[Formendacil]

From the sounds of it, there was a lot of Davem-related discussion in the Mod forum (and, by the way, how EVER did that forum become a problem here? All forums have Mod forums- or should). It is a very human tendency that, once an opinion has been formed, it remains strongly held. As I would reconstruct it, once the Administration decided that Davem was being insolent and disrespectful (of the Mods and other users), –over the course of the “Lord of the Bible” thread and the temporary banishment- they saw nothing that caused them to deviate from their opinion. Here’s where they got their lines crossed: they saw Davem’s stubborn action against the “LotR is Christian” opinion as an act against opinion. They saw his tenacity in refuting an obviously (from his and my points of view) wrong opinion as an unwillingness to accept their authority. Davem, for his part, saw their suggestions to tone it down as approving the position he was arguing against.

My verdict? Still the same as above: Davem was unjustly banned. But there was no intended malice. The Administration simply made the error of not talking TO Davem, but rather talking AT him. And Davem, not seeing what they were concerned about (thinking it was about Christianity in the LotR, and not the issue of disrespect), continued to fight a totally different battle.

So, that’s my reconstruction of what happened. For my part, I think it fits the facts. Sad as that way, what happened after it was worse. Davem was accused of thinking himself “a law unto himself” of insulting other members. His character was seriously defamed, and that hurt him- and Lalwendë. It also really didn’t jive with what most of us knew of Davem. Retaliations were inevitable. In the search for an explanation, some untenable explanations arose: the Barrow-Wight was on a power trip. The Mods were anti-free thought. The actions of the Administration, in particular, did little to dispel these thoughts, since they remained remote, and their explanations sounded stilted and didn’t seem to take into effect everything we saw. If nothing else, Davem made his side of the story quite loud and clear, and as both sides of any story will do, if heard, his side made sense.

This statement was, for my part, an attempt to find out the Administration’s side of the story, which they didn’t seem to want to share. Despite numerous frustrations at the amount of time and prodding it has taken to get a response that satisfies me, I am now more or less satisfied as to the particulars of what happened. And, sad as it is to say considering the circumstances, my faith in the honesty of people around here is restored. And trust me, it WAS shaken. The two sides looked highly contradictory. The easiest conclusion was that somebody- of necessity somebody I had previously highly regarded- was not telling the truth.