I’ve been staying out of this thread because I don’t want people to think I’m trying to sway the community on this subject, but I do want to give everyone a couple of observations.
Discourse is great. I like it a lot. I was concerned about the switch at first, mainly because I wasn’t sold on infinite scrolling, but there were enough plainly positive features that I felt it might be okay. Well, Jeff was right about his product. It’s good. Like, really, really good software. Going back to vBulletin would be painful. Kudos to him and his folks for what they’ve made.
Jeff’s hosting and generous contribution to Tom’s income was appreciated, but I was always apprehensive about a possible misplaced sense of entitlement on the forum. Tom got assurances from him that it would not happen before the deal was struck, and Jeff mostly kept to that promise. Behind the scenes, he did a lot. He supported the forum software and he was generally helpful by educating us admittedly amateur moderators on how to utilize Discourse’s admin features and spotting spammers.
I think his passion for the software and weeding out bad actors on the internet sometimes got the best of him. As Tom said, he abused his admin access a couple of times. What Tom hasn’t said (because he’s such a gentleman) is that Jeff could be downright pig-headed and confrontational in PMs about these things. It got kind of ugly. He was right a lot of the time, but his approach and proposed solutions were abrasive. The Big Lebowski’s “You’re not wrong Walter. You’re just an asshole.” comes to mind.
I want to stress that I like Jeff a lot. Even now. I think his heart was in the right place. I’m disappointed at how this ended up, and I’m definitely not a fan of the ultimatum (and subsequent hit to the site) he gave Tom, but I think Jeff taking a break for a while from here is for the best. I do hope he returns someday. I’ll continue practicing with the yo-yo he sent me, so if he does come back, I’ll maybe be able to wow him with some granny tricks.
I did state my opinion about gman in another thread, which was quickly followed by my apology of sorts although I still hold to my original stance on banning him for political views. I will say that I’m coming around on the idea that you can follow all the rules, be polite and sincere, and still be a disruptive - even harmful - force on a forum community. We’ll see how that goes.
tl;dr - Jeff leaving kind of sucks. Most of you didn’t see the drama backstage, so you don’t have all the info. My opinion of what to do about gman is taking a turn. I hope Jeff comes back after cooling off.