banned me from their platform unceremoniously, why? Because I apparently did not follow their rules to their liking. It started yesterday when I posted something on their sharing channel. When I joined a week or two ago I was told to share as much as possible and told it was the appropriate place. So I was surprised to receive a reprimand by the founder of the place in a pretty rude tone. after I vented my frustration the tone became more cordial so I decided to give it another try today for their contest.
So by all intents and purposes I followed all the rules, tagged them, upvoted more than the required two people form the forum (which I did even before they made it mandatory ) and linked to their discord. But nope was not good enough!
My crime? I had not announced wo I had been upvoting, which I find reprehensive anyway. I get that you need active users but the person who spoke to me last knew that I had been ill as we had discussed it thoroughly a day or two ago and also knew that I was active on the forum since feeling better. I truly understand that there needs to be rules, but policing your members like the gestapo forcing them to prostitute upvotes, which should always be a genuine token of appreciation between content creator and the reader, is repugnant; and also goes against my cultural sensibilities, and I bet more than my own.
This applauding of oneself and using ones voting power as means to agrandise oneself is a very American thing. It just goes against my very nature ! Also I am not child nor did I sign over any of my autonomy. How sad a group must be that feels it has to force their members to loyalty and appreciation. Maybe the true issue is lost here, maybe quality of members should go over a mass of people you have to corral like sheep! The way the issue was handled was also completely without grace. When you are not even allowed to state frustration and are immediately blocked and banned it says a lot about people. Also maybe sending members a private message telling them that there are new rules in pace might have really helped the situation. As is I just joined because of who I genuinely like and has been nothing but a joy to communicate with. As I am obviously not well made for dictatorships I probably would have left anyway if my concerns over the announcing votes had not been at least open to debate. In the end it is their loss from now on I will just ignore their general existence and carry on with my life.
If any of you plan on some form of retaliation because of this post just remember that honorless behaviour like that just says more about you then it says about me. If you must you must, I will not censor myself out of fear of abuse it just isn't who I am.
(Image credit Dave Renike and a portrait of the fair jubilee made by myself turned into this here universal truth meme)