was thinking earlier about bans on here and i went and checked to see if blue is still banned, and he is. the following is my own opinion but i figured it was worth stating for consideration going into the future. my memory and perception of time aren't good so feel free to correct any inaccuracies i make in this post

as far as i'm aware, blue was banned permanently for inviting bad company here and acting out himself a few times. i don't really know him that well but as far as i saw it while i've been here he just seems like a pretty average person with some quirks that can get tiresome, but not really any more or less so than any other regular here. this might not be entirely accurate on account of my lengthy absence during the summer months but last winter when i was on pretty frequently and i didn't notice any particularly belligerent behavior on his part, in fact i thought he fit in pretty decently. the people he invited were complete fuck ups but it wasn't constant and could've been pretty easily dealt with without such a lengthy ban

my main concern with this ban is the precedent it sets for future moderator behavior. flashii has changed its primary userbase a lot since it began and the amount of regular users here is much higher than it was in the past, which for the most part i think has been a healthy trend without compromising the identity of the website and its culture; however, i do see blue's ban as mostly an indicator of personal prejudice against one individual over the others here

a while back bribob said something along these lines about nabucco or flashii (i forget which) and it stuck with me: "its great how we can have difficult discussions about hard topics we disagree about and still call each other mom at the end of the day." honestly that really encapsulates the essence of how i think an ideal community functions and walks the middle path of a website's userbase. you don't want to cultivate a circlejerking group of lockstep hiveminders that viciously attack those who even slightly disagree with the groupthink, but you also don't want a community of milquetoast uninterested people that are afraid to speak about difficult things for fear of causing offense to others. when everyone understands that all of the people using a website are individuals with different experiences and perspectives and can discuss even the most controversial matters without causing screaming and ragequitting, you can at that point form true friendships and have powerful thought provoking discussions that can impact people's lives in a very positive way

blue's ban, as stated, seems prejudiced for no good reason. he definitely did behave in a way (in regards to inviting pretty belligerent people) that warranted some form of short ban but i think it's been several months at this point, but for what? he made a few bad choices but wasn't himself belligerent or insincere in his speech, not any moreso than any other regulars here. he seemed to be able to discuss things openly and without getting too emotionally involved and i didn't at any point feel like he was being disingenuous

if we're going to ban people because they aren't favored by the ones moderating, or of the more influential members, we're stepping down the slope towards developing circlejerk tendencies. to be plain, i do not care for every single regular member here and some of them really get on my nerves sometimes. this doesn't mean they should be banned or even spoken down to for no reason, not hardly. i know there are people here that dislike me and i definitely get on people's nerves (often intentionally), should i then be banned? i really don't think so

this is all just worth considering, i don't really know the full story but i've just been thinking about it and wanted to poast

(this also applies to zoron btw)

I understand your concerns and blue's ban has been gnawing at me as well.

Originally it was a year which you Inspired me to reduce to three months later on, seems like it's nearing two months in about a week which I think is enough punishment, if he even deserved that much at all. I think for most people the disliking they had for him was probably mostly just the strong association with Phi and Hyporelix, both of which will definitely not be unbanned and never contributed anything meaningful to any conversation, but blue himself was pretty good.

I think I'll follow your request and unban him. I'll also drop him a message on Twitter informing him about it.

i'm not really the type of person to write long posts and the quality of this post may be terrible, but bear with me.

i'm surprised that reemo was the one to suggest this. reemo is one of the people who sees me around the least, but he is the first person to actually suggest for me to get unbanned. i greatly appreciate your post. i think that it's nice that there are some people on the site that actually think that i am a good user.

fitting into flashii.net is certainly not easy if you're a new user, and to this day, i still feel as if i don't fit in. i know for a certain that some people here strongly dislike my presence. i have considered quitting the site completely at times. i'm not sure how to face some of the people in chat after this episode and if i had the ability to join, i would probably hold back from joining for a while.

while i was banned, i read reemo's thread on cultivating an active forum within the modern internet. everyone can agree that finding new users that can contribute and be good for the community is difficult. the only way to find new users is to invite new users. if these new users are absolute failures (like the ones that i invited) then there are still hundreds of different users that can join. you don't know until you try. if you don't try, activity will always stay the same.

i would also like to note that flashii.net is a public community; you don't need to be invited by another user to join. anyone can join the site and it's up to the admins to ensure that these users follow the rules. it's not fair that someone who showed the site to new people be accountable for the new people. i am not phi and i am not hyporelix, i am blue. i'm in no position to tell other users how to behave and use the site. despite this, i still felt the need to consult with chat before inviting both of them, and there were no objections.

in the end, flashii.net is flash's site and he can do whatever he wants. if flash or an old timer on the site wants me gone, it's his decision to make. i can't argue his decisions to make changes to his own site. perhaps he thought that it was in everyone's best interest to have me gone or maybe he sold out. either way, as he's the site owner any decision made cannot be argued by a newer and less relevant user such as myself.

"fitting into flashii.net is certainly not easy if you're a new user, and to this day, i still feel as if i don't fit in"

I honestly don't know why you, phi and hyporelix got banned or who hates you because I was inactive when you got banned.

More that gatekeeping, the thing is that the topics talked about this community end up being really niche. Discussions end up being about very specific topics that if you don't know about them or you aren't interested in them you'll feel alineated. Also, most of our jokes reference people within the community (or people who aren't even active, like namae).

Imagine entering to chat for the first time and you see people talking about some programming thing which was relevant 12 years ago, about how funtime's day was or maybe even me talking to Matthew or Arysil about some F1 thingy. And the guy who is entering doesn't even understand what is going on. People probably would log in for a couple of days and then end up too lazy to get back because it's a browser tab that they have to open and it's not a community integrated in platforms they are already in (just in case, i'm not suggesting to transform this site into a discord server or anything of the sort lol).

To be honest I don't know how to make this community bigger. I can't really invite my irl friends since I am not sure if they would fit in.

Imo, I don't have as much as of a history with you than with others but I liked having you in chat, as you were different from the usual.

welcome back blue
im glad there was a turnaround here because i was never in full support of your ban. it didnt feel fair to basically ban you by association, so props to malloc for being the bigger female and actually speaking up about it, giving our palace real thought in the process. she really does care