And because this thread has gone off the rails with digs, off topic spam and little aggressions, I'll quote the OP.

If you have nothing worthwhile to add then don't post. It's tiresome enough having to go through a hundred posts, but when half of them are adding nothing to discussion it's irritating.

I wasn't refering to you. Kerotan has wrongly accused Acevil and the mod team, but especially me. In every post he mentions my name (and there are many such posts since yesterday), he complains about how I get preferential treatment when it comes to ban lengths, talks about hypocrisy and double standards to paint me in the worst light possible while at the same time he ironically plays up his contributions to the community. One such example is how good of a guy he is because he didn't report tbone51 when tbone sent him a PM to specifically make that request, but that it came so far is because Kerotan repeatedly baited and reported tbone in the months leading up to that.

There is an awful lot of spin or outright wrongness in virtually everything he says, but that's precisely what he is known for and what is dragging threads in the mud. I have called him the root cause for a reason, because he really is always at the center of everything. It doesn't help his case when he points out that other posters' behavior is a reaction to his, because that is acknowledging - intentionally or not - that he is the root cause.

What you and padib are asking for is not a reasonable request.  We're moderators, not psychological counsellors.  It's emotionally straining for the moderators, at times, to deal with some of our most misbehaving members.  Every person here has their life history and their reasons for carrying on the way they do.  To have the mods conduct a personal intervention via ongoing conversation with every troubled user would be incredibly emotionally draining.  I can't say if Smeags actually did that because he went pretty inactive immediately after hiring us.  But how do I know his approach took a toll on him?  Because he 1) Closed this thread and 2) Took a hiatus from the site for over a month, then a few months later he quit the site completely.  It's not sustainable to just have people dump all over you all the time.

Holy cow, whittiest post ever.

I really appreciate this post, honestly.

Smeags' intervetions with me were very creative. For example, and I kept this a secret for years, he once visited me with a secret account with a leprechaun-type avatar and gave me riddles. I somehow knew it was him but it was so fun and so creative, at a time when I was really struggling with my temper on the forums. He made me feel like I could just let it go. It was amazing.

Axum wrote to me once a very thoughtful PM when I was clashing with a user (he is in this thread actually!). It didn't take much more than 1 decently long PM for him to help me see things differently.

Maybe for some users it takes a bit more, I don't honestly know because I don't see all the work you guys do behind the scenes. But for some reason I saw it pass through the seams more in Smeags' era. But if you guys are doing it and you are trying, and it's difficult, then all I can do is encourage you.

And even if I'm not a mod, if ever you guys need help coaching a difficult user that you might be ready to give up on, I wouldn't mind helping out and volunteering in that way. At least I could give it a try and see where it goes and let you guys know, then you could judge the outcome yourselves.

It beats not reading the boards much anymore.

That's really nice of you Spurge. By the way, where are your community-driven threads? VGChartz got Talent for example? Get to it Spurgey.

You among other things made my time on vgchartz very special.