What I'm getting from this thread is this:
- A few years ago, account selling and other actions that we are quick to tag today were instead allowed and tolerated. That is true - I feel the forum as a whole hadn't become sick and tired of sc(/p)ammers at that point.
- Of the people that conducted those activities, the members that didn't end up scamming and leaving are today's Legendary members - some of whom are DT2.
- Now that those actions
are heavily discriminated against, those members that stayed and were given a chance to change still have those shady backgrounds that the OP and others are somewhat justly pointing at. The thing is - since a few years ago scammers weren't as quickly tagged as they are now, we're nipping all the scammers (95%)
and people who
would have learned and changed (5%) in their buds straightaway. That's also justifiable - who wants scammers to be present in hordes?
- At this point, I think we've gotten to the core of both sides. Some people are arguing at the irony that our current DT2 members are displaying when they're tagging people that were exactly them a few years ago, while others are looking at the present and positively changed DT2 and questioning the removal of trustworthy members (who were essentially given a second chance at the expense of scammers doing those same behaviors back then as well).
If anything, I'm also looking at the current system with its elitism and I'm seeing one far from perfection. But I agree with this statement from The Pharmacist:
It's a discussion forum with a trust system that's obviously (to me) broken, and a bunch of human beings of varying intelligence and honesty.
You can keep complaining about all of this, but eventually people will stop coming over to play once they realize the debate is failing to resolve anything.
I think a good number of the forum feels like there's room for improvement - there usually is, in all cases. This argument is simply solidifying that dissent, but nothing will be done until better systems can be thought up and discussed. That's what we're lacking right now.
So I appreciate the research and all the thought on both sides, but attacking individual DT2 members that bring disputable shit with them on points that can be argued until the end of time might appease the people who just love the drama and feeding their egos off of it, but in reality it's not going to accomplish much.
TL;DR: we're arguing over the past, but what the forum needs right now are discussions towards improvement.