This situation is unfortunate. I don't like airing dirty laundry like this in the forums. I have in the past only as a response to individuals making private dealings public. This situation involves 3 people fighting publicly in the forums, in multiple threads, in multiple sections. I put a global post up several months ago addressing flaming. You can read it here.
http://www.anime-beta.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=11161
This post says that
The staff here failed. We had these threads going on unchecked and we didn't lock them. This was brought to my attention thru a PM from a member asking me to take action. Otherwise we still probably would not have seen the problems. We failed, but that does not excuse the 3 primary individuals in these threads. I have brought this up with the moderators and we will be paying closer attention now."If the same individuals keep showing up in locked threads, I will deal with them on an individual basis."
Anyone who has been a member here for any length of time knows my stance on flaming and non-constructive bickering. Newer members may not have read the flaming post, but I hope the majority of the active older members read it. I'm not going to play favorites here with long tenured members, nor am I going to focus only on newer members who are still learning the boundaries here. That post applies to everyone.
As for the Animanga thread, I locked it because it was directed at Yann. Since I own the domains anime-beta.net and anime-beta.com, I will be the one contacted should Yann, or any individual get offended enough to seek legal action. Animanga is a business, while Beta is a forum. I don't want to have to take Beta down because of a lawsuit, nor do I want all Beta members to lose the ability to do buisness with sites like Animanga because of a thread or two.
I respect the desire to try to help improve the cel community, but no one at Beta can do anything to affect change at Animanga. I suggest that the subject should be brought up in the Animange forums.
It may look like we (I) am suddenly getting heavy-handed, but I don't want anyone to be afraid to speak their minds. No one has been banned, suspended, or punished, and no threads have been locked purely for questioning the staff here, and no one ever will. I get a lot of PMs complaining about threads or individuals and try my best to appease everyone, but I am going to end up offending someone along the line. I'm sorry, but that's how it works dealing with 200+ active members. The bottom line is that everyone has to follow the rules here, and those who don't will be called for it. Newbie or not.
-M