My first instinct was to be the usual smart ass I am, and I posted a southpark meme "Annnnnd you're disbarred" finding humor in what I always threw in OTDs face, though I had no actual proof he was ever disbarred it was just a cheap shot I'd take at him. Anyway, I deleted it because it doesn't represent my feelings on this and adds nothing constructive to the conversation. I feel like we can do better(
@Staff).
I know he could be a pain in the ass for staff and I have certainly not always seen eye to eye with OTD but I don't agree with this ban and I wanted to vote on it. Then I realized there is no "Is this ban fair" poll. I tried to edit the post and add a poll but it's not letting me vote for some reason. Idk if it's just glitched or if it doesn't let the person who creates the poll vote or what..
Anyhow.. Call this me creating waves or whatever you wanna call it. I think we've gotten away from something. I feel like bans need to be held back for undisputed cases like straight up homophobic, racist, sexist rants, or 100% cut and dry trolling/harassment. I don't feel like OTD qualifies as having done any of those.
To me it feels more like he was an annoyance, a thorn in the side of staff. I'm a staff member, I know how annoying it's been. Again, OTD has definitely annoyed the fuck outta me a good handful of times but he's also dropped some shit on me that was absolutely humbling and I feel like we need people around that are as passionate as he was at calling out people in positions of power.
As staff we often denounce our "position of power" and say it's not really power but it really is. We can straight up turn a motherfuckers mic off for 30 days. You'd done talking, you're silenced. We can completely remove people from the community. We can do just about anything we want (short of reading personal messages between users). We have power.
I think we can do a better job with the power we have. I don't think we can ban people just because they call us out and annoy us. I realize there's a rule that we don't have to just take someones shit.. and sure we've taken a lot of OTDs shit, but he's also contributed a lot and I think it's wrong to only focus on the negatives.
You can't blame someone for all the shitty things they've done to you and at the same time refuse to acknowledge all the good things they've done for you. He's a respected member of this community and I think this is an unfair ban. It's not letting me vote for some reason but that's my vote. No, it is not fair. I'd prefer to take more of his shit, because I know with that comes a lot of gems.
Full transparency; I haven't been around this site a whole lot over the last few months and I've definitely not been involved with the majority of the bans that have taken place. I didn't agree with the Juan Derlust ban and I don't agree with this one. Why are we selectively polling the bans that are obviously going to be voted fair and not polling the controversial ones? Why did I have to edit this post to include the poll?
Man.. we gotta do better. I don't know what else to say.