** Bring Back Fonzy **

[Shannon]

We do not need to vote on upholding or enforcing the pre-existing rules. We do not need to make a case to the forum populace as to what is the reason why we choose to do what we do, which is nothing more than enforcing the pre-existing rules. We do not need to even comment on why a person was banned or warned or anything else. This forum is democratic to the degree that I try to include you all in the creation process as much as possible in order to create programming that better fits your needs and desires, but that does not give you the right, or the expectation, to vote on how to handle forum administration matters. If that were the case, it would have been stated in the pre-existing rules.

We own the forum, and the company, Andrew and I. We were doing the moderating for a long time, and then Andrew stepped back and left that primarily to me. We eventually decided that my time is better spent doing something else (working on my job developing and creating subliminals) and where it was possible, I decided to release moderation responsibilities to someone else. We put out the word that we were looking for someone for that job and a lot of people responded. We considered them all carefully, and in the end, Ben got the job.

Ben has to deal with some hard choices as moderator. He made the call to ban Fonzy. Nobody on this forum was more aware of what the circumstances were when he did so than him. When he came to me asking what I thought, I told him what I thought and referred him to get the advice of Andrew as well. Andrew and I, as I stated previously, chose Ben for this position because he does a good job and he does take the time to think and consider well before acting. We trust his decisions and judgement, and we stand behind him and his decisions unless it can be shown that he has acted egregiously in error or unfairly. Upon reviewing the situation, I conclude that he did not. Therefore, for so long as Ben decides it is so, his decision in this matter will stand.

You may have different points of view on the matter, on Fonzy, etc. but it is unlikely that you know or understand all of what Ben does concerning the situation. It is unreasonable to assume that you do and then pass judgement on Ben for doing his job, especially since from what I have seen, he was only responding to repeated infractions of the rules.

If you break the rules, we warn you, and we point it out and request that you correct the infraction(s) and refrain from breaking the rules again. If you ignore that, if you persist, if you become abusive and/or disrespectful, you will find that we enforce the rules here. Banning is the last resort, and that is why Fonzy is only our third ban for reasons other than spamming since this forum began. Whatever his reasons for acting in the manner he did, and whatever we may have thought of him otherwise, the rules are the rules and they exist to keep the whole forum community healthy and active. Follow them, or we will enforce them. It's very simple.

I wish he had not done what he did to end up banned, but he did and that is that. There's nothing else to say, and nothing else to see.