Sounds like the definition of tyranny right there.
Agreed -- but it's supposed to be a benevolent dictatorship! If GH were run like a democracy, we wouldn't last very long. And I think GH largely
is a benevolent dictatorship, but it wouldn't hurt to build something into the forum that makes mod decisions and rulings visible. Because when they're not visible, then that void gets filled up with paranoia: mysterious thread lockings, vanishing forum members, etc.
How hard would it be to make moderator actions automatically log to a forum someplace? Then when someone gets banned, we know the who, when and why. (checks log) Demik's been banned again? Why? Oh, he told X to put what where? -- ok, wow, now I see why. And we can get on with our lives. I'd even go so far as a system that issues warnings/demerits -- and also logs it for all to see. Then mods have something between (do nothing) and (launch nukes - ban and/or lock thread). Poke the tiger, it snarls, poke it again, it snarls again, poke it again and THEN you get mauled. We have great members, some of them just need to be properly domesticated.
Not broken, just domesticated, taught to use their inside voices, etc.
SMF 2.0 may already have
a warning/infraction system in place already, we may just have to enable it. It even has a feature that allows the warning level to automatically decrement over time. How about using that system?
I never had a problem with MW's off-topic posts. If it was on a topic I didn't care to comment on, I passed it by. If the topic were about the intracies of MX-compatible switch terminology, and he would come flying in with an advertisement for Win98, it just made me laugh; I didn't really find it bothersome -- akin to someone streaking through a sporting event. It made me imagine some guy for whom the year 2000 just never arrived. Is it disruptive? Sure, but in a good way.
