So, I'll go first....again. Been on VMF or some form thereof since around 1998 or so. Took a hiatus in the middle due to career, building a house, family, etc. Came back, met old friends, made new ones and even met the sporadic "colorful character". VMF was a good place to come to during or after a hard day to catch up, learn some stuff and for me specifically, a place to express my extremely off-center brand of humor or as many I'm sure called it, be a smartass. Life was pretty good. Then recently it changed. I learned some of our moderators were "replaced". The impetus behind this was Ken, aka Special K. Initially it seemed he wasn't so bad, initially that is. Then, as I recall it, someone posted asking about why the former moderators were no longer there and who were the new moderators, why were they in place with minimal forum exposure, etc. I went offline to talk to Ken and see if I could gain some knowledge as to what went on. He gave me the spiel about former mods not going to enough depth to vet people that initially appeared to be bad actors. Ok, still seemingly on the up and up if that was the entirety of it. So then, in this and many private conversations afterwards, I tried to explain to him exactly why he was meeting resistance, how "we" felt with all this newness and so on. He would sometimes grudgingly agree to some of my points, but not often. He was very stuck in his position on this. He explained his background, experience and success in doing what he said he was there to do. Then his online posts became much more volatile and accusatory, calling us the problem, telling us we were acting childish, eventually calling us "cancer". Notavegetarian would pile on periodically. I talked to him a lot offline as well. He eventually seemed to come around some, but his marching orders were clear I'm sure. So this goes on for awhile, both online and offline. Online it got more heated and the smartass in me continued to shine and I posted little digs at his ranting and eventually got banned for posting a George Carlin quote. That was the beginning of the end.
After I was un-banned I kept my nose clean for awhile, only responding to off-topic posts by private message. I was going to let my natural instincts lie dormant and keep my cool until Special K left, as he continued to say he was going to. I could deal with Veg I believed and had offline discussions with other moderators as well (Rusty and Israel). I still believed it was all salvageable. Then K came back with a vengeance. I did not keep my cool. That's on me. I went offline, as the RULES SAY, and laid into him. Used unsavory language and acted pretty much like a kid in a schoolyard. That was the forever ban....or so it seemed. I came here. Life has been great ever since. Weight lifted, all those cliches.
I did formal complaints to Vertical Scope. They reviewed my posts, they said, and said they were enforcing the ban but after a cooling off period, I could come back if I obeyed the rules. I did a slightly sanitized version of what I told K, slightly.
I have zero faith in Vertical Scope if this is the type of person they employ and back. Ken, Special K, has some very serious mental issues I believe. Not sure why he chose to exercise his demons on us, even less sure how a large company like VS can allow it. There may be some forum killing backroom goings on that I'm not aware of, but who knows.
Thank you to Stangfix for welcoming us, allowing us to vent, having a great site and just being a great group all around.
We do appreciate it. 
