I think Oldminer highlights a good point, albeit somewhat erratically. The CEO made a post on HT with the sole purpose of letting everyone know that he will announce something in a few hours or later today or whatever the phrasing was. And then didn't announce anything and didn't offer any explanation. While technically inconsequential, this has been a recurring pattern, and has caused quite a bit of chaos in the past due to the very emotional nature of this whole HT "announcement culture". So it's really puzzling why they would deliberately do it again. I mean the pre-announcement and the silence. I can fully understand the the actual announcement could have been delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, but there was absolutely no reason to do that pre-announcement post OR pretend like it never happened, as it now looks like a bad joke.

As for banning, unfortunately Oldminer's ban was a foregone conclusion. Downvoting the CEO is definitely out of bounds as far as HT "respect" is concerned. Whether Oldminer agrees with that or not, their forum, their rules.