Just to make clear, you're saying that anyone with a view disagreeing with a member of staff, or an ex member of staff, is being negative and its fine to use the term mafia along with that?
I typed my post out. I have re-read it a couple of times since I've read the words quoted above. And I am literally at a lack of words to explain how what I typed could have been interpreted as what I've bolded above.
I think I am going out of my way specifically to say that discussion, whether it agrees with the staff or not, is something I wholly endorse. I don't consider honest disagreement at all as being negative. I don't agree with every decision made by the staff, nor do I particularly expect that to ever change.
Before I go further on that, though, regarding "negativity mafia" - I'm not sure I would have used that term directly myself. If I had been in the group he was targeting, I might have reacted pretty much as you did, other than I would not be personally offended by the term since it's pretty generic. And by the time I read the post, you had already responded, and as you know and as I have made exceptionally clear, my bar for deleting a post is very high and that simply did not meet it.
And now we merge back to the main track, the subject of "negativity". If you'd like to consider Manon's post as negative, that's your right. Heck, I wouldn't even argue. Nor did I ever say I approved of his post, other than to say that it was much less sarcastic than some posts that I or Lemonshine, for example, would have made. But of course, I didn't feel obliged to respond to your post, or Manon's, or Ryan's, or really anything in the thread until Lemonshine used the specific words: hypocrisy, censor and honesty (claiming an absence thereof).
Can you see the difference in how you and he reacted to the same post? Your response was an intelligent response to something that you took affront at, and his response was to escalate and throw out specific words that can not be used as part of a constructive argument.
So that, of course, I personally took offense to, especially because he'd used the same hypocrisy word just seven days ago toward me. And so I called him on it - trying to show, factually, that the censorship he accused the staff of in this thread did not exist. I also disagreed with his use of those terms and said that it would be hard for me personally to consider anything he's talking about if he's going to throw out those accusations without justification.
So getting back to it, I don't think disagreement is negativity. I think what *HE* posted was negative in the extreme, and I retain my rights to post here to share my opinions just like he does.
Its easy to attack Lemonshine and other users, but I am always amazed by how quick members of staff are to defend their friends. Always in these threads GMs jump in in threes and fours, without reading the entire thread and taking into account the the context of each post.
It's easy to attack when someone is calling you a hypocrite, or calling you a censor, or a liar. As you said in the part of the post I cut out, you reacted similarly when accused of saying something by an EGM. Call me a liar, call me a hypocrite, call me a censor, and if I notice it, see how I react. Do it repeatedly, see how my opinion of you changes. But, of course, the counterbalance is that if you're not doing those things, the discussions are a whole lot more pleasant, even if we still disagree.
Dishonesty. Censorship. Hypocrisy. Those are loaded words, and they're definitely things to shun.
I disagree. Words are to be used correctly or not at all. Like the word "negativity." Perfectly good word when used properly. Not so good when its the wrong word.
Bad phrasing on my part. The traits are to be shunned, not the use of the words - when appropriate. My feelings on the appropriateness of them in this context I trust ar