Was I wrong? Lol, it was a really dumbass question.
Well, you did come down on the guy really hard, but it
was a stupid question. Not only that, his writing is atrocious (you picked up on that unattached "we" immediately), but you have to expect a certain amount of that on message boards, especially nowadays when hardly anyone can write a coherent English sentence any more. Hunter S. Thompson could write brilliant,
memorable prose when he was bombed out of his skull—
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive ..." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"
"Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough."
From
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1972)
—but now it's hard to find anyone who can write even
one decent, comprehensible sentence, sober.
My own take on moderating, Jim, is that everyone should get one free pass, unless they're completely obnoxious right from the start... I'm sure you remember (for example) Ward Robey, who was a total asshole— and if I'd been a moderator at the time, I would have kicked him off the board in about two seconds. Or less.
If someone doesn't seem to be an actual troublemaker or "ignoranimus," though, I'd let them slide for at least a couple of posts before I brought the hammer down.
That's just one knucklehead's opinion, of course.