Yea because of admins with common sense speaking up the punishment was reduced. He is a loose cannon, way too ban-happy, leeches on the NA server when he does play and has no problem brocoding but never holds back at the opportunity to ban on sight rather then dish out a reasonable punishment, not the kind of admin we need right now.
Alot of people probably won't be back because of this, personally I don't play strat and was not there when this happened, but I have heard/known about Desire's powerhappy streaks for a long time and have always been against people like this having admin powers. Now we have 3 guilds who will not play anymore because of this when there just could have been a mass mute. The servers will be empty because he really had to dish out the severest punishment just to prove a point, even though it was reverted everyone knows it wasn't because he wanted to, he could care less if the whole server is banned and noone is playing.
If people won't be back because they were banned for breaking the rules, then I don't see the problem with that. The rules are set in place for a reason, it's to make crpg a better place. You can say that people should man up and deal with it all you want, but being nasty and racist online just makes it a worse place in general. I don't think the chat rules are put in place because some people are incapable of handling what people will say over the internet. It's because banning that sort of behavior makes c-RPG a better place in general. We can allow people who spout racism and insults telling people to kill themselves, or we can mute and ban them to make the place better in general.
I don't know if desire muted and then quickly escalated to bans, but it's obvious that people weren't getting the message if there are twenty people banned. People don't learn from mutes, this is obvious since when someone is muted, almost always someone else takes up the mantle. This is what happened and is why people got banned. The initial mute or ban (I don't know which) was a warning, the other people ignored the warning and so were punished more severely. The only problem I have with the ban itself is the length, but desire said in the unban thread herself that it was a temporary measure.
I approved of it temporarily waiting for a response from Dupre, Artyem agreed he deserved no special treatment for being an admin and has requested full duration of the punishment provided that he deserves.
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http://forum.melee.org/na-(official)/unban-everyone-banned-in-northern-empire-v-brd-strat-fight/msg1221398/#msg1221398)
As for Desire being a loose cannon, I don't know where you heard that, but I've seen different. It's rare for me to see Desire ban someone unless their are breaking the rules, and if they are it's usually a veteran player who already knows the rules. In fact it's usually repeat offenders who break the rules in my experience, big shocker there. Whats even more shocking is people dislike Desire for being an active admin, we all know how much the community loves admin who uphold the rules. So with that sarcasm aside, I doubt who ever told you Desire was a loose cannon was painting an accurate picture. The most curious thing you complained about is Desire's apparent leeching. Leeching isn't spawning in with cloth weapons and a stick, if spawning in with shitty equipment was leeching, Arys, FrugFrug, FarmBob and many other peasant players of different notoriety would be considered leechers as well. As for brocoding, I would say I rarely see Desire brocode, but maybe she picked up new habits since my playtime has died down.
Finally I will say that the two other admins involved are Dr. Device and Artyem. Artyem being one of the players involved probably shouldn't be one of the decision makers for the ban because of that and Dr. Device wasn't there so I don't know if he can throw his weight in without knowing the details. The only input he offered against the bans is that it should be allowed because of the number of players involved. Which I'd agree isn't a good reason to not ban people because it encourages trolls and chat abuse which I believe hurts the mod even more in the long run. I think the worst part is that most to all of the people banned are veteran players who should know better, but they decided to break the rules anyway because they believed they knew better than the admins or any one else. That is the kind of behavior that kills a mod. Ok my rant is done.