About five years ago I was banned from the Guardian Talk site after some cow (after calling me a c**t on the site) complained that I was rude to her!
She had been boasting that as an independent-minded woman she'd slept with dozens of blokes before settling down with her partner who she was going to marry that weekend, and I had said that an independent observer might regard her less an independent-minded woman and more an outright slapper.
After I was banned from posting I could still read the site and saw the subsequent debate continue without me. I had considerable support from the remaining posters who castigated the cow for her actions saying that she was in fact the rudest and most abusive person in the discussion.
She was part of a small, London-based clique who knew each other off the board and sort of dominated the discussions, mostly by not responding to outsiders, and at the same time diverting all topics to discussions about themselves.
They were all lazy office-workers who apparently worked in the public sector and only posted during work hours on work computers. They all signed off at the same time with messages to meet up later in various pubs.
The practice on the Guardian site was apparently that the first person to complain to the mods gets their opponent banned, and the cow had made a habit of doing this in the past. In fact there was much comment on the practice of "racing" to the mods to be first in.
The moderators offered no appeal nor did they go and see the thread in question, they simply banned whoever was complained about instantly, and they were EVERYwhere, banning left right and centre, mostly for deviating from their self-appointed moral compass.
Basically, I got the feeling from these twonks that taking drugs was rife, almost compulsory, as was sleeping around (if the stories were to be believed) yet the personalities were oddly right wing and more than a little racist.
I managed to get onto Guardian Talk again about three years ago and saw the same usernames still operating, and I got the impression of a distinct lack of numbers. It's a surprisingly small site, considering the size of the paper.
I'll never be back.
