This is what I'm saying.

The Unfan is undeniably a troll, but I've come to respect him more each time I talk to him, he certainly isn't stupid, he's just very provocative.

Ha, you are such a hypocrite. You bagged on him consistently for well over 6 months and now we're supposed to take you at word for your sympathies.

You want CC to have the same punishment - WHY? - so 3 months down the road you can buddy up with him and come be a pain in the ass about him too.

You're assuming stupid here means a lack of intellect. We're all calling him stupid because he makes ****ty decisions and it’s evident from every post he's some bored suburban teenager who needs to get a ****ing hobby.

Well thats because you haven't heard it yet. Give it a try, you might like it.

So you think the reviews people write here are bad, and you feel like its alright because this thread asked how you felt about the reviews here...?

boo boo...don't you realise?
You're turning into The Unfan!!!

Right-Track (David),

Thank you for taking back what you said about The Unfan being an idiot and a moron, although I disagree with your reasoning for doing so. I brought up my concerns about The Unfan’s permabanning not because of the one time he tried to make a personal attack, but because of the helpful feedback The Unfan gave me, such as these very un-trollish comments in my songwriter thread: “Your use of the metaphor is pretty overbearing. The intended meaning somehow gets lost for me,” and, “If people love animals that is fine. I have no issue with those sentiments. I have 3 cats which I love, although I don't view them as my children. I do know that they have emotional needs, like humans, but at the same time I value my life over theirs. So yes, I agree someone can love other animals for the most part I value human lives more.”

My second reason for concern about The Unfan’s permabanning is that I care about fairness and hypocrisy. During my 5 months at MusicBanter, I have seen only 7 comments aimed at me that I felt were trolling, by which I mean the writer is intending to belittle me as a *person* or “act out” in a clever and somewhat funny, but intentionally nasty, hurtful way. Six of these trollish comments occurred during my first month here, and only one was from The Unfan, who was temporarily banned shortly after. What struck me was that four of the remaining “trollish” comments during my first month were made by people who were, or became, moderators.

This showed me early on that a quality MusicBanter has (since we are discussing this in a MusicBanter Quality thread) is that some hazing and trolling are allowed and accepted by moderators, despite the rules. I felt it would be unfair if The Unfan and the moderators were not being held to the same standard.

Which brings *me* neatly to my next point. I feel only 2 of the “trollish” comments aimed at me (so far) on MB were intended as personal attacks (which are distinct from criticisms of my song lyrics, since it is perfectly acceptable to say that one does not like someone else’s art). One personal attack came from The Unfan. The second personal attack came from...you:

Right-Track, I wish you would not imply that I am an idiot and a moron. I wish you would apologize to me for your implication. If a moderator can imply that a member is an idiot and a moron without any of the other moderators in this thread asking him to stop, then this shows that MusicBanter accepts angry people belittling others. Your actions also result in moderators losing any moral high ground they have when asking others not to make insulting, purposeless inflammatory posts, personal attacks, or trolling remarks.

David, I do not accept your sarcastic thanks because you are under no obligation to read my posts, which are made with good intentions because I care about MB and people I’ve met here. If you felt reading my post was a waste of your time, then the thanks for wasting your time goes to you alone, since it was your choice to read it. I cannot force you to read my posts.

You were the first person with whom I had contact at MusicBanter, when you politely and kindly replied to an initial inquiry I made, and I still thank you for that. In fact, I have kept that first PM from you all this time because it reminded me how nice it is to interact so respectfully with a stranger on a forum about something I love...music. I feel MB has a very high quality when it comes to the breadth of musical information available here, and I also feel the quality of the community is quite good, by which I mean cohesive and friendly. Yet if it is acceptable for moderators to put others down, then I feel that is sad and it does reduce MB's quality, since I doubt the originators intended the site to be a place where strangers go to be hurtful to others. I also doubt you want people on MB to feel that hurting others through personal attacks is acceptable.

I've moderated this site for approx. the last 3 years.
When I was first made a moderator, these boards were populated by more than it's fair share of trolls, flamers, and spammers. Far more than we see today. (at least to the regular members anyway)
Consequently there were countless arguments leading to in-fighting between certain individuals, which in turn produced cliques.
This behaviour wasn't limited to regular members either. It included one or two moderators who took it on themselves to isolate and eventually drive away other members from these boards for all kinds of silly reasons.
Some of which included personal and unfounded accusations based on nothing more than ridiculous imaginings.
For the love of this site, I made it my business to defend the newbs from the flamers, to weed out the trolls and the time wasters, break up the elitist groups and manipulate the modding of several members, including the de-modding of several others in a calculated bid (which I still try and do today for the good of the site despite personal opinion) to sort out what I thought were the problems this site had at the time.
Yes it's true that sometimes I have an attitude and come over as being less than diplomatic towards one or two members. That I admit.
Why? Because I've seen it all before and after 3 years of modding this site my patience with these IDIOTS (there's that word again) has worn pretty thin to say the least.
I've NEVER banned a member/idiot that didn't deserve it.

Vegangelica...what do you want me to do?
Reinstate The Unfan and let him continue disrupting the boards, harrassing members and mods alike?
Stop warning flamers and banning trolls?
Quit being blunt and rude toward people who don't deserve to be here and waste my time being nice to them?
Resign?

BTW that thought crosses my mind every time I read a post like yours questioning the way these boards are run.

r-t is one of the most patient and respecting member of the boards.

If someone can provoke him to make a comment that can be considered trolling then it's not without extreme provocation from someone else first. I think for the sheer amount of time & effort that Unfan caused him to waste over the past 2 years for nothing more than wanting to stir trouble and cause arguments can be considered provocation.

Vegangelica you may think that r-t calling Unfan an idiot is harsh, how would you feel if I told you that Unfan was making comments about r-t abusing his own children, yes thats the classy kind of guy you're defending here. and r-t did nothing in retaliation and dealt with the situation professionally.

We Mod **** up once in a while, same as a lot of people do here. We don't punish them, we only do it if it gets out of hand. If you want moderators to be like robots then you're at the wrong site.

And if r-t goes, i'll be the first one following him out.

I cant tell if you trying to pick a fight with me or just be rude... All I'm saying is that many of the reviews are completely half assed. Not all, just some. And yes this thread asked about the quality of music banter, and the quality of its reviews is directly obtaining to that question.