Quote from bundlemaker:
Baron, you truly are an idiot. Read above what you wrote. You state specifically that you ban those you receive complaints about. Think about that for a moment. It makes NO sense. You're assuming that if you receive complaints, the complainers must be right. YOu've turned YOUR board, which you supposedly control, into some kind of quasi-democracy, controlled by "complainers". YOu've relinquished your total control and given it over to anyone and everyone who is short on brain cells.
Now I understand why, LOL.
Perhaps
you should read what I wrote more carefully, because I said an "abnormal" number of complaints. I don't just ban somebody the second I get a single complaint about them. Even if I receive many complaints over a short period of time from various users, I still won't ban that user without looking into it myself. If it seems those complaints are justified, then the user gets banned. More specifically, if I see that the user has violated our member agreement by being disruptive or abusive, then the user gets banned. Keep in mind that I'm not banning users just for complaints or differences of opinion that have been submitted by other users. I ban people because their conduct (as verified by myself) violates the rules of membership here.
Now, do I give a high degree of attention to people that complain? Yes, and here's why. It's been my experience over the last 6 years that people do not just complain for no reason, especially when it's done through email or private messages, considering the time it takes to construct a thorough complaint. If somebody takes the time to send me several paragraphs about a user being annoying, I pay attention, but may not do anything about it right away. But more importantly, if I start getting many long-winded complaints over the course of several days/weeks from many people about the same user over and over, there's about a 99.9% chance that this user is being annoying, not only to the people that complained, but to a lot of other people, many of which may have just left the site forever instead of registering any formal complaint. Now, if I also start getting complaints about that same user from my moderators, then its time to do something about it, which was the case in this situation.
I have no desire whatsoever to just ban people wrecklessly. It's not in anyone's interest for me to do that. What I do have a desire to do is provide the best site possible for
the majority of our members, even if it that means banning or hurting the feelings of a few rule-breakers along the way.
Back when I banned Hitman (who also had very popular threads) last year, many people thought ET was finished, but the reality is that ET is way bigger than any single user. The site has only grown since that time, despite the fact that some people's feelings were hurt because they weren't allowed to say absolutely anything they wanted.
I realize that some people simply want a lawless environment where nobody gets banned and where there are no rules whatsoever, but it's just never gonna happen here, so get over it. 