Originally Posted by DeathTöngue

I'm answering this, btw, because I'm not involved - I've never banned UB/TC/et alia, not that I wouldn't. I do admit to sending one of the mods a twelve-pack of micro-brews for getting rid of one particularly painful example of TC's text formatting a couple years ago.

Well, a bunch of points. First, I'm not going to tell anybody another member's IP, nor will I confirm identities. I'm not going to discuss the contents of PM's I get from members publicly, nor am I going to share what discussions the moderators have with regard to any member. We don't ban anyone without telling them why, although, if like one person, you've used your daddy's email address to register, you may find him asking about it - that's happened.

This is to respect your privacy, not because we are hiding anything.

Second, protecting your account is your responsibility. If you share a machine, and someone starts trolling under your name, we're still going to ban the account. "A troll by any other name, etc."

Same goes if it's different accounts, but the same machine. We'll block the machine. At one point, I'm pretty sure that about a third of Texas couldn't reach this site because of two users with clue-impairment.

For this reason, I don't actually care whether UB and TC are the same person or not - I'm not going to let them back on the board until I have reason to believe he/she/they/it are done with their bullshit, and history says no.

Third, there's a process, if you don't like what the mods are doing. I don't mind answering questions, but if you don't like my answers, complain to the Piper - he is the one and only person who can overturn a mod decision, and he has done so in the past. Moderators have been replaced, and it can be done again.

And fourth... It would be nice, however unlikely, to be able to do this job without the immediate assumption that we've gone power-mad every time we have to take some unpleasant action. Moderating is not fun, it is dry damn tedious work, and there is no pleasure in banning people or having to settle disputes. Or any of the other dozen things we do.