I'm not the biggest fan of Goat. Personally I think he's an idiot. Running a PPT should have earned anyone involved a scammer tag.

However, this move to censor him, as many others have said, is worrying.

The justification for his being banned can't be argued with. Anyone who looks through his post history will concur with the fact that he contributed nothing of substance, and was occasionally even a disruptive influence.

It is disturbing to me that this problem came to a head as soon as he criticized Theymos and his private business activities. It feels like his general idiocy has been used as a convenient excuse to ban him. It's very easy to get rid of someone who has an indefensible character, but we should think about the true motives for this action.

The same story applies with Rarity. Rarity was a longstanding troll who was here purely to have some fun, sometimes at the expense of more genuine users. I doubt the person in control of that forum account has ever even owned a Bitcoin. I doubt anyone could come up with a compelling reason why Rarity should not have been banned. The problem is that Rarity was allowed to troll the forum for many months until he directly criticized Theymos. Suddenly trolling which had been previously tolerated became a huge problem, in the same way that Goat's longstanding idiocy and inept investment schemes had been tolerated until he criticized Theymos.

Goat's gibberish was completely invisible to anyone who hit the ignore button. This is how he should have been dealt with. This is how countless users did deal with him. Now he has been censored completely and we should ask ourselves not if we miss him, because we don't, but why he was censored. I for one don't agree with the party line on this subject.

Bitcoin is  a great way to avoid economic control from a higher authority. It's a shame that a more laizzez-faire attitude is not taken to forum moderation too.

This forum is important to the Bitcoin community. It does not belong to Theymos, he is merely the caretaker. He did not create it, he does not own it, it was entrusted to him for the good of the community. He should be held accountable for his actions, for the good of the community. If he continues to impose an iron rule on those who criticize his private business activities, he should be ousted. For the good of the community.

To just allow this to stand is to risk damaging Bitcoin.

And I am sure I will be banned for this post, and I am sure that my past posting history will be used as an ad hominem attack on what I am saying. Yes, I have had some fun on this forum. It has occasionally been at the expense of others. But I believe in Bitcoin. I want it to succeed for both personal and political reasons, and I know that if Theymos and his cabal are allowed to dominate the discourse in by far the largest Bitcoin community then it is bad for Bitcoin. It is also bad for freedom.