Idra Banned for 90 Days - Page 56

I don't want to get into a blame game, so I'm not going to put blame on anyone for this issue.

But I really do want to say this. TL needs to really set a strict sense of what "moderation" and "banning" really is. The size of TL has grown to unprecedented lengths, and to be honest, something like this was bound to come up.

I personally think that currently mods are exercising their powers far too often. Of course, serious trolls, advertisers, spammers, and extremely inappropriate behavior (i.e. racism) absolutely need to be stopped and removed.

However, the more I think about this case, the more I think that things related to SC should be left alone. What I mean is that IdrA was clearly flaming Cruncher, but BM has always been a part of the game. It should be Cruncher's responsibility to deal with it like a guy should, especially as a professional SC2 player. IMO TL isn't a playground where everyone needs to hold a parent's hand everywhere they go, but it should be watched over by overseers who make sure nothing gets too out of hand. Moderation like this only incurs more anger and wrath, as people develop personal hatred and animosity towards the power that be.

As for the 90 day ban; I have mixed feelings about this. Firstly, IdrA's tweet was virtually nowhere as bad as I first expected it to be, compared to the punishment. But of course, the targeting of a mod is bad. At the same time, this was outside of TL, and lends to question what power does TL have. If someone did something mean in a LAN party, is that REALLY justification to ban him on a public forum? What if someone had said bad things about a TL mod at a party? All these questions about external issues could be endless. However, one thing is for certain; if TL mods try to continually moderate the outside world, things will get extremely tricky and dangerous for all.

The one thing I really wanted to say is this. This is obviously TL's house, so watch what you say. However, the community that it has fostered has far outgrown the reaches of the walls which once enclosed the original house. We the members of the community are your guests; however, we are not your underlings, we are not owned by TL. And in fact, the community has grown to more than just being "guests"; in essence, through our very contributions to the forums, we are now a part of TL. And though I have absolutely no love whatsoever for IdrA, this time I was disappointed by how the mods dealt with this problem. I'm not saying IdrA should get more leniency because he has helped the foreign SC community grow a lot, though indeed he has. And I'm not saying IdrA should be let off because he helped TL grow a lot, though he has. However, as a member of TL, I think we'd all like to see members be treated nicer by the mods, and given more freedom of speech. Sure, there will always be the really bad people and trolls who spam the site for no reason, but for a professional SC player like IdrA, we all know about him, we know who he is, and nothing he says will really change that. We give him crap all the time, but honestly, we don't kick him out the door because we don't really do that to people we know aren't complete trolls or idiots.

In essence, just saying the mods need to scale back their punishments on things related to SC. Again, for unrelated things like racism trolling spamming etc., by all means. But IdrA is an SC2 pro who loves to take low shots at his opponents, but essentially that's just all bark and he knows it, and only means it like that. He sure is an idiot for constantly doing it, but at the end of the day his job is SC2 and his shots at his opponents are part of the game, and his opponents (also SC2 pros) should be able to handle themselves like professionals, even if their opponent isn't.