I appreciate the effort to keep the tone civil, since mine was ridiculing.

I don't have a solution for all of this. I think you hate me and everything I have to say, but some of my thoughts if you care:

Respect has to go both ways to survive. I know there are some people who play this game that get into moods where they won't be happy unless you walk on egg shells around their feelings, and trying to keep them pleased without sacrificing something (usually your dignity) is impossible. But it seems like some of the staff get into the same kind of mood as a response, and the next guy to rub them wrong gets to deal with it.

If you ROTD someone who is doing something that looks suspicious and immediately make a remark that sounds like you are already fed up with them, you're are setting the stage for an awful interaction, feels like someone is bullying you, or like someone has decided you are the enemy, and now you are negotiating terms. They are now dealing with the same kind of experience as the imms who have to deal with ragers (nerf db pls). Anyway it's polarizing. Players see the actions of the worst players and think "wow look at what the imms have to deal with". Players see the actions of the immortals at their worst and think "wow, look how awful the imms treat people". Sometimes the relationship of the staff to the playerbase just looks like a train-wreck.

I feel like people are disproportionately good at remembering bad experiences and when they pick a side (usually opposite to whoever angered them first) they tend to just stay there for years to come.

When this was first mentioned to me (two months later) I replied "Well, technically they are just enforcing the rules, do you expect them to do nothing?"

Then I found out he may not have been treated very well right off the bat and got permabanned for his reaction and preemptively banned from the forums. Meh. Okay, that's pretty lame, seems overkill. But whatever, wasn't going to say a thing. Nothing I can say is going to make it right. It's not worth causing an upset and dragging the mood down.

Then I saw the discussion that comes up about it get locked, and I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty disrespectful. You're saying, we're done with Matrik. We don't talk about what happened Matrik anymore. We won't suffer public opinion to remain public, you can send it through our private channels.

That tipped me to a "side" again.

I wish I felt like I could actually help this situation.