This is a fun read.  Honest.

It all started on Tuesday morning (my time) when I read my morning mail…

One “Thomas J Dawe” sent me the following:

Ok, colour me confused… again.

My last public post on RPOL was October 9, a harmless off-site advertisement in a message section made just for that purpose.

Before that was my big upset with your moderational tactics, September 12th – nearly a month previous.  A whole month of near silence from me, except for one small off-site advertisement.

Now, I try to update my off-site post, more than a week after my last one I might add, and I find out I’m bad because I’ve been a bad boy?  Can you explain this to me?  You don’t really see me as a threat when I’m not posting in the General nor Community Chat boards, do you?  Is there some fear that my little Yahoo! Group might steal all your players away?  Not very likely.

No really… I’m dying to hear the reason behind this.

dollsteak

 
I simply replied:

Simply; it took me a month to get around to the ban.  Ban’s are hard coded, so it took effect when 1.4.43 was implemented.

j

 
I then received the reply:

You banned me from general boards because I was insulted enough to leave?

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

 
Once more I simply replied:

Whatever snide comment you want to make.

 

I knew I’d get another reply, somebody really had something to get off his chest…

Thomas J Dawe replied:

Your banning me was a classic example of your over-moderation principles at work.  It doesn’t suprise me… though it saddens me to see you act so petty about it all.  As you are so fond of telling everyone, it is your site to run as you see fit.  Of course, I did nothing ban-worthy except defend my honor.

You know, Ironsite had a good point about allowing people into your house only to have them shit on your couch.  However, people you allow into your house don’t appreciate you shitting on them as well.

Enjoy your life, and sorry you had to royally screw up any chance at a decent parting relationship with your need for an ego trip.

 

See!  Evidently we had to have this out, and by this stage I was happy to oblige.

I replied:

… or possibly I don’t see why I should pretend that what transpired on RPoL never happened and let a disrespectful, ungrateful, insulting user utilise my bandwidth and the web site I have worked so hard to develop, purely for his own needs.

I don’t trust you to keep a level head, thus I don’t trust you with posting privileges.

Your last antic on RPoL was your third strike, you’re out.  I have taken measures to make sure it was your absolute last antic.  Blame me all you want, but I gave you more chances than anyone else thought you deserved, I’m disappointed you proved them right.  Yet extremely relieved it’s now all over.

Tata.

 
Thomas J Dawe replied:

You’ve lied to yourself well.  You allowed Ron to insult my integrity and attempt his character assassination – then you allowed others to sling their insults at me.  Many of them are still there for everyone to see.

Then when I expected moderation to treat the situation evenly, you admitted that some people are treated differently because they are less liked.  You’ve admitted to an inner-circle, and uneven moderation. Instead of working to get those who insulted me to apologize for their unacceptable behavior – the same behavior you claim I exhibited – you gave me a lecture and told me in essense “You deserve to be treated like shit”.

Now, you ban me when I’m not even posting there as an method of silencing me?  Isn’t that sort of redundant? Hard to silence someone who’s not saying anything. All you’ve proven to do is discriminate against me personally for no good reason.

You think you’ve struck a blow against me, taught me a lesson … like it matters, jase.  I left your site. Ban me all you want. I can’t say I won’t miss it, but I’m not reliant upon you and your blessed web site or my happiness.  I’ve gone to a professional site where they treat their customers with respect and courtesy… and even-handed moderation.

Your responses are not welcomed unless they start with an apology for your behavior towards me.  Any other responses will be reported as unwanted spam from your beloved web site.

Ciao

 

Remember kids, once you’ve initiated contact and have had your say, it’s ok to block your ears and go “nah nah nah can’t hear you!” Dob `em in to your parents if they try to retort!

I replied:

You’re funny.

You’ve reaped what you’ve sown, don’t come crying poor to me now.  I allowed you and Ron to bitch at each other plenty of times on the site, initiated by both parties, you’re no saint.  I think I clearly stated I wasn’t interested in being some mediator between the two of you, that I’d had enough. Strangely, whether he felt he was justified or not, Ron always emailed me an apology, all I ever got from you was deluded abuse such as the e-mail you’ve sent me.  You should read your initial e-mail you sent yesterday, what a polite piece of poetry that was.

Sure people were bitching at you a whole lot in the CC thread, I could see that.  But while you were digging your heels into the ground, and refusing to budge or address their issues (yes, you did make compromises initially, but then you dug in) I saw no reason to come and bail you out.  I’m through trying to single out users, now I just post messages such as “Not even cute kittens can save this thread now” because I’m not your fucking mother, and I’m sick of spanking the bottoms of users.

Wow, I’ve certainly admitted to a lot of stuff.  I’ll admit something right now; I don’t like you.  At all.  Emails such as the ones I’ve received yesterday and today are the reasons why, I can’t find one fucking polite thing in the whole lot.  Your comment about a “parting friendship” was rich, yet ironic, and all the while; a completely hollow statement.  I’ve never read a sentence that someone meant less, what are you trying to do, dredge up sympathy with a blatant lie like that?  Regardless, hell would freeze over before I ever called someone who sent me all the emails you have a friend. “Sure, you can be a friend, just make sure you send me abusive emails once a month.  And don’t forget to be condescending!  That’s great shit!  Oh, and before I forget, always outline how everything I do is wrong, and mention that I only invite you over for dinner because I’ve got a nice house and like to lord it over you.” You’re funny.

How many people have flooded with you to the Yahoo groups this time, Mr Dawe?  Very few?  Could it perhaps be because this time you’re completely and utterly fucking wrong?  No!  What a silly man am I!

It’s not that I want to silence you, I don’t want anything to do with you.  If you think that I’m going to let you benefit from the hard work that you treat with such disdain… well… I suggest next time you take the blue pill.

Kind regards,

Your dedicated spam source,
The leader of the clique group that’s everyone but you.

 

Interesting, though blunt, insulting and clearly fed up, there I was still trying to explain stuff.  Idiot.

Thomas J Dawe replied:

I warned you.

 
I replied:

You’re funny.

Knock yourself out!

 

Mr Dawe then sent an e-mail to the GM & BGM of the company I work at.  The e-mail was sent to an information address as to get past my ‘defences’ (which wouldn’t be hard, I had none).

The e-mail accused me of sending abusive and insulting spam.  It detailed my name, my e-mail address, the bandwidth, visitors and hits from the site, accused me of running a ‘dedicated server’.  The e-mail went on to accuse me of suspicious activities, implied I was stealing from the company, stated I was in violation of my network’s acceptable use policy (which I wrote part of).  If that wasn’t enough it also claimed RPoL contained p*rn*gr*phy (I’m not getting that word indexed by search engines!).

The e-mail was clearly an attempt to get me fired and the site shut down, not just an “I’m getting Spam” complaint.

Fortunately, without any prompting from me, the Business Development Manager reported the e-mail to SpamCop, and after a brief chat with the General Manager, he requested I block the offending e-mail account from sending mail to the Perth iX network.

It was a good try, and though it could have had catastrophic effects for RPoL and myself, all in all it was a failure.

I don’t really think I need to detail my thoughts on Mr Dawe.  Besides, I think words would fail me.

Messages of appreciation can be sent to thomas_j_dawe@yahoo.com.

@_; – …