About four months after getting banned from the NS.org forum, the moderators there were nice enough to lift my suspension. I have to admit that I honestly never thought this would happen. I'm grateful to them for my second chance.
I'm also grateful to the Lunixmonster community, because this has been my NS home since then, and you guys have been unprejudiced toward me despite my shady history.
I don't know what impact Redford and Bob had on this decision, but let me say regardless of that they've been welcoming and fair to me since I first came here.
The NS.org moderators thought it best that I have my name changed there to at least partially obscure my identity to curb flames, so my new one is
blueback.
So, once again, thanks to everyone here at LM and thanks to the NS.org admins
Here's the open letter that I sent to the NS.org moderators a couple days ago requesting an unban:
Dear NS.org forum administrators:
I'd like to respectfully and formally request a review of the suspension of my forum priviliges. I'm not asking a review of whether the suspension was justified--far from it. I understand and appreciate why I was banned. I understand that I disregarded the forum's official code of conduct and undermined a common level of forum decency and etiquette. I'm not here to question the judgement of the admins but rather to ask forgiveness for my actions and to appeal to the mercy of those I offended. I apologize for what I did and would like to assure the admins with whatever credibility I have left that, given a another chance, I would not repeat my previous inappropriate actions. It's been about four months since my last visit to the NS.org forums, and I'd like to humbly request a probationary reinstatement of my forum priviliges.
My efforts back in May to reform the forum, despite how misguided they may have been, were in the best of intentions. I, just like the board's moderators, want what's best for the Natural Selection community. I made a grave miscalculation in how best to go about achieving that goal when re-posting deleted posts, evading bans, and PM'ing users my posts, but my objective was to make the world of NS better for everyone. In retrospect I was wrong in the specifics of my suggestions and in the way I went about making them, but my intentions were pure. So the question I pose is whether I'm the kind of person that needs to be banned from the forum. I'm a loyal member of the community--and have been since May 2003--that got out of line, learned his lesson, and is sorry. So, I apologize and ask your forgiveness.
P.S. if it helps any, here's a rather biased account of my banning that I wrote back in May:
http://nsforumreform.proboards21.com/index...&num=1085918971