In all seriousness, I've seen this type of thing before. It usually involves guys who were always picked last in softball. Perennial outsiders. One too many swirlies.
The problem is that these guys grow up with the same little boy chip on their shoulders. They see a guy on a motorcycle having too much fun, and the next thing you know Little Lord Fauntleroy is passing around petitions for a helmet law.
Same deal here. The guys "breaking the rules" were the same fun bunch telling insider jokes and trying to have a good time. I know, I was one of them over there.
One moderator actually tried to scare me with their own brand of "double secet probation." It's called 'moderation.' In reality, it means the guy reads your mail to see if you're talking about him. Granted, I was...
I'd get these long-winded 2:00AM PMs about his authority. Kind of reminded me of the president of the chess club giving me the stink-eye for getting to second base with his girl friend.
So now he puts his widdle foot down and threatens folks with limited editing times to "show us who's boss." Yikes. I feel like holding him down, printing an "L" on his forehead with a magic marker, making him take off his pants and then tossing him into the girls' locker room.
And that's my point. If he can finally get even with us cool kids for high school, he can reclaim his nuts from lost-and-found. Yes, these guys grow up, and some become the Little Corporals of the marching band bake sale.
I don't get all of it, I must admit. I was out getting laid.
Wow, this is pretty much exactly what I thought I was dealing with. A Napolean complex. Little man's syndrome. Dork in power disease.
Working in IT I see this stuff all the time. Guys that were complete dorks all their lives but now know all kinds of technical stuff that the common person doesn't and feels totally superior to the riffraff who can't translate a binary clock to the time of the day. Same people that have not been on a date with a live person from the same area code in 5 years. If the date involves webcams, is it really a date?
The guy said to me something about how I was lucky the other mod gave me a warning PM because if she (he? Dunno) hadn't I would've "been in a whole different reality right now." Who the hell says that kind of crap? What reality would that be? The one where I go home to my wife and child? Work as a Systems Architect for a $7 billion company? Enjoy my toys grown up toys (50 inch LCD with surround sound and Blu Ray, etc), go hit a happy hour a couple times a month with friends? Grill every weekend and blog about?
Within 12 hours of getting that PM I banned myself in a blaze of glory and considering the lack of much new content since I left, or at least the interest in what I did post remaining high, I would say their reality has gotten significantly worse. Even more so now that we have had a mass exodus over here and the petty bickering between posters (and mods) is no where to be found.
Hey, you DC trolls, just a bit of advice. Why not look at what is going on here and try to learn from it rather than using it as evidence to alienate your user base even more? But if following the rules of How-To-Be-A-Tool 101 is working for you, newsflash - It's not, then keep fighting the good fight.
Oh, and will the last one off DC please turn off the lights?
Just goes to show you that a good domain name is not the key to success. You still have to have a good product. Nobody went to google because it had a good name. They had a good product...
