I was going to leave this topic alone, but I feel that folks are being left with the wrong impression about what has happened.
The real reason that bowerbird was banned had little to do with his post formatting idiosyncrasies. Rather it was more for the attitude he openly displayed to other members
before the formatting really became an issue, in the threads on the Kindle, Page Numbering, and Gutenberg Text formatting, in particular.
The formatting thing was part of the ending of how things played out, yes, but there were also some goings on behind the scenes at the same time that are not publicly apparent, and which I won't presume to
make public. The point of concern was less the way his posts
looked but rather the effect his attitude was having on the way this community works together. More folks announced that they were putting him on Ignore in ten days than I've seen in the preceding twenty-one
months of my time here at MobileRead -- that wasn't simply a reaction to his formatting his posts oddly.
We were looking at a situation where a single person was negatively affecting the open, polite exchange and exploration of ideas that is so unusual in the cyberworld and so valued here, not by the ideas he was sharing (which were quite good and interesting), but by the
attitude with which he was presenting them.
Unfortunately, in this case the action we had to take has caused some disruption to that same sense of community. We didn't take that action lightly, and as I said above, so far as I know it's only the second time in MobileRead's entire history that someone has been banned for reasons other than blatant spamming. In fact, we perhaps erred too much on the side of patience, hoping to give him the opportunity to amend his attitude, which he instead used to move on to less visible means of disruption. Had he been banned a few days earlier, his last posts would have been much more obviously disruptive, those posts are still there, they're just back a bit farther, and extend for about two weeks back.
As for not knowing who gave him what karma, everyone can see their own karma receipt records on their
User Control Panel page (towards the bottom left), it doesn't show the number changes, but it does show the names and comments. A lot of folks never notice that it's there at all, so it's probably not surprising that he hadn't.
As Alex said, the intent behind this was to shield the members who were conducting themselves in a courteous, open, respectful manner from one member who seemed to feel he didn't have to observe those things, and who as a result was inhibiting others from participating as they normally do.
I regret that all this occurred, I regret that it came to the end it did in the way it did. However, I am also confident that there simply was no other option remaining but to watch lasting harm done to the MobileRead community spirit, which you all so clearly hold as dearly as I do. The fact that folks are expressing concern over the matter suggests to me that they are worried that this action is a sign of risk to that spirit, the truth is that what was done, was done to
preserve it, knowing that it might cause some concern, but as the only path left open for preventing greater harm.
I know not everyone will agree that his earlier posts were disruptive, nor do I mean to persuade you of it, particularly. I do want everyone to rest assured that this was
not simply a petty squabble over formatting.