GAW was forced to ban several of long-time contributors over the past few days after some extremely unacceptable behaviour both on the site and in modmail. What happened? These users were warned, asking them to tone it down, get re-focused a bit (maybe go camping?), etc., but instead the behaviour only got worse, and, finally, becoming very concerning. Rather than sit out their vacations and re-focus, the users decided opted for the nuclear option.
We HATE banning good users! Especially permanently! Everyone should be having fun here. But.
We will ban insane behaviour like this, all day, every day, equally, any user, it doesn't matter. This kind of crazy, insane behaviour (doxing, threats, posts on other WINs, etc.) towards GAW's mods, our users, posts, comments, or abuse in modmail, will not be tolerated.
These users are now PM'ing various users here, and these conversations are now filtering up to the mod team. Feel free to reply if you want, etc., but, if you choose to engage, you'll quickly see this same immature behaviour from them as they will quickly demonstrate why they were banned.
GAW will continue to have one of the best online communities around. The entire mod team remains committed to keeping GAW focused on Q, focused on solid, quality discussion, and keeping us ready for The Storm. Thank you!
EDIT: Here are some answers to some questions we're getting asked.
Why can't the mod team do anything about this contact? Apologies, we aren't able to control how the .WINs work, and we're sorry many of you were forced to deal with this unfortunate situation.
How does GAW run? Other than the 100% volunteer mod team, basically, several years ago, we were lucky enough to get invited to run on the same digital infrastructure that The_Donald.WIN (now Patriots.WIN, of course) ran on. Why? Because Q was part of the movement, but they wanted us annoying (LEL 😎) "Q believers" to have their own space so that regular patriots could have the option to participate or not. The mods have no access to the codebase. We found ways to add our own feel here (pepes, colours, etc.), but we don't have the ability to shadowban, or otherwise hassle anyone, anywhere. We can only control user access, sticky posts, and remove harmful comments.
It saddens me that we have some long time contributors that either feel betrayed, or legitimately needed to be banned for reasons we are not seeing publically.
One of the worst parts will be the loss of the great contributions that will no long be available even in search.
One has reached out to me & I love this pede. I don't have the full context so I cannot determine if mods made the right call. If the pede was being unreasonable, or if tempers should have been cooler on both ends (usually it is two, or more, individuals who allow insults & names offend them).
What I do know is that every single pede should read & apply "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnige when any type of offense could be taken.
We are all on one team to save this world, whether you like it or not NCSWIC. Not a single one of us knows exactly what is coming or how it will be applied. Obvious shills need deportation. Pedes getting angry at each other just give the enemy fried pepes to chuckle about as we fry our own for them to savor.
Mods are human, make mistakes & are unpaid volunteers. Mods, thank you for your service. It is more than I am doing with the occasional meme & spurts of high energy posts when time allows.
Fellow pedes & lurkers, I hope we can all allow cool heads to prevail. Otherwise we will find in time that a ban hammer will remove precious conversations that are needed to be recalled in the future (seriously, I can't find comments or posts from these banned guys likely due to how .WIN code is set up).
If we fight amongst ourselves, we will eventually all lose in the long run.