off-forum. So, knowing all of this, I can tell you that there really isn't much more information that the mods can get that a normal user can't. And while a mob mentality is most dfinitely not always the way to go about things and accomplish things, it sometimes is the only way for someone (or something such as a government) to realize that they've fucked up very, very badly (and sometimes that doesn't work, which most of the time leads to a revolution).
Also, it would not be difficult for a user to go back and read all of Ironcross32's forum posts and topics he's created. So no, cumulative behavior is not a valid reason, given all that I have listed above. I have also explained to you -- thrice, I think -- how I have been much harsher than Ironcross32 has ever been, yet I was never banned for a reason such as "cumulative behavior". I was not banned like Ironcross32 was, yet my post, post 4, was much harsher. Therefore, the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that the ban was unjustified. Perhaps it is you who is thinking illogically and not me. you are, after all, in a very tiny minority who thinks that his ban was justified. If you can explain to me how his cumulative behavior (of supposedly always saying "That is stupid you stupid idiot!" to someones face whenever he thinks their wrong, which is sometimes a necessary thing to do if someone absolutely refuses to listen to your point of the argument, and therefore cannot always be classified as an attack or offense) is worth a ban and mine isn't (of me doing both -- saying "I don't agree with you" and "That is stupid you stupid idiot!"), and actually make it not look like favoritism or the deliberate use of an ambiguous reason that is very, very hard to justify without a 304-word post (that basically says that it is possible to disagree with a situation but not with the person posting the viewpoint that caused that situation, which is impossible), I'd love to here it. So, go on.