It took me some days to really reflect on this recent event in our forum just to make sure that I was being impartial as possible in my thoughts (I think I've succeeded, but you'll be the judges). Before starting let me say that I never had any kind of problems with Nutildah nor any kind of more "heated" debate with him (the same applies to hilariousandco). Regarding the ban itself: While some members have said before that the temporary ban (as I suspect that it was) was "too much" or that this event "escalated" too much, I'm on the opinion that it was something that hilariousandco had to do for one big reason :
to avoid setting up a precedent. Let me give you an example of what I mean:
You go to a museum. You see this beautifully crafted Fabergé egg sitting in a pedestal without being enclosed in a security container - this was meant for people to see the intricate details of it more closer but there is just one simply rule -
Do not remove the egg from it's pedestal (to, for example, take a picture with it). Now imagine that there's a crowd around the egg and one person - a somewhat usual of the museum, already known to many staff members of it - decides to start reaching with his/her arm to the egg. The museum staff quickly warns them - "Sir/Madam, please don't do that, it's not allowed". The person pretends to not listen and carries on and manages to grab the egg and starts lifting it to really see the details up close. The museum staff quickly intervenes, removes the egg from the person and says -
"Sir/Madam, please we can't have you do this even though we know you and we are fully aware that you meant no harm. But please, if we let you do this, you're breaking the rules. Besides, if we let 1 person do it, why can't the other people in the room do it? Why can't future people do it?". The staff member places the egg on the pedestal again. A few hours after, there it is the same person, in a different group, trying to grab the egg. When he does it again, the staff members aren't given too much choice -
"Sir/Madam please, we already warned you and explained you the current situation. We kindly ask you to exit the museum and think about what you did. Come back a few days later and we can even talk about it."Perhaps this is not the best example, but I think that what I intended to show (from my point of view) is clear - What image would trespass to current (and future!) members of the forum this continuous
public - this is the key aspect of it - disrespect off Nutildah regarding hilariousandco warnings? hilariousandco has a somewhat important rule in the forum - to make sure that rules are being followed - and even gave him a slide and let him know that what he did was wrong and if he did continued to do the same thing things escalate. I don't think that many members have this kind of opportunity or, let's say, a pre-warning ( I might be wrong on here ).
Don't take my words wrongfully or too aggressive I'm not saying them with that meaning - Nutildah stands by his believes and that is great because it defines him. What he can't do is just repeatedly contradict a moderators deicsion the way he did because if hilariousness allowed it that would create an opening for further exceptions to be made in similar nefarious - the so called "setting up the precedent" that I mentioned earlier - and this thread would be shown as evidence that the same behavior already had happened and it was allowed. From my point of view I think hilariousandco and Nutildah should had taken the issue privately - as in messages - until something came out of it. They would find a common ground and, hopefully, an agreement. And hilariousandco could also be wrong and seeing this from the wrong perspective but even so, this should have been taken into private manners, just because doing things like this wouldn't end well for any side (like we're seeing atm).
This is totally fucked up shit, banning DT forum member who contributed a lot during all this years, he could be pissed even more with this, and we could potentially lose him forever because of this decision made by one moderator.
-snip-
I think that the argument
"(insert user here) is a DT forum member (...)" is also something that should be carefully used when talking about bans applied to those users. Users feel that being a DT forum member (or a high merited user even though it's not the same) has some kind of immunity shield to bans or to any other kind of the forums repercussion when specific situations happen (I'm not saying this was Nutildah case, I'm speaking more broadly). My hopes is that Nutildah will use this time to reflect on what happened and, again, from my point of view, see that perhaps his behavior wasn't the best (or at least the most correct one) an that what hilariousandco did was the only thing that someone on his position would have to make considering the situation.
Regarding his DT status, I don't think that is going to be affected by this event or that some users will start to see him with other kind of "eyes". We all have our bad days right?
