This is categorically false. 

Jay wasn't banned on a whim. He wasn't banned to weaken the Xbox community or exact revenge. He was banned because he was breaking rules and threatening the integrity of this community. And the mods, above all else, are responsible to the community.

I see that many people think what Jay was doing was harmless and/or unworthy of a permaban. However, I feel strongly that a permaban was the appropriate response. Jay used this community and the features of this site to: 1) conduct market research for his own business venture; 2) advertise for that venture; and 3) recruit members away from VGChartz to that venture. It's completely unacceptable. It hurts the community, by attempting to break it apart. It hurts VGChartz staff, who have to compete internally with the dozens of daily threads Jay created -- to enhance his own brand. And it hurts VGChartz' bottom line. And if you respect Jay's freedom to operate a competing website, then you should also respect ioi's freedom to protect his own site.

I sympathize with the loss of a friend and a leader, I do. I get that many of you are frustrated and confused. But Jay was doing everything for himself and his own project. He wasn't doing it for VGChartz. He wasn't doing it for the Xbox community on VGChartz. He wasn't a white knight crusading against the so-called injustice of the mod team. He was a business man, recruiting assets and managing his brand. Instead of empathizing with Jay, who betrayed this community by attempting to sabotage it, why not empathize with the site admins, who manage this site; or the mods who protect it; or the writers who inform it; or the members who give it life. We're still here. We're trying to make things better every day.

WTH you really believe this? Seems to me you are really really out of touch with what Jay was doing which makes this ban even worse. Mods made a mistake by doing it this way and now you are trying to cover it up by posting an image of Jay that's completely false. He has done more for this community then most other users, it's really sad you now try to paint him as a boogeyman because you made a mistake. Posts like those of kapi prove there wasn't a reason to perma him

So now you guys are just outright insulting Jay.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Jay broke the rules. When asked to stop, he persisted in breaking the rules. And, frankly, his actions were far more insidious than those of a a habitual troll or spammer. His actions struck at the integrity of the community. He attempted to sell his own brand on the site and he attempted to siphon members and resources from the site. So, yes, I count that as a betrayal. He was unfaithful in upholding the rules and guidelines of this forum. He did so publicly. He did so privately. He persisted in doing so despite warnings to stop.

To be perfectly clear: I'm not painting Jay as a boogeyman. I'm painting him as someone who knowingly broke the rules, and attempted to damage the integrity of VGChartz.

Jay is welcome to forge his own path and create his own site. Heck, if he builds a better mousetrap then he deserves all the success in the world. But he CANNOT use VGChartz as a platform to collect data, recruit talent, and advertise for his rival business venture. It's as simple as that.

As an ex-mod, none of this really surprises me. I had problems with Jay that pretty went along similar lines.  It went something like this...

Jay would step across a white line.  I would tell him not to step across the line.  He would do it anyway and tell me in five paragraphs how what he was doing wasn't wrong.  I would then tell him that he had one more chance to stay behind the white line or I was going to shoot him.  Then he would step across the line turn around and shake his rear end in my face.  Then I would shoot him in it to show him what a pain in the ass he was being.  Next I would get a 15 paragraph PM explaining how wrong I was and painting himself as a martyr.  I will not show any of those PMS...

It's a shame this had to happen, but Jay should have stopped when he was initially asked to stop.

Assuming we're talking about the same site, a few comments.

One - Its interesting to note that the 'Jay equivelant' of that situation is now gone from the site.

Two - The site doesn't attempt to replicate one of the key features of VGChartz, beyond simply being a forum (and people have always linked to other forums on a regular basis (IGN, Gametrailers, GAF etc).

Three - All of the above said, the mods are looking at this, as you're not the first to raise it.

:T

I remember Jay saying something about asking the mods for more control over the Xbox Empire thread. What was that about?

You know in all the drama of trying to stop Jay from promoting his site all you've done is given it the biggest promotion this site has ever seen. I didn't even know about any site Jay had before today, and he's a member I actually look out for and read alot of his stuff. Now in all the drama everyone knows about his site and it'll most likely get alot more traffic then it ever was going to get the way he was first going about it (discreetly).