A reflection on past events.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

I'm a good guy. I'm not a great guy; I'm far from perfect, but I think I'm pretty nice and manage to handle things as best I can. I think rationally, and when I make big decisions, I do think ahead and try to reduce the amount of damage that could be done by my actions. However, as I am not perfect, I make mistakes.

I think everything in life for everyone generally boils down to what you said above.

People are going to do what they want to do and you shouldn't become so self-concious over things in which you cannot control. Doing so is a pointless exersize in stressing yourself for no real good reason.
People are going to come and go from here for any reason and not every decision you make is going to be popular, even with the most seemingly rational and good-natured decisions you make.

Since I think this (at least partly) has to do with the 'no insults' rule that, for some reason, was such a hot-button issue with a few people, I find it difficult to believe that there are many forums without that rule and until we actually needed it, the lack of that rule allowed at least one troll to come here for the express purpose of telling everyone what he believed and ignoring the responses except for the purpose of insulting everyone who refuted the points made.
I mean, what else could have been done beyond simply tolerating the troll and giving him bad reputation? Assuming he followed every other rule and the Troll's blog wasn't uncovered, he may just as well be harassing other members to this day on any thread in which he wishes to spend time in. What else could have been done?

I don't know if this there are other issues that could have contributed to you feeling this way, but I'm most familiar with the one above and I can't imagine any other idea that you and the other moderators could have agreed on that would be at all as effective.

In the end, however, as long as you care about the work you have and people here, there will be people coming and going all the time. Some of them will leave like what we've had recently, some will leave because they simply don't have as much time to visit and post anymore, some will recieve the ban hammer. I can guarentee that more people will stay if they find this a pleasant place to electronically hang out and I have no reason that you or any of the other moderators have any intention otherwise. That's just the nature of this business you're in. That's why forums have moderators, banks have rent-a-cops (and real cops on occasion), restraunts have stringent sanitation guidelines, the US evironmental protection agency has agents who enforce their laws that tell you what you can dump into the air, water, and surrounding land, and the UN has international police forces so your neighbor can't develop that mutated anthrax that they say is just for duck hunting.

So... in summation: you're doing fine.