I feel like this needs to be said:
We (obviously) have an extremely diverse membership here. We strive to make the forums an inviting place for people to post opinions and questions, and to seek and give advice when needed. I think as a whole the Ambassadors and Moderators do a great job. I've been here long enough to have seen the ups and downs, so I know both sides of the coin.
With such a diverse group, it's going to be impossible to please everyone, no matter how hard we try. Sometimes, we get a very vocal group of members that cries foul. That might sound like a bad term, "cries foul", but hear me out. As a group, the Mods think we do a great job (wouldn't any group think that?). Every so often a discussion like the one going on in this thread comes along, and we hear from members that aren't happy with how we're doing things here. A few things are extremely similar:
1) Some of the loudest voices have run afoul of the forum rules.
2) The vast majority of members don't care about these discussions, because honestly, they don't affect them. Ok, maybe they do, in that they get caught up in the "mayhem", but they don't receive any direct negative attention from the Mods. I.E. they aren't breaking any rules.
3) The Mods will have a lengthy discussion about what's being talked about. We wouldn't be a very good group of people if we couldn't take constructive criticism, learn from our mistakes, make changes when necessary, and grow, right?
That last point is one that I want to touch on a bit more. Criticism is good. So are alternate viewpoints. It helps bring about new ideas and ways of thinking. Criticism, when said wrong, comes across in an entirely different way. It comes across negatively, and sometimes as an attack. How do people react to being attacked? Guess what folks, we're the same way. We will take any constructive criticism and adjust policies and procedures accordingly when warranted.
That's the point I try to make every time a discussion like this comes along. We LIKE the criticism, but there are ways to go about it. PM me. I'll be more than happy to discuss having a thread like this, instead of it happening the way it did (which was the entirely WRONG way to get to this result).
Thanks