Clearly this thread wasn't going anywhere except into a mud slinging contest.
Lets talk about middle ground and what you're all asking for here:
Where's the middle ground? Lets look at the facts here, not what t-o-m's memory may be recollecting
T-o-m had a 2 week forum ban in august for trolling, quickly followed by 2 chat bans.
Normally after a 2 week, we go to a month and then to a permanent forum ban.
However, because of t-o-m's contributions we did give him the middle ground, instead of the 1 month ban, he was formally warned twice within the last month and told in no uncertain terms that if he kept doing what he was doing, he'd see his forum privs revoked.
So, where was the middle ground? It was in those 2 formal warnings and the numerous PM exchanges. Don't try to paint tom as a martyr or like this was a surprise, he had his chances, he was given the middle ground. Hell, he was given better than middle ground. The kid had more warnings than almost anyone else on the site. He had his chances and he blew them.
Why not be lenient on him and give him a 6 month ban, he'd surely learn his lesson with one more warningHe'd learn his lesson? What makes everyone so sure of that? His first official warning was 4 and a half months ago. That means he averaged a formal disciplinary action every week and a half. Every week and a half. That's a pretty bad track record there. If you aren't learning your lesson when you're being warned by a mod or admin that you're breaking one rule or another every week and a half, and fully one fifth of that time (25 days - almost a month) was spent on one ban or another, then what chance is there that he's going to learn his lesson
this time when he didn't learn them any other?
And tell me - which part of
Push it if you want and see where it goes, but the next time it goes anywhere, it's going away forever with no buy back, no 27th chances and no begging.
doesn't sound serious to you?
If he didn't believe that was serious, that is his mistake.
Why didn't you try to help him?I did. On several occasions, both in posts and in PMs, I attempted to point out where he could improve his posting style, to which his latest, and generally emblematic, response was
Whatever you say chump
Why bother when someone isn't even interested in listening?
This conversation isn't going anywhere, if you can't see why tom was banned, then you can drop me a PM and we can talk about where you might need to personally change your posting style, but this thread has become nothing more than a spitting contest between two camps and isn't productive.
Twill
(p.s. t-o-m, sorry it came to this, I did warn you this was coming. I see you're now "stalking twill" - it will only get your account banned permanently, which would really be a shame)
