#0 - Nov. 5, 2007, 5:27 p.m.
As a first-hand witness of the events that unfolded last night, I thought I would try to clearly explain what actually occurred so that you may takes step to prevent it from happening again. This post is not intended as a troll, but my sincere thoughts on the matter.
At around 9pm CDT last night, a shaman friend disturbed by changes to earth shock asked me to read a post by Reikachu. Apparently, he had posted concerns regarding an upcoming change on the PTR, and it was supposedly followed up by many pages of support, including many well-respected shamans in the community. When I came on to read the post, I discovered it as deleted.
Reikachu later posted a topic titled "Oh Wow," that simply stated - "My 8-page thread was deleted. Cute." This post was deleted within 5 minutes.
Then someone posted to draw attention to the fact that Jayna had been banned from the forums, who had made a post detailing a 2300+ rated warlock's view of the resto shaman. While the shaman forum may not be familiar with who Jayna is, a quick search of his posts will show that he is a valuable contributor to the warlock community. Jayna is well-spoken and his posts are well-thought out - I trust his input was honest and constructive. Jayna's post no longer exists.
Once I realized what was going on (and I must admit I was somewhat amused), I started refreshing the shaman forums periodically. I watched as a number of threads were created and deleted in a matter of minutes. These insta-deleted threads originated as acknowledgments that posts were being deleted, progressed into inquiries as to why posts were being deleted, and then descended from there into nonsense. By the time I went to sleep, the dots had not yet started, but I was not surprised to see then when I woke up.
The reason this occurred has been misunderstood by many posters so far. The reason this outburst happened is because all constructive feedback regarding the matter was being deleted by an overzealous moderator. This moderator deleted at least two 8-page posts that, from my understanding, were well-written and constructive discussions (at least for a WoW forum discussion). Well-respected members of the community were being banned for "Trolling & Spamming" when they were neither trolling nor spamming. Shaman found themselves in a situation of being unable to voice concerns in a constructive matter. This moderator continued his onslaught of deletion after deletion with no explanation, and it cause a descent into chaos.
Anyhow. I felt it was important to inform you what had occurred. If I had posted this message last night, I am confident that I, too, would have had my post deleted and my posting rights temporarily revoked. No doubt many shaman, who are much closer to this issue than I, felt the same way.
Thank you for reading,
Ixlyth
