No more sorry. We do the best we can and live with the results. You won't please everyone, and nothing is fair. A good enough slate to draw on.
Neither Bill's brother nor Yangdu had ever heard of a friend called Rice. But we did know of a man with the forum name of Ben Arown Awile, who knew Bill from earlier days, but was not 'close'. This man was banned for repeatedly pissing on people's posts and best intentions. Over and over until Rusty had enough, enough warnings, and sacked him. This man could have come to the new Team and asked.. That is a conversation that would have been open and fresh from this side of the screen. But that conversation did not take place. Instead, Ben/Rice went right back to his old pattern. No good stone left unturned and mocked. Ben was well recieved in some quarters here. The general good was not considered, it was ignored.
If a banned person wants another chance, a clean slate, there is a way to do that. When you don't start clean, it makes it hard for anyone to believe in you. As a member of HI forum, you are not doing anyone a good turn when you know a banned person is here without having gone through passage. Getting permission to return isn't just a formality, it is a passage a person undergoes who is accepting responsibility for his or her actions. Skirting this is saying that responsibility is unimportant. If it's unimportant, they shouldn't be here, there is nothing for them here, nothing to interest them, for we partcipate in a community and learn flrom our mistakes.
munk