Originally Posted by RVCA
I meant "history means nothing" in the sense that someone who has been a member for 5 years should receive no more leniency than someone who has been a member for 5 days. To think that one would gain exception or preference simply because they have longevity on their side is the symbol of a fundamentally flawed system of law. Of course I didn't mean that someone could repeatedly break a rule while the mods disregard their past offenses, so perhaps I misunderstood the question.
Can't say I agree, again. Sometimes an action is given new context by a persons prior history. An example would be in an IRC chat I frequent (Not the MB chat). I've always been one to speak my mind in this channel, but as time has gone on I've been able to do that more fully in the channel without being given grief for it, because the channel have become more in tune with my personality and I with theirs. Its now roughly at the point that I can let fly and scream blue murder in manners that would get a newbie banned in moments, because despite the actions being the same, the community understands the approach to the extent its given an amount of leeway. While this might say to you that undue preference is being given, I have seen no evidence that anyone is unhappy with this arrangement, and in some situations channel moderators and members alike have fully endorsed my stretching or outright breaking of the rules on the understanding that it doesn't occur on a frequent enough basis to be a significant problem, and also that when it does occur, I usually have the sense to break rules in a way that benefits the community, via either comedy, or providing a rallying cry behind which a channel can voice its opinion of trolls. Without me having the ability to break those rules, these trolls would never encounter significant resistance as insultin them or otherwise making them look foolish would be disallowed.
Sorry, but even if David Bowie got drunk and murdered another person, I'd still want the same punishment for him as I would for some lowlife scumbag who has never contributed anything positive to society.
Absolutely, but would you want a shoplifter stealing bread to feed his family, to face the same punishments as a man stealing bread to sell on at a profit, or simply for gluttonys sake? The crime is the exact same, the punishment, evidently less just on one party than the other, if the same punishment were meted to both offenders.
That's perfectly fine, and I agree that mods should listen to to and consider the majority community opinion, but I absolutely disagree with the notion that the "majority opinion" determines what's right. If there's anything I've learned from American politics, it's that the judiciary system is designed not to uphold majority views, but to protect the minority (when they are in the right) from those majority views.
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