I wasn't even convinced necessarily that most of the laudable ideas were being rejected, or that you were especially rude about rejections. I was merely stating why the complaint about the attitude and number of rejections seemed plausible to me. As you say, you should not be dishonest in the name of diplomacy, and some ideas I'm sure are not feasible.
I don't accept this argument, and I will explain why. I am not disputing that you indeed behave this way to people privately and are not consistently an anal and humorless dick all the time. However, I and probably the majority of bronies do not immediately pal around over Skype or PM with the majority of other bronies. Thus, the vast majority of us are only going to have your public observations to base an impression on. You, by your public correspondence, do not strike me as particularly easygoing or involved with the community on a basic level. A great amount of posts from you are moderation posts or answers to staff-directed questions. Practically the only time I have seen you insert yourself in a conversation was to issue a command, or to respond to people here. Now, am I saying what we need is total anarchy and for you to never be in business mode? No, obviously not, though I fear you think that's what I'm agitating for. What I am getting at is, you carry on as our superior far more than our equal. Yes, you are authoritatively our superior and people should know that, but you don't seem publicly very inclined to act as a regular brony. You seem detached and primarily focused on administration/overseeing. You are not the only one I have observed this trait in, and I have observed the reverse tendency in other admins and lower staff. I should not be expected to know you are a goofball privately because that is private behavior. Now, you can reject my impression or not, but, as a user of this place, that is my impression, and I am telling you I believe this is a problem.
Since you felt it necessary to go there, I'm not going to be very gentle. Your comment also demonstrates how warped your perception of multiple things is. You will remember, I raised a concern to you about censorship. You refused to respond and I asked again for an answer. You stated you were too busy to respond the first time, and your hostility was perceivable. The other three admins were invited to the conversation after I made my displeasure with your unprofessionalism obvious. Yellow Diamond was the other one to respond. You seem to have a selective memory, because I told you, after I extracted the reasoning for censorship that I should have been freely given in the first place, that I found the reasoning to be sound. There were two primary things about that encounter (which was cut short on your end and not mine, despite my attempts at prudence and courtesy) that turned me against you and the senior echelon. The first was the one you just repeated: that I was advocating there no restrictions at all, that there should be open season on all members if we want that, that we should do blatantly erotic RP on MLPForums. I was advocating for nothing of the sort and merely told you I found that legitimate political/social discourse should be allowed if at all feasible. The second reason was your and Yellow Diamond's offense at my statement that honorable leaders should demonstate transparency freely, and to explain their reasons for this or that upon request. This was the most troubling attitude and behavior of the two. The other two refused to respond at all and thus it is reasonable to assume they endorsed the views of the other two. That is an utterly revolting attitude to take as administrators, that we don't have the right to even ask why this or that is being banned. I will never fully trust someone who has such an arrogant and self-insulating view of governance, and thus this was a major reason I just don't trust the admins of this site. I also have changed my mind about the real reasoning behind the actions in question and don't feel it's the primary cause after all, but to help keep you focused on this I'll avoid commenting on that for now. When the lot of you take umbrage at the view transparency is a moral obligation of just leaders, when you act overwhelmingly more as a lord than a commoner on the forums, when you just announce changes with no input from the userbase, then you are setting the stage for degeneracy from the top down and give me little reason to trust the senior staff. Again, the lower staff I observe being more social and acting as commoners, and little of my grievances are aimed at them. It is at you two in particular, and the four admins in general, that I am criticizing. Now, I have excoriated you for your failings, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out there are substantial acts of governance done properly. Even with me, someone you clearly dislike personally for my opinions, you invoked the very mildest form of moderation. Staff in general seem to do this, and I praise them for such a light-hoofed approach to moderation that seems woefully uncommon. I have not seen a place that so massively fosters interaction between the users by culture and design, and that is very laudable. Even in these extremely controversial threads, the amount of combat was minimal. And, as much as I like to condemn you, you all DO allow the vast majority of political discourse in the Debate Pit. So, don't take me for some whiny and short-sighted anarchist that is butthurt at moderative action. I want to go away from you for a bit to address a couple of other reasons for concern. Again, one of my complaints is users don't seem to be asked what they think of a planned change to rules or whatever. For example, before I arrived here there was a substantial rule change on how suicidal threats and repeated whining in status updates are handled. Now, I am somewhat indifferent on at least the threat part since compelling arguments can be made either way and it seems generally a wash either way. The welfare of the site was the motivation for the increased controls on certain behaviors. Correct me if I am mistaken, but, I believe the userbase was never consulted before a decision was made. Yes, you all spoke at length amongst yourselves, but the average denizens were never polled, were they? As our welfare was a primary concern, did none of you think to ask how we felt on the matter? No, you saw no need to. Again, you all are detached from the general population. The second thing is the founder of this site, Feld0. To be blunt, I have no god damned idea who he is other than he's the founder and 1st in command of this place. He's like this mysterious deity who everyone speaks of and who occasionally brohoofs something, once in a great while will make a post about servers or developer requirements, and otherwise is completely unseen. I understand he's somewhat preoccupied with his own job AND maintaining Poniverse, but, the only time I have seen him make a post here was when he announced changes to the servers and expenses recently. I can't relate to him at all either as a fellow brony or as a leader of the herd because he never speaks to us. This doesn't inspire any confidence at all. Maybe he's a swell guy, maybe he's competent at technical stuff but otherwise doesn't give a damn about the average brony. Again, this is evidence of detachment from the userbase at the highest levels, the Ivory Tower that you rejected so vehemently. Now, you all can do as you like, obviously. No law mandates you allow this or that, we are obviously powerless to compel change aside from moral authority derived from the popular will of the site. You can make this place even greater than it is, or progressively raze it to the ground. That is not what I am contesting, and I'm getting tired of people responding as if the reverse is true. I have merely told you somewhat indelicately what I perceive as the worst problem this place faces. Until you all decide condemnation of leaders is verboten, I have the right to express those concerns, and whether you like it or not is not a consideration.
Wow, over 6k characters? My tennis elbow is never going to regenerate at this rate.