Mav, it'd take a book to give all the details, but hopefully I can summarize it...
As everyone will recall (there's even a thread in here about it), the issue came up about NUpolo8, ShawnWatson and Abdullah the Butcher using the term "butt-hurt". Now, the term alone wasn't an issue; it's the fact that they were using it as a kind of personal attack - and doing it outside the Woodshed - toward anyone that disagreed with them. Eric, through a PM, asked them to stop. Seems like a simple, reasonable request, but instead of just saying, "Sure, no problem", all three of them either started attacking Eric (ShawnWatson in particular), arguing, or engaging in juvenile protests.
RotoRiot is Abdullah's cousin. He, Chaddyboxer, tschu (sic), Marf, etc. have been using the PM system to foment a kind of rebellion. It was pretty obvious, taking it as a whole, that nothing was going to placate them and that they wanted to cause trouble. They were spewing out some pretty nasty stuff, including threats. Put another way, they had formed a clique for causing trouble. Hence, the bans.
There's a lot more detail, but as I said, it'd take a book. We don't want to put the Mods in this, so the best thing to do is to email, PM or post here if you see something that you think we should know. I can't really give you any specific things to look for because most of this happened behind the scenes in the PM system and I expect it will stay that way, and at this point, I think things may start to die down a bit. I know members are curious. We may or may not post something. There are pluses and minuses either way we go.
Don't feel that you have to respond to posts on the board about what happened, or that you have to be on the lookout for anything. Right now, they are blaming Eric. By keeping the focus on Eric (and it may eventually include me, as well), our hope is that when we come through this there won't be any bad blood toward the Mods.
