Quote from: Out of PATIENCE on Today at 06:18:32 PM

franky1 can be annoying and sometimes misguided but I'm rooting for his freedom and against censorship. a ban request? wow, so many others should be facing a ban first.

The concepts of freedom and censorship need some context, so when you reference those ideas without explanation, it is not easy to know what you are talking about.

I will concede that maybe some members have gone overboard in their making a request that Franky should be banned - nonetheless, the idea of getting banned and/or punished in various ways happens to be within the basket of tools available to admins/mods in order to figure out if a member had gone overboard in his/her conduct, and so discussion of the potential of his getting banned or requesting that he gets banned seems to be a fair talking point, as long as the prompting of the discussion has some kind of legitimate basis that goes beyond personal feelings or ad hominem attacks.

Of course, if any of us have seen Franky's posts and the ways that he interacts with other members and with various topics, we likely would come to differing conclusions regarding whether we believe that banning is warranted, some other kind of punishment or to conclude that Franky had not crossed over any lines that justify the punishments that some members believe that he deserves.

I have seen quite a few of Franky's posts, I have interacted with him in various threads, and sometimes I have found the contents of his posts to be frustrating for me to figure out, yet I hardly claim to be any kind of Franky expert, and surely if I was told that I had to be the deciding vote in regards to some spectrum of punishments that were being considered for Franky, then surely, I would feel that I would have to mull through the details of various alleged offensive conduct more closely, so sometimes it is much easier to take one side or the other when you are not really having to make the decision, and perhaps part of the reason that Franky continues to be allowed to post is that there is quite a bit of freedom that already exists in this forum in order to allow some of the sometimes extreme posts.. and surely, sometimes it might be easier.. or more palatable to merely delete some of his posts rather than to completely ban or suspend him, even when it does seem that he is breaking already well-communicated forum rules when he posts in sections in which he had already clearly been told that he was banned from posting within those sections.

Another possibility could be that a ban from certain parts of the forum might seem as if it is a permanent ban, but if there is a period of compliance and seeming rehabilitation (send Franky to re-education school while he is kicking and screaming the whole time.. hahahahahaha), then perhaps a "permanent" ban might end up being reduced to something in which he would be allowed to return on a "trial basis.".. ... and yeah, I would not necessarily hold my breath, but I would also never say never when we have people who exercise discretion in various ways and sometimes they change their minds in regards to certain topics... including decisions that they made at earlier times based on earlier facts and circumstances that might no longer be relevant.. or at least less relevant.