Before I start:
This is not something we are going to make a habit of, but in this case another open letter in the style of the one posted about 'Graelig' seems warranted, as xoxos has been banned after multiple warnings and prior suspensions but has made a habit of publicly posting on social media and elsewhere with complaints stating that his punishments were for reasons other than the actual reasons given by our moderators. This letter will therefore clearly address the actual reasons for the warnings/suspensions and eventual ban to avoid any confusion.
As with the letter to Graelig this discussion is to be kept strictly on-topic, and off-topic responses may be removed without further notice.
Remember if you decide to look into the posting history for yourself that some content has been hidden from public view and that behaviour via private message and on our Facebook page has also been taken into account.
An open letter to 'xoxos':
Unfortunately this open letter is to explain the reasons you have been permanently banned from this site; you've been quite vocal about the fact that you consider our community and particularly some of our moderation decisions to be unfair, and so we're trying something different by laying it all out publicly for everyone to see.
Since May this year you have had four formal warnings recorded by three different moderators, and have been spoken to informally within topics numerous times both before and after that both by other moderators and by other concerned members of our community. The officially recorded warnings cite abusive behaviour, topic bumping, excessive off-topic posting, and ignoring moderator instruction.
It's not just our moderators persecuting you as you have suggested, you have been repeatedly reported by numerous other members for your behaviour, and a lot of the moderation you have experienced has been in response to reports.
You have some unusual programming habits such as using older hardware and software and a preference for one- and two-letter variable names, and after both your suspension and ban took to our Facebook page suggesting that these were the reasons for your punishment. This is not and has never been the case.
Your first formal warning and suspension was for insulting other members and continuously 'bumping' your own topics (that is, replying to yourself to promote your post in the forum listing) several times in a row after only a few hours, which you had been warned about informally several times previously and had been mentioned by several other members who were annoyed by the behaviour. You responded to the moderator who issued this warning with a private message telling him to "suck a dick bro" (for which you did not receive any additional punishment -- it's not unusual for suspended members to vent at the moderator). In your very next topic right after your suspension was lifted you acknowledged this (showing that you understood the instruction) but still continued to bump the topic four times within an hour.
You were given an additional warning and suspension for this and told that it would be a final chance, and then took to our Facebook page *under the name "Nora Leader" for anyone who wants to snoop) to complain that you were banned because of your unusual views, and when challenged on this ended up declaring that it was all a conspiracy against you and that our moderators "are clearly masons".
Since your return from that suspension your behaviour has generally been better (with an exception I'll get to in a moment) and to my knowledge you have avoided insulting other members or bumping your topics. Unfortunately you have included an off-topic comment in basically every post since then, essentially "looking for a fight" -- here's a brief selection of them taken from the warning you were issued:
and then baby jesus has to cry a lot and probably get banned from the forum.
i imagine phantom will want to remove this post and ban me
now go ahead and nuke me
really excited about this opportunity to not fit in and be difficult and awkward
These comments were off-topic, inflammatory, and risked derailing discussions -- which actually started to happen in at least one of the topics -- so I very clearly explained this and asked you to stop, noting that this was a final warning. The one specifically calling out phantom is particular ironic given that he hadn't been a moderator any more for around a week at the time of posting and had been defending you as having reformed your behaviour shortly before stepping down -- hardly the behaviour of "a mason" who is persecuting you.
Shortly after the time-stamp shows that you read the private message sent with the above warning, you made this post violating the instruction as well as an off-topic complaint about it in the "disallowed topics" discussion and continued to drag this discussion off-topic. Several members made reports about these posts, and you were then banned (by a different moderator) with the following explanation:
You were previous warned, just yesterday, about including irrelevant digs at other users and moderators in your posts and you have continued to do so. You were warned continuing to do so would result in a ban, and consequently, you are now banned.
You then took to our Facebook page again to make three off-topic responses to a post there claiming that you had been banned "because a mod doesn't like my defense of using short variable names" -- which I think we were pretty clear was not the reason for your ban.
Thanks to your apparent habit of trying to play martyr posting fictitious reasons for your bans another open letter seems warranted.
From our perspective you have been given plenty of chances, and we have been very clear about what has been expected of you and why you were punished. All that has been expected of you was to obey some very simple rules and instructions that are common to most online communities, as well as some common etiquette. You were given many chances and have not only continued to intentionally disobey our rules, but have made a habit of trying to make us look bad by claiming you were punished for others reasons. Enough is enough, and unfortunately you have to go.
