[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Placid Platypus [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] x Foman123 x For me personally, Legendary and Mythic members get more leeway generally -- not necessarily because I know them, but because their member titles are a recognition of a long history of being around, being active, and not getting into trouble with the rules. If I send a message to a Mythic Member asking him to please not make a certain type of post, or please be sure to post in a certain forum from now on, I know I will get a response back that is coherent and reasonable. If I post in a Mythic Member's off-topic thread with the reason why the thread is being locked, I know that the Mythic Member will read it and try to avoid doing that kind of thing anymore.[/quote] So, you trust people based simply off of colored pixels? If that's the case, what of some one who was Mythic, but due to a decline in participation, has become a 'lesser' member? Do you trust them less simply because their bar isn't a certain color. I'd go as far as to call such behavior possibly absurd, and certainly favoritism. Personally I think that if you sent "a message to [any] Member asking him to please not make a certain type of post, or please be sure to post in a certain forum from now on", most would understand what you are saying and agree to do as you say. Give people more credit than it seems like you do, and I'd wager you may just be surpised with how many members act like Mythics given the chance. For that matter, what of members who have been around for some time but don't have a Mythic status due to their unwillingness to post for the sake of posting? I'd postulate that a good number of members have lurked for quite a while and rarely post, especially when compared to the relative total number of actual Mythic members who actively do so (post, that is). People make mistakes and I find it unfair to treat one class of members differently from another. Yes, I know that this is "Bungie's site, we have no rights, play nice", so don't give me that line. That doesn't excuse letting some people get away with things you'd ban or blacklist others for. If a new member mistakenly posts something in the wrong forum simply because he didn't know to first look to the side of a forum for a tiny header (or multiple headers as is often the case) and read the detailed rules for each and every forum on B.net, that does not mean they either won't get around to doing so or would have ignored them if they did. Sometimes mistakes are honestly made, so why punish someone for such? If a sense of 'community' is as important to everyone here as this thread is making it out to be, why ban and possibly 'turn off' a new user to the site when that same user could have potentially become a Mythic member or even the next Stosh somewhere down the line? I believe a sense of community is founded on respect and that respect should extend to everyone, and this is the important part, [b]equally[/b]. When one set of people recieve more respect than others you don't have a community, you have cliques. Then again, who am I to say anything? I'm just a member who doesn't have a blue bar nor has the time to post every day.[/quote]I understand where you're coming from, but hopefully if I can correct some of your line of thinking, your outrage will be a little bit lessened. I am not saying that users with just a "Member" title are untrustworthy. Hell, some of the users I trust the [i]most[/i] here have a "Member" title. What I'm saying, however, is that a member who is Legendary or Mythic has a [i]proven[/i] track record of relatively active forum posting combined with posting within the rules. In general (and with some admitted exceptions), these members know the rules and try to abide by them. If they make a misstep and I tell them about it, they are likely to correct it. I have to disagree that "most" users would "act like Mythics given the chance." This is not cynicism -- I know that many members hope to achieve a higher title. I also know that a huge majority of the users here are good-natured, nice people who just want to come and talk about their favorite video game or gaming community for awhile. But long experience and observation have taught that [i]most[/i] members post by trial-and-error. In other words, they post what and where they feel like it, and if they get warned/banned for it, THAT is when they know not to do it again. In some cases, they post what and where they feel like it and if they get banned for it they simply wait out the ban and then do it again. This description fits the vast, vast majority of users of these forums, and I would wager that not only have these users not read the forum rules, ToU, and CoC, they do not even know where to find them. I know that you're optimistic about the nature of most users of these forums, but please believe me when I say that this is the reality. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, either -- the vast majority of users have no stake in the forums and simply want to ask a quick question, have a one-off discussion about Halo or Matchmaking, or get caught up on the latest news. Nothing wrong with that, and for a user like that, there's really no reason to read the rules or post in any manner other than trial-and-error. But this kind of posting on a mass scale by thousands of users is not good for the forums as a whole, which is why the admins and moderators generally do what they can to discourage such trial-and-error posting. Most Legendary and Mythic members, on the other hand, have generally learned the rules either by keen observation over several YEARS on these forums or by actually reading the rules themselves. Before they even hit the "submit" button, they usually have a very good idea whether their post is within the rules or not. They are not posting by trial-and-error. But even then, they can make mistakes. That is where a little leeway comes in. I agree that great communities require a sense of respect and equality, but I don't think that this is inconsistent with that. Saying that a community has a "sense of equality" simply means that no discrimination occurs [i]for arbitrary reasons[/i]. Here, it is no different. All members are treated equally based on their trust rating and history on the forums. There is no arbitrary discrimination, but there is different treatment for members who have proven that they are upstanding and active community members. It sounds absolutely insane to say that a member with 15 prior bans for posting off-topic should receive the same ban for posting off-topic yet again as a Mythic Member who has been here for five years and slips up and accidentally posts in the wrong forum. I do not see how giving a bit of leeway to Legendary and Mythic members (or any member with a trust rating that indicates that they are both active and rule abiding) is either absurd or "favoritism" in the sense that you mean it.