Elana has been banned

Against my better judgement, I'm writing this post as an announcement of a banning which has recently taken place. I banned Elana myself after one too many nights of getting no sleep over the chaos surrounding her recent departure. I'm tired of having to endlessly defend myself and this board against half-truths, false accusations, and false assumptions.

Elana was banned not because she broke some explicitly stated rule, but she broke several of the implied rules that are the heart of this community. Kat and I brought the forums back after a lot of discussion, mainly over the heartache we had endured with the first board being hacked and ultimately dropping out of existence. We spent a significant portion of time working on the site's security, but also resolved to enforce rules that would continue to promote a harmony amongst members.

But, I'm not going to go into all that. Here's what my point is: last time this year Kat and I were drawing up cards and packaging tamagotchis to send out to several of our friends on the boards (Elana being one of them). This year, less than a week away from Christmas, I'm up and pouring over public blogs and chat room logs mounting a possible defense against what seems to an entirely childish reaction to someone not getting their way, and my wife is crying. We're having conversations about this topic and end up more mad at ourselves and this entire situation than we've been about nearly anything lately.

We're done with this. We're not asking any of you to choose sides, although some very clearly have. What I'm demanding is that this is dropped, and we all move forward. If you disagree with this decision, please leave. No one has written either one of us for our take in the matter since all of this began, but there has been more conversation about it behind our backs than it truly deserves. If you have questions, message Kat or myself and we can provide unedited transcripts since the beginning of this whole mess, and we won't even add in our comments as we send it along. You can decide for yourself.

A lot of you have been here since the original board and you know the both of us. All we're asking is if you've been influenced by one side, that you come talk to us privately. If you don't have the desire to hear us out, please go.

If this is brought up publicly in either our live chat, or our forums it will be removed immediately, and the poster will be banned. TSS is already dirty enough with it, and we're both very tired of this topic.