Whether Ironcross's ban was based on cumulative behavior or not, IMO, is entirely irrelevan't; post 69 did not violate any forum rules whatsoever. If your going to ban people based on 'cumulative behavior' because they got pissed off at someone who wouldn't listen, you might as well ban everyone -- everyone on this forum is guilty of that very same thing. No matter how many times you preach civility, you cannot keep civility if you try to help someone, or try to say things, or try to give advice, and no one listens to it. I've been far less civilized -- why haven't I gotten banned? Hell, my post in this topic was far less civil than Ironcross's was. He didn't even get a warning -- it was just an outright ban, for what appears to be no reason at all other than 'cumulative behavior', which is entirely ambiguous. Hell, the rules on this forum are quite ambiguous as is. They state, "Be nice to each other and respect the moderators." According to acceptable behavior in society, and the various rules of social etiquette, what Ironcross did is not only extremely understandable, but perfectly civil: he was trying to help someone, and he told them countless times various ways they could resolve the issues they had, and since the person who he was trying to help didn't listen, he got fed up and was blunt about it instead of being all super duper nice and cuddly. And whether someone admits it or not, anyone else would've reacted the same way. Therefore, I consider this ban entirely unjustified, and quite ambiguous. If your going to be Banning Ironcross for "cumulative behavior" you might as well ban a shit ton of members on this forum, because almost everyone has broken the rules on here, and many of them have been given way too much leeway, and others have been given not so much leeway, and you either need to make up your minds -- either enforce the same restrictions on everyone, no matter who they are, or don't enforce them at all. You cannot ban someone because of "cumulative behavior" and not ban someone else who you know has done the same thing, if not worse, such as myself, and continue looking good. That's not how rules work -- its one or the other: enforce all of them or enforce none of them. Under the "rules" you should be hitting that "ban" button a lot more than you guys are. I won't go naming names, but all you need do to prove my point about rules enforcement is to look about a page or two back, when flames were really hot. Every time there's been flame wars that have gone far beyond the bounds of what's considered civil behavior [anywhere] you've closed topics. Its gotten quite rare when you've actually banned someone for a reason that anyone would find perfectly reasonable and legitimate. And, despite the fact that this post was entirely 100-percent civilized in every way, I suspect that the mods will ban me anyway, which will only prove my point. So mods, please, please go look back at the rules you supposedly enforce and take a look at the reasons you've banned people in the past. I'm not insulting you; I'm trying to help this forum be better, and this constant changing between "oh, lets enforce the rules on x but not enforce the rules on y" or "oh, this guy went far beyond the bounds of civil behavior but we'll just close the topic and not actually do anything about it that enforces our rules other than throw around warnings" needs to end. If you continuously throw around warnings, people will start simply ignoring your warnings and continue acting that way because your warnings no longer have any power or value. Doing that is one way to reduce the amount of influence you have, especially in a large community such as the AG.NET forum, and reduces the value of warnings, and soon enough, people will simply ignore you because your warnings will be entirely meaningless. They aren't right now, but keep this up and they will very soon become meaningless.
"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." — Charles Babbage.
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