That’s absolutely true but I’d like to flesh that out a bit if you don’t mind. There’s a little more to it. Specifically with regards to this:
If you actually read the rules the consequences are written clearly, it’s not a case of arbitrary ego mania run rampant, just in case anyone reading that went there. We give people a lot more chances, sometimes years of chances while they slowly attack to forums culture to join in instead of try to take.
Usually the hardest cases are about self promoting, made all the harder because many people with great skills are here, but for legal reasons the forum cannot be an instrument for advertising of any kind. We do however provide an outlet for these, which is to join in and get word of mouth, but some people just see our members as nothing more than a market to mass advertise to and will go to great lengths to work around the rules asking them not to do that, and are allowed to, before enacting some of them.
Please bear in mind, all the moderators here are volunteers, we are not paid we don’t work for the company BALG and we are here keeping this more like an ever-growing library of beloved information that is precious and that people should be able to find, maybe with a point down the right aisle from the librarians.
Imagine what a librarian would do if someone started going reader to reader in a library, interrupting their discussions and shoving pamphlets in their faces: “you don’t need to read that let me read it for you and you can pay me”. They’d stop that shit, wouldn’t they, it’s not what a library is for.
Similarly, this is a discussion forum, it’s not social media, it’s not a bulletin board, it’s for people to come and discuss their personal magick, not be sold to or trolled.
… Can’t do that without rules can you? Ideally clear rules that apply the same to everyone and can be found written down and they don’t change? And maybe some people willing to spend their time, again, free, keeping the rules so the pace stays usable and clean of clutter, spam, and that drunk guy waiting for the pub to open while hallucinating that the corner is a toilet.
The rules all boil down to "don’t be a dick". Some people can’t manage that and everyone here who isn’t behaving like a dick (whether they are or not it’s the behavior that’s the question) doesn’t have to put up with them.
I encourage everyone to read the rules and then you can decide for yourself if they’re too restrictive and if you can keep them, and if not there’s no coercion obviously to post anything except an intro after you start posting to say Hi.
Also bear in mind that the forum’s software enables forum culture to be maintained by all it’s members. No matter how new you are you can, for example, flag posts as a community and they will be hidden without a mod even being online. All this can be found in the getting started guide.
I hope that helps clarify what our position is, feel free to PM @moderators, me, or the other Mods and Leaders with any comments or questions.
Peace.
