[MP-Ryan]

I have just read this entire thread, start to finish.

I have one conclusion.

The entire thing should be purged with fiery prejudice from HLP and never be spoke of again.  Pretty much *all* of you should be ashamed of yourselves for your behaviour (and for those not behaving badly, just your participation) here.  How it has not been locked and purged before this point I do not know.  And if this counts as backseat moderation, I'll plead guilty as charged, because someone has to ****ing say it.  There are personal attacks, [attempted] strawmen, failures to argue in good faith, and broad-based group disparagement on nearly every page.

I am now going to attempt to report my own post to draw moderator attention to this atrocity.

EDIT:  And just so nobody goes 'wtf, you're in here too and why aren't you responding to me now!' I won't be responding further in it, either.

[Mr. Vega]

Am I allowed to argue that the problem I am talking about exists? Or is that automatically group based disparagement?

[Goober5000]

Am I allowed to argue that the problem I am talking about exists? Or is that automatically group based disparagement?

It's probably better to create a new thread for that.  That would allow the discussion to take place without the baggage of this thread.


In other respects, I agree with MP-Ryan; this thread deserves to be closed.  I've done some Internet Research^TM and there is significant evidence that some shenanigans did take place, but harassment and flamethrowing is a poor way to respond to it.  In any event, this thread is heavy on emotion and light on the facts, and we at HLP are not going to solve things ourselves.  The best that can be said about this thread is that it made people aware of the entire situation.

I'm closing this thread without prejudice.  People can weigh the available evidence and draw their own conclusions.  Let's all take a deep breath and do something else for a while.