I've been a loyal member of your site since 2006. I've seen the rise and fall of certain staff members, the revamping of the site, changes in the rules, etc. Admittedly I've been banned over half a dozen times throughout those periods, for breaking one rule or another. Sometimes those rules were made up just to ban me. I served on the staff team as well.
Whether you choose to accept it or not, this site is home to a lot of users. You probably do not appreciate the true number of users who frequent this site for the community rather than any services the site offers. While the predominant userbase on this site is through the markets, as would be expected, there is still a user base who use this site for social purposes.
Now as the owner of this site, you have responsibilities and rights, as any user does. When a user disrespects you, the initial response shouldn't be to exterminate them. What you're doing is removing the more colourful members of the site and keeping the users who make this site dull and boring. I can't help but think that you're going through with your promise of destroying the site beyond repair, because in my opinion this is where it is heading right now. Absolute destruction.
The reason this site has developed as a community is a collation of many factors. One of the reasons I can pinpoint is because we usually come to this site when were young and as such we dedicate more time to it. However, another reason is because user do feel they are empowered in the direction this site heads. It's a unique trait of the site. Almost every change this site has undergone has been powered by the userbase. No other site I've been to places such an emphasise on its staff team. Likewise, I've never seen a userbase that is able to control it's staff to a certain degree. What causes this could be the young nature of the site users as well as the trust we place on our staff.
The point I'm getting at is that you cannot give users almost complete freedom of opinion and then retract it all instantly. Especially considering for the majority of my time here you haven't made efforts to engage in the social aspects of the site. The fact that you participated in the spam forum should allow you to understand the nature of the users. It's concerning that you're willing to remove users who have dedicated years to this site. It's not a question of maturity. This is a monster you created through your actions, deliberately or not. A userbase who has learnt to speak out can't be silenced, certainly not in such a short space of time.
Finally, I'd like to point out that your staff has not been totally innocent. The way certain staff members treat users on this site is disgusting. Remember, this was a site that was effectively run by Finn for the best part of three years. You can't remove that lack of faith. It's just as much their fault as it is the users.
