And here I thought we were all driven off by a specific pair of users.
Those users are here.
Which is an interesting point in the context of the thread actually. Much was said about the terrible status of chatsubo but the reality was the moderation climate there had been manipulated over many years by many users seeking to win their arguments through petition-war and exploiting the admins and such. Lots of people accused the administration there of bias and ultimately the only "win" remaining was to ditch the forum and restart over with an entirely new and tighter moderation system.
Backstage is working under that system. Here it is pretty much impossible to be an ass at people and get away with it (and for all the mud thrown about the evil people around at the chatsubo crash the reality was
everyone liked to throw mud there.) But since
nobody is allowed to throw
any mud around here now, surprise surprise and voilĂ ! there are no evil people any more!
Sure. The resolution at backstage involves more heavy handed moderation that ends up annoying some sensitive people (who feel they should never be moderated) but its the price paid for civility.
For my part I've been pleasantly surprised just how even-handed Backstage moderation has been and how neutral in the main the mods and admins are.
End of the day you see the rules and aspirations for the forum when you sign up. Its simply a choice of agreeing to abide by them or not really.
And for what its worth I haven't yet seen *any* moderator truly "inhibiting" the community here. They are simply doing what the community asked them to do at the founding.
What I'd suggest is that people should be less sensitive about getting moderated. It isn't a slur and terrible condemnation of your character - its a sign you are human and the moderation culture you supported is even-handed and universally applied.