Right kat, I read Max's explanation too. But I wasn't satisfied with it.

IMO, keeping members' dirty linen hidden in the PMs doesn't make them accountable to the forum, only to Max. And therein lies the true "accountability" problem here, IMO. If forum readers never see problem posters be held accountable for their irresponsible and/or reprehensible actions, how will a standard ever be established?

If Mudcat is going to made an enjoyable, pleasant forum again, we need to hold ourselves and one another accountable for our actions, not our signatures, as sophocleese wisely pointed out. There really isn't a need for the sysadmin to come in as the heavy. They need only make themselves known in the forum when a user gets ugly. But if the sysadmin always handles things through back channels (the PMs) and never notifies the forum that the problem poster has summarily been dealt with, there is no holding people publicly accountable for their actions, and the credibility of both sysadmin and the forum itself is shot.

I believe Max and the Mudcat Mafia are responsible for having created both an accountability and credibility problem here. But rather than facing up to the fact that they've created a forum which is perceived at least by some as elitist and too often rude, arrogant, etc. they continue to play the blame game. They continue to make themselves out to be victims. Those sorts of passive/aggressive dysfunctions are easy enough for some of us to spot, and we know it is all smoke and mirrors. When we say so, it enrages a number of regulars (including Max), and round we go again.

Max showed he wasn't going to play fair when he instituted the member/guest log-in to appease his friends in the forum, and not long after that, Max and the Mudcat Mafia demonstrated the unfairness of the playing field as the Mudcat standard by ruthlessly tarring and feathering Bruce Olson before running him out of the forum on a rail.

But of course, I'm only telling one side of the story, right?