The problem is, you're not getting the whole picture. It's hard to know without talking to Versus and Bristow about it directly.

Yeah, no one is getting the whole picture, since Versus wasn't allowed to reply. I think Bristow's reasoning was specified twice(in the thread and on Versus's profile)

I'm just saying ... my point? You replied to me so I replied back that I wasn't trying to sway your opinion, and that I was "just saying" how I felt about it. Since Ka-pi asked a question about the situation and I replied with just a little addendum added to the end of the comment. That's all. I wasn't trying to tell you how to do your job on your turf. 

You have to be a bit fucked up to even suggest cutting yourself as a joke. Maybe the mods might have reached out to him first and asked firstly are you OK and secondly was that a joke?

If he was just having a laugh then ban him.

.... I'm not "looking to far into things" you literally replied to me on why the ban would stick and I was trying to say that's fine, my point was never to change your opinion. I think the person who's looking too far into  it is the one looking for clarification on "Just saying" 

OK, so I am one person that has spoken to Versus throughout my time here, and I did talk to him about the situation yesterday. However, with his ban, and being unable to post on here, he has granted me permission to shed some more light on the situation.

Now, I'm not sure how well many of you people know Versus, but he is someone who can switch between being relatively fine and being down/depressed. One of the ways that he copes with his depression is through self-harming.

Now, I am on speaking/friendly terms with both Versus and Bristow, so I don't want to really be forced into a situation where I have to choose/fight between the two of them, but the main thing that I wanted to say is that asking Versus himself, the razor was not meant to be a joke. I do realize that he didn't clarify as well as he could have, but he himself is saying that it was not supposed to be taken in a joking way.

Now, I'm not going to argue/criticize the ban, as it's not really my place to do so, but I just wanted to clarify things a bit as Versus is not here to do so himself. Hopefully everything can be worked out through time and effort.

My suspicions were correct. Do the moderators not think they should reach out to a poster like that before banning him?

If he's already depressed or unstable a ban might push him further into depression. By saying he hurts himself Versus_Evil might be reaching out for help. Who knows.

1. Some users are pushy and manipulative. Reaching out to said users would only result in them successfully weaseling out of the ban more often than they should, so an objective no-questions ban across the board is the only safe way to handle the situation.

2. Versus' post, without any context, was highly offensive and could be seen as instigating self-harm. As such, it isn't acceptable in any way, shape or form. Had he provided context at the time of post, things would be different. Instead, it simply comes off now as a way for him to try and weasel out of a ban.

3. To my understanding, this was a unanimous decision amongst the mods to place a ban. As such, even discussing this could leave users open to moderation (myself included).

For what it's worth, I said this in mod chat yesterday after I saw the ban.

Hurrah for Mods!

Also wtf is up with that password reset function? :D

Note to self : Never touch that again.

Yeah. It gave me a random set of numbers and letters. I don't know if I can actually change it myself? Lol