Thorsten, I must admit that I don't know if I have some serious misunderstandings regarding this topic or not.
Actually I think your explanation is all true, but not complete.
Groups at some point develop a "collective will", a "spirit of a group", esprit de corps - they become a community. This starts to become manifest in a common goal, common set of rules, an ethical standard, cooperativeness and at some point even the willingness to subordinate (some) of your own interests for the interests of your community. You can see this happen at many opportunities in real life - families, gangs, tribes, police units, fraternities, and so on.
I assume that you agree that this mechanism in general exists, so let us continue with the question how this applies to flightgear.
In my
perception (and yes, I know that perception is a matter of subjectivity - this applies to all of us) the community called "flightgear" has evolved to a level where an advanced ethical standard was achieved, which would disallow members of this community to discriminate others without valid reason, especially if they act as an representative of that group.
In my
perception (!!) Rob/evilslut acted as an offical representative, and he had no valid reason for his actions. A valid reason would be a violation of some rules (like spamming, disturbing ATC, insulting others at MPserver12) or a complete
excommunication of a person by the community (which just had happen a few days ago). A bad mood about a posting in a forum is not a valid reason according to that anticipated ethical standard.
So I have three perceptions or at least impressions:
- That there indeed exists such a community called "Flightgear"
- that it shares an agreement about not discriminating others without valid reason
- that this banning is a violation of this agreement
To make it clear: I am absolutely aware that my impression could be completely wrong. Thats the nature of impressions... But maybe it is vice versa, and you are the one who just don't see that there are quite some people who share the
faith that such an ethical standard exists in this group, who knows?
So, what are possible outcomes?
First, my impression, my faith was false. Sad, but fine. I somehow have to adopt to the new situation.
Or, everything I say is true. Then there is, as you correctly mentioned, no way to force an admin to act in a specific way. But IMHO this is not about forcing! It is about convincing that by this ban more harm is done than benefit is gained.
To be honest, the harm is not tremendous: To me, it is just a bad taste on my tongue that remains after I have learnt that a person appearing as an official representative of this community can discriminate someone because he "considers him as part of a group he dislikes". But if you experience this taste too often, you start to vomit... That is why Curtis expelled those two guys not without seeking legitimation by the community and explaining those step to the public - he wanted to avoid this bad taste! Because this bad taste hurts the community in the long term, if tasted by too many too often.
And this, Thorsten, shows me that my impression about this community can't be that wrong, as obviously those who have the most physical power refrain to use it without respecting the faith of the members of this community.
So, in the end, only Rob/evilslut knows whether his reasons for the ban outweighs the damage the message he sends out causes.