I wasn't trying for patronizing, actually. I read a lot more threads than I comment on, and I have seen gameon mention in more than a few places that he has mental and social issues. It is possible to me that if he legitimately means it when he has posted about these disabilities that he literally doesn't know that Licurg's threats are empty. As such, speaking in a clear and unambiguous tone is not patronizing, it is informative. It is possible I'm wrong in my approach here. I'm as human as anyone, and just as prone to error as the rest of us.

Should Licurg make empty threats? No. Have I told Licurg this? Yes. If gameon had conducted his, "I am disgusted with you and GOG" discussion via PM with me, I"d be happy to keep the conversation there, but it seemed that he wanted it public.

Harassment requires a pattern of repeated intimidating or unwanted behavior. Twice over three months is not a pattern, although Licurg telling people that he wants to kill them isn't funny and isn't appropriate. Being told so by a mod should, generally, settle the issue. If Licurg makes a habit of repeatedly being hostile to users and is reported frequently, then further action may, indeed, be appropriate.

I'm not dismissive of handicaps or of mental illness; as someone born with profound hearing loss, I understand that life is harder when you're disabled than when you're not. That said, I also believe that if you want to engage in the majority community, you pretty much have to play by the same rules the rest of us do because you don't get much of a life otherwise. I could stick to sign language as my main language, but then life's options would be pretty crappy for me, since the majority community doesn't speak that one. Likewise, realizing that someone's puerile and unfunny insult isn't an actual death threat is pretty important if someone is going to make his or her way through any large online community.

There are millions of people who use GOG each month; it is impossible to moderate for each of their wants or needs. I--as any moderator in a large community like this must--look for truly egregious examples of abuse, harassment, hate speech, or otherwise objectionable speech and swat at those; the remainder--the stupid, the tactless, the misinterpreted, and the borderline cases--are generally either ignored or set in a bin of "monitor but don't act yet." In this case, the appropriate action seemed to fall more in the latter than the former, and I took the action that seemed appropriate. Namely, I warned Licurg.

Hopefully, you guys understand my point of view, here. If not, well, sorry to have let you down, but I'm not sure what else I could have done here except ignore the issue entirely.

I'd say that I addressed both ends of that spectrum in the initial post; if he legitimately didn't know that it wasn't a threat, then I explained it was not. If it was an attempt to claim harassment and have Licurg moderated because of protected legal status, I explained it wasn't harassment by the definition that applied in his part of the world.


But you raise a fair enough point; while I did explain--one way or another--that Licurg's behavior was bad but not an actual death threat, I did dumb things. First, of course, I should have kept this discussion over PM regardless of what was happening out here. I started on that road, though, and rather than seem to ignore all of you, I'm stuck having this conversation here. The second is that the line between "blunt" and "asshole" is very narrow, and while I aimed for the former, I clearly came off as the latter.

So, Gameon, on the off chance you swing by the forums again: I'm sorry that I addressed your problem like an asshole. While the resolution of it would not change, I could have done a better job in several respects of informing you what was happening and why.

With that said, it's 2:30 in the morning here, and I've derailed this thread more than enough for one weekend. See you all on Monday.