This was posted to a new thread because it was so long. Feel free to merge it if you really feel it necessary. Sorry for any inconvenience
Whatever. By now, I'm willing to accept that it was a minor misunderstanding of the rules, in that we understood the rules one way, and twill understood them in another way. I sent twill a respectful PM making my defense, and I got a respectful, explanatory post back -- which for me, was an eye-opener. Frankly, if we're upset with twill's customer service, we should look at what he's dealing with. If a customer came into your cofffee shop and started yelling at me at the top of their lungs, talking incredibly quickly, arguing with other customers, I sure as hell wouldn't give them a reasoned, clam response. I'd tell them to f*ck off.
I'm going to post the brief PM exchange between twill and myself:
Ditocoaf wrote:I was very upset earlier, but I really do think you have made a mistake in this instance. The only time "multiple accounts" is defined is in Rule #1: "...certain accounts belong to the same person..." and that certainly did not happen. While perhaps you may want to make a rule against what they did, there was no such rule at the time of the action. In fact, there is precedence: When browng-08 went on a vacation, he posted his password in Spamalot to let them joint-account-sit. Many of them posted with his account. This was reported several times, but no punishment was deemed necessary, as they had his permission. All other precedence regarding using anther's account has been about the game itself.
I realize you have every right to run the forum how you feel is best. I just really wish I could somehow convince you that this decision is not for the best. Skittles, etc. are certainly guilty of trolling; and they should all be treated as such.
Twill wrote:
Hey Dit, Thanks for the reasoned PM.
We've enforced this rule many a time before. The principle behind the rule is to keep people from abusing the use of more than 1 account, be that in the forums or in the games. "belonging to the same person" does not necessarily mean exclusively. When Skittles is logged into someone else's account, that account belongs to them to do with as they wish, and that is something that we wish to stop. In games it leads to scoreboard abuse, in forums it least to posting abuse.
This is a perfect case of where people used multiple accounts for posting abuse - they accessed and posted in private usergroups without the group leader or the group's permission, thus violating the trust and integrity of that group.
As with all players who abuse multiple accounts, we busted them, should the choose to return they will have formal disciplinary warnings waiting for them for the trolling aspect of what they did.
Just because they are popular does not make them immune to the rules. Just because they have built friendships and a community here does not mean that they can overrule the rest of the community. There are 20,000 people on this site, 4 people do not get to be exempt from the rules which govern all.
Feel free to post this to the forums if you so choose.
Twill
Also, here is my summary of what happened that I was sending via email, if anybody wants to read it:
Ditocoaf wrote:
Basically, it all started way back when the Fireside Tavern (a usergroup) was made. It claimed to be a place for civil/rational/logical discussion, away from all the trolling and insults of off-topics. But that is only what it evolved into, under the guidance of CrazyAnglican: the OP (by protectedbygold) was all about getting away from liberals and "militant" atheists (by militant, he seemed to mean anyone who had an opinion on religion who wasn't religious. He's an agnostic himself, but just the kind who doesn't care).
Anyway as some of you know, many individuals in the Godless Heathens were pissed off at the idea. Some trolled the recruitment thread quite a bit, and so in the end very few liberals or atheists were allowed into the clan. Inside the clan, over the months, it was a large debate as to whether to relax admission standards. We claimed that, while Snorri and DM may troll in off-topics, if they were in a structured enviroment with a mutual trust to debate rationally, they would be able to. This was not accepted, because the purpose of the clan, it seems, was not to escape irrationality itself, but rather to escape specific people with a history of irrationality. When it came up that BES (the third leader) frequently trolled and flamed in off-topics, this was considered acceptable because he was already in... at the time the clan was formed, he had no history of uncivil behavior.
Meanwhile, DM was using skittle's account to post in FT, and snorri was posting using Simon Viviant's account to do the same. They both had a desire to participate in the (admittedly compelling) discussions that took place there. A thread called "the plan" was created in the godless heathen's forum, discussing if we should reveal this fact to the tavernites, hopefully changing their minds about whether DM and snorri were capable of posting constructively.
Around this time, TheLucas and Player had a spat (TheLucas got pissed at what he thought Player's opinion was, and demanded she be banned for her alleged anticapitalist views) and they were both removed by PBG. This caused a (polite) uproar, and people began questioning whether the standards should be changed. I took this as my cue to start The Real University, which I hoped could function alongside the FT as a less exclusive (and therefore less safe from trolling) alternative. But the actions of PBG continued to piss me off to the point I figured I should leave. I hoped that the DM and Snorri thing would get the clan to open up, at which point I would reapply.
But, of course, the opposite happened. PBG got pissed and banned every member of the Godless Heathens; CrazyAnglican quit his job as a leader because it was too much to deal with, and the only remaining liberal, got tonkaed, left. Apparently, PBG sent in an e-ticket to twill. I'm not certain it was him, but he makes the most sense.
I'd be glad to chip in paying for the remaining premium for SV and Skittles.
) feels out of touch with the 'youth' of today.
