My response won't be able to be all-encompassing on this issue but I believe there are some things to bear in mind here.
1. Take the example of Zelcorpion. He was a prolific poster on the old forum and did a lot to red-pill people. I never met him but spoke to people who had. They said he was a guy who genuinely cared and who had a big heart, but that he had his challenges. I mean okay, right?
But then how would we feel if Zelcorpion WAS struggling AND putting out stuff that most of the then forum thought was bonkers (the first time I ever read the words "chipped and pinned population" was a Zelcorpion post) AND THEN he met with a fair degree of ridicule..
Not 'robust debate', ridicule..
2. This is not something that just blew up overnight. This IS a new forum.. but at the same time it is the continuation of the old forum. And this has been building for some time (months at least) on the old forum.
I used to go into schools and do some sports coaching. You see it in playgrounds all the time. A bunch of kids pick one individual and just needle him or her over a long period of time.. flicking their ear, pinching them, finger under the ribs, half hearted attempts to trip them, burping in their face.. and I would say to teachers etc. "they're ganging up on that kid, they've been doing it the last 2 hours, I don't have the power but you can tell them to quit" to which the 'playground monitors' would say "it all looks fine.." and it was all fine, until said little kid went absolutely postal and attacked all his harrassers, who were smart enough to stand back and say "woah, what's going on?1?! this kid's crazy!" - I used to do it to other kids when I was at primary school, and I also got a kick out of said kid raging with tears in his eyes whilst middle aged women stood over him "Toby! What is wrong with you!". Sly grins and winks all round from my playground buddies..
3. NOW - I am NOT saying that Paternos was targeted as some kind of evil 'conspiracy' but if anyone is reading this thinking "hey! that's not fair!" well then just look up this thread alone and assess your own posts. Some were people pretty annoyed by the subject matter and said so, and others were just ad hominems ridiculing Paternos with the retrospective excuse "well, he started it" - well, maybe he didn't help himself but I get the impression that Paternos was very much on his own.
And I think that the playground analogy is apt. This wasn't some high point of intellectual debate.
4. If people want a comparison with how these subjects (and the whole Fed issue) were dealt with in the past when there were similar debates...
Other posters raised this same subject "Nukes are Fake" and in came 911 sharing all this info on how boss-jew Cass Sunstein of the Obama White House had published a federal paper stating that he would use 'cognitive infiltration' techniques to persuade 9-11 truthers of Flat Earth, Dinosaurs being Fake, and Nukes being Fake and thus 'poison the well'.
911 came in, educated people on all this federal counter propaganda that was afoot and then advised people to be wary. Sober and educational.
5. I get on with Paternos, I like to think I get on with the people that Paternos fell out with, or at least most of them.
Paternos had a habit of keeping lists, this is true. He also kept a list of the reasons given for his many warnings and suspensions that he sent me screenshots of, which were certainly interesting.
He kept being suspended for, I quote, "Excessive pride" "Getting into multiple debates", "Low quality posting" "Possibly a previously banned member." "Not making attempts to fit into the community."
People would be forgiven for getting a little paranoid when on the end of multiple suspensions that seem a little.. subjective, shall we say.
People's experience of moderation on the previous forum was wildly varying, it might have been fair and just for the vast majority (and I personally quite liked Daniel H) but I knew nearly each week or each month that the ban hammer was about to fall on me, yet again, and all for quite specious reasons* ie: 'language use' 'grammar' 'punctuation' (*or so it seemed to me.)
But I was never getting warnings for things like 'excessive pride' nor was I aware that being an engaged poster "getting into multiple debates" was actually even an offence on the forum.
Given that, and the amount of bad blood there was between him and various other members (who did like taunting him) Paternos could be forgiven for getting a little paranoid over the long months that this was going on. I think he felt like he wanted to grapple with big questions of truth, and that was what the forum was for, but at the same time was getting flak from all sides and barely holding on to his place in the forum itself.
6. We come back to the Zelcorpion issue, maybe Paternos was a little fragile and a bit annoying for others, but posters like him are (I believe) more of a boon to a forum than something to be jettisoned. Zelcorpion had his strengths.. and his flaws. Same for Paternos.
I understand the criticisms etc. and I can see how his posting style and content may have annoyed others but when Paternos finally went postal in the school yard and started posting lists and all the rest that transpired, I can't help but thinking that the whole conflict could have been handled differently.
7. @abraham - there WAS a thread in the old forum that was titled something like "The Cold War was a stage managed Conflict" and I think that there is a lot of material out there to justify at least a discussion, I believe @stadtaffe said previously that he didn't want to see threads on the forum entitled "Moon Landings were Faked" etc. as he felt that it would lower the tone of the forum.
The problem is that governments and the military industrial complex have lied so much and there does seem to have been collusion in the Cold War, a Mutually Acknowledged Deception between the Cold War Powers that they kept from the masses.
How far that deception went is up for debate.
I wouldn't turn up in someone's foxhole and lecture them that the Cold War was fake whilst they endured mortar fire or got over run.
In short, this had been building for some time, and > I believe < it could have been handled differently.
And there will always be a variance as to how much official reporting and world-view is actually true, given the amount that we have been lied to.
