When it's come to inappropriate names, the rule has been there since 2009, when Machina last updated the Moderator Guidelines. You all don't have access to this, so I'll post a snippet that has bearing of where we're coming from:
Permabans - In a handful of cases you can skip straight to a permaban without permission. These are when one of the following applies:
- It is a spambot/account.
- It is an alt account.
- If it is purely here to troll, flame or has a gratuitously offensive name.
For the past six years, moderators were given the keys to permaban a user with an offensive name (at the moderator's discretion of course, since he did not go into depth about what constitutes as "gratuitously offensive"). Like avatars and signatures, in which the rules for work-safe content were always there, we got lax with those with signatures, avatars, and yes, even names. I'll be the first to say that the fault was ours, and we should never be at this point.
The rules have always been in place to maintain a professional setting for newcomers and browsers. It's why we have rules for the following:
- Titles cannot have inappropriate language
- Avatars and Signatures must be PG-Rated
- NSFW content seperated from the main forums
- And in the guidelines, offensive names are asked to be removed
This has all been part of our rules and guidelines for the past six years, and I believe that it plays an important part in how we approach VGChartz. We allow anyone and everyone to access the website, whether they're kids or adults, whether they're at home or in public. If you would like to delve deeper and choose to view more mature content, then you can participate with that as you choose to.
I firstly want to apologize to Jizz_Beard_thePirate for putting you at the center of this issue. It's not your fault for our relapse, and it's not fair for you that we've dragged your name at the front and center. All this discussion and debate has never been about your character of what you've brought to this site. I firmly believe that name or no name, you can thrive in this community and contribute to it in numerous ways (as you already have). So when we talk about a name, we're not talking about you as a person.
So technically, the name has *always* been at odds with the guidelines we've been set to keep. It has never been a "it's only a problem now", as we've debated and debated and debated it internally ("Is it too late to do anything about it?" "We should have acted sooner, what now?" "What does it say to others that we permaban if we show favoritism?" etc.) We've debated about it and decided that until we could do anything to keep the account, we couldn't just erase everything that JB has contributed to this site. It wouldn't be fair to him and it wouldn't be fair to those around him.
But just this week, we've gained the ability to issue a name change within the account. So we have the ability to deal with the name while allowing JB to keep all of his history. It's a win win situation, as we are able to now fix the issue we've allowed in, and the person and history of that user are still here, and is still able to thrive in the community.
So despite the fact that, yes, it was our fault that Jizz_Beard_thePirate was initially allowed on (because let's not kid ourselves. The word Jizz is highly inappropriate. Semen, Spunk, Cum, Ejaculation. No. It's just can't work), but we cannot keep allowing that to affect how we view these forums and how we are supposed to moderate it.
