[RangerDown]

I'm as fed up as any of the PEQ team members with all this, and will (reluctantly :() support a decision to leave if they feel it's the step they want to take. I just ask that my fellow PEQ members please stay civil on this board. If we're going to end this project, then let us do so in a way that lets everyone (who counts) appreciate the hundreds of hours of work we've done on it. Let's not stoop to the level that those who made us leave are at.

To the moderators of this board, you have failed to moderate it in the professional manner that any forum's users deserve. Because of this, you lost respect. I'll lay out some places where you dropped the ball, as I have a shred of hope inside of me that you’re capable of learning from your mistakes and making sure a big segment of the EQEMu community isn’t lost again:

Allowing a known ban evader to remain on the boards.
MNJ is BBum 3.0, who had previously received strikes and bans on his last 2 accounts. His 3.0 account automatically inherits his previous strikes, which I believe far exceed 3. He was allowed to remain and do his thing. And the thing he did was cause irreparable damage to the community.

Allowing blatant flame baiting to go unchecked
On most boards, flame baiting is against TOS. If it's not on this one, it should be. Flame/troll baiting is posting a response that the poster KNOWS doesn't offer any positive contributing to the thread, but instead is very likely – in fact, the poster usually hopes it happens -- to elicit flaming and bashing, and in general turn the thread uncivil. In most boards that mod in a professional manner, the baiting post is modded BEFORE it has a chance to spread its damage, or the thread is locked if it went too far unchecked.

Flame baiting is NOT criticizing. The PEQ team can handle it like anybody else. And a few of MNJ’s criticisms are legitimate. Not legit in that we agree with him, but legit in that those criticisms/complaints are fine to voice. Others, however, offer no contribution to the thread and were intended to draw flames.
“PEQ Server Sux”
“nothing you just said goes against my point, which is, peq server is lame. so theres really nothing i care to argue with you about lol”
“dont be mad cause i let you know you wasted 300 dollars to keep a shitty server up. unlike some people i wont not let you know your server blows out of respect.”
These don’t contribute a damn thing to the thread and are meant to turn the thread uncivil. As were those bogus support postings from Stray* that specifically addressed Sotonin. When the mods don’t clamp down on a baiter – and even SUPPORT the baiter by trying to mod the flame responses – they encourage more of the same.

In this case, the PEQ team was the victim of the flame baiting. So we’re up and outty. Some other bozo might come along next month and do this to somebody else. If this same shit was talked about Daeken and his OpenEQ project, and not kept in check like it wasn’t for us, I’m sure he’d pack his stuff up and say Screw This, much like we did. Same with any specific server, or any developers. THIS IS WHY FLAME BAITS ARE STOPPED AS SOON AS THEY START… at least on professionally-modded boards they are.

Disagreement by modding
The ninja-edit of Wize_one’s poll topic is a terrific example of this. Mod actions are to be reserved for correcting TOS violations – and that’s it! You are free to believe that the poll is stupid – if you do, you post it in a post like everybody else does. If you felt the poll didn’t belong as in it was a TOS violation, then you lock it THEN AND THERE. You don’t go doing trolling of your own, and then lock it only when the trolling blows up in your face.

You also don’t post on a locked thread, except to make a note of why the thread was locked or something of that nature. You don’t ever, ever, EVER, try to get the last word in by posting a non-mod response on a locked thread.