Okay, folks. It happened again. We've lost another one. We need to deal with it and move on.
But we should learn something from it - about limiting the forum drama to the forum, to give new members the benefit of the doubt that they're not a banned member, and to bring major concerns to the mods privately - not taking things into your own hands as it only makes it far worse.
The moderators here aren't doing a bad job. They do step in when necessary, but they seem to at least give us the chance to work it out on our own, like mature adults should. I personally would hate to lose that kind of freedom under a moderation crackdown. Hell, I got into it with Charlie in the Taylor Swift thread, but we never let it get out of hand. The banter, to me, was actually kind of fun. No need for moderator intervention, just restraint on both sides. That's all we need to avoid virtually all our drama.
One of our major goals is to grow, to bring in new blood with new personalities. If we look at every new member with a hint of suspicion, we won't achieve that. We'll have more incidents, more people leaving. We'll grow stagnant, and wither.
And eventually, this community will die out.
We have been through to much - seen more Kurtzpocolypses than many people here can remember, but we kept coming back, kept fighting to survive because this community meant something, was truly worth something. That fight for survival was worth every major relocation, every rebuilding effort. When we tracked down old members, it was to tell them that we did not go quietly after a forum nuke...and they would come back. We cannot delve into the private lives of members unless they invite us to, that they decide to share that with us.
The last thing that should happen, the thing that should never happen, especially after what we've done to preserve this community, is to bring it down by our own hands.
So give those new people the benefit of the doubt, give them a chance. If problems arise or old history comes calling, we should deal with it then, not raise the pitchforks and torches with no real reason to.
Well, that's about all I have to say on the matter.