Chris in another place wrote:
The mod team deserve a lot of praise, because modding comes at a personal cost. Every mod intervention potentially sours a moderator’s relationship with a community member. But it’s absolutely vital to moderate a community in order to keep it positive and constructive.
Some ad-hominem threads of other local forums were/are breathtakingly destructive. Kangaroo courts, conspiracy theory and mob bullying of individuals, in some cases encouraged by the forum owners themselves.
That will never happen here because we focus on community affairs, we have solid guidelines and an accountable mod team looking after the health of this community.
As the founder, I have responsibility resting on my shoulders, but obviously I am just as fallible and human as anyone. I occasionally got frustrated at people and committed fingers to keyboard as a red mist descended. But the mod team apply the guidelines to me just as any other member and my posts/topics have sometimes been collapsed, and sometimes deleted.
Thank you @Londondrz, @Foresthillnick and @applespider for years of great modding, and thanks to @ForestHull for recently joining our team and already making a strong contribution.
We’ve also seen great past moderators come and go, helping to shape the site - particularly @dave, @armadillo and @oakr, who are always welcome to return to the team.
I look forward to our next #meetup and thanks again, Ann (@topofthehill) for your support, both here and in darker corners of the web.
Chris opens with a peculiarly isolationist statement and refers to souring of mods relationships. Makes no reference to mods being members of a community nor having a responsibility to that community. Instead refers to the need to "moderate a community" as if he is policing it. No mention of the real fact that he and his mods are restricted to moderate his forum and only his forum.
Oh how we laughed when he thrashed around wildly and ineffectively trying to rain down a non-existent wrath from a range of uninterested official bodies. His efforts to wield a big stick at members of the community of which he longer is a part, came to nought.
Chris discusses how everyone else is hostile to him and how much of a paragon of virtues he is and speaks to his responsibility and obviously feels that weight on his shoulders. Unfortunately he blows his case somewhat when he repeats his fibbing tendencies and alludes to the non-existent accountability of the mod team. He does not answer the question, to whom are they accountable - a bodger from Norfolk?
Chris applauds his mods with damningly faint praise. He compounds his evident back-handed weakness by naming only those mods and ex-mods that he approves still.
It takes Starman, in a reply, to remind Chris that others of our communities have served in this role and they deserve recognition for their commitment too.
It could be argued that those not mentioned are probably grateful not to have their own community and friends reminded that they ever associated with someone like Chris.
And so we have Chris at his best and worst.
He presents us with a perfect picture of his isolated position, blaming all others on what he calls corners of the dark-web.
Chris we know you don't get it.
But the rest of us engage in and enjoy dialogue on truly open forum.
Not that shrinking little world that your hostile mind occupies in isolation.
He is and will always be his own man.