FYI ATS

[l0st]

None of the cases I witnessed in all the years as moderator was because of owners "not agreeing" with something, things the owners didn't agree with and are reason for banning are in the Terms & Conditions of Use.

In many cases people are banned because of what they in the private messages to the staff, so while they may look like a model member, behind the scenes they are full of themselves and think rules should be changed to suit their opinions.

In some cases people have been banned because of what they say to others in private messages, and in rare cases even for legal reasons.

PS: Great contributions are always taken into consideration, but are not a "get out of jail free" card. People should be responsible for their own actions.

Not speaking about you personally or ATS in general, but at a lot of the CT and other general sites the moderation became very excessively overzealous during the Covid era. I was personally banned from 4 or 5 forums for speaking truth about Covid - and when I say speaking truth I mean citing actual news, video, scientific studies, public data, etc. Typically, once I would point out that there were no excess deaths for the year, that any additional excess deaths were within the margin of error, and that flu diagnoses had basically completely disappeared.

I do have to wonder if any of those moderators have reflected on their decisions knowing what they know now. I know on at least one of the sites, I stopped in to read a couple times, and people are still quoting the material I posted in these discussions and even asking where I went because they see now that what I posted at the time is true. After the harassment I received from moderators at those sites, I have absolutely no intention of returning.

I do think what Raptured has posted has some merit. Oftentimes these days it seems that people in positions of authority seem to feel that they do not need to justify their actions. While mods may label someone a "troublemaker" behind the scenes, if their public persona doesn't reflect that, you'll definitely be getting blowback from the userbase if these actions are not explained. So, as a commercial venture, it may even been ideal to keep certain "bad actors" around if it means keeping other clientele that will walk if they leave. I can think of at least one site that has had a mass exodus over the past couple of years due to stuff like this, and that site is IMHO severely floundering now.

Similar dynamic to your local bar. There's typically a couple of good bartenders and a few regulars that actually keep a place going. I've witnessed bar owners ban popular patrons from their establishment, or fire a popular bartender from their establishment, and the end result was that a big chunk of their clientele started going elsewhere - typically wherever the bartender or patron now goes. Worse yet, the bar in question now gets a bad reputation on the street for "kicking people out for no reason" (whether that's true or not is irrelevant) and others are not inclined to visit, or will visit with extreme skepticism and if they have any issues at all, no matter how minor, they will leave and never come back.