[Sniper]

On Thursday, Mat asked me some questions, and essentially asked me to get angry and stream my thoughts to him. This is an excerpt of some of the things that I said (also, in one paragraph names removed to protect the innocent).

Streaming...

Mat, I'm not "Angry" at you... you're the boss... you have to make the tough decisions.... and I support your decisions whatever they are. All I have ever tried to do was help in ways that I thought were helpful. And, I will continue to help in whatever ways I can. I sent off another email to Chuck on finishing off the last bits of the archive issue today. I am disappointed that we couldn't stick to what we agreed... to me, Exile = Punishment that fits the crime. Removed from Mod of 3 Forums I've worked hard to build up, for reasons not related to my modding of those forums = punishment does not fit the crime.

If I were you, the second [censored] posted up his list, I would have reversed everything and put an end to ModWars for good. But I am not you! Modwars has been going on for a long time, and there has been no attempt to stop it. There are 3 main factions in the Mod forum... the Blackhats, the CSP, and the Silent Majority who just want to quietly do their modding and don't even read the mod forum that much. In the CSP, DB and I are the most vocal and therefore we take the most heat. Is not having that balance of opinions good... that is for you to decide. By accepting/choosing exile, I accepted your decision on that. And I believe DB has also come to the same decision with changing his name and trying to get a fresh start that way.

PA and morgant both respect my opinions on matters related to RB providers, because I am actively engaged in that forum and in talking to them, tracking down rogues and gimmick accounts, and keeping tabs on what these guys are doing outside A/R. At one point, morgant was talking about adding me as a Player Representative Mod to A/R when he was sponsoring it, just to help alleviate the issue of any bias on his part. Tracking down douchebags on 2+2 is one of the things I do well (you might want to reread PA's lengthy post when he got back from live play this weekend. Part of the delay here was in not being able to talk to him because he simply wasn't around... I was not taking any action on Degen until I talked to him, it's his realm and I respect him too much to do that)

As to Degen, he is a scumbag, douchebag, total idiot... whatever label you want to use, and I have been telling him that for a long time. Despite appearances that I have simply been defending him. What I have been trying to do is rehabilitate him, so that he wouldn't do stupid [censored] to get him rogued or piss off other mods in other forums he participates in. He is not the only poster from my forums that causes trouble elsewhere, and he is not the only poster I've tried to help. [Apparently my posters should be helped rather than banned philosophy is wrong... ] Unfortunately, Degen has not listened to my advice. One of my last posts in Mod was saying that Falang = Degen, this has been clear for a long time.

I think I covered your main question in my response in Mod to Nation, but just to reinforce... He talks to a whole group of moderators on a regular basis. He may even be providing some of them their Rakeback. He knew some of the stuff that was going on in the Mod forum, even before I did. I have not provided him access to Mod, nor shared any information about what people have said about him. I have never met him, all I know about him personally is what I've read. He was simply a good poster in my forums that I have tried and failed repeatedly to get to change his ways.

If coming out of my earlier conversations with PA and morgant, they both strongly believed that he should be rogued and didn't warrant some attention to try and straighten him out, I never would have defended him for so long. It's not like I paid these guys off to not ban degen. In all the threads, you can see that it was always their decision, barring the initial unbanning without talking to anyone first (and the rules/situation around unbanning were very different a year ago...it was more frequently done... and in fact, I am not the only Mod to ever unban Degen w/o consultation)

XXX tells me not to post anything, XXX tells me you want me to post, I thought I was running everything by you and doing what you wanted, Ryan posted that he doesn't like the way I handled the situation... If I can't trust what you and XXX tell me, what am I supposed to do?

Somewhere along the line, it was forgotten that Mods do other things aside from read 2+2 all day... if there is any injustice in this, it is that when confronted with a situation where I was being told that I didn't give things enough thought last year, I end up getting clobbered for actually taking the time to do a thoughtful review, analysis, and soul searching NOW... that sucks!