I recently requested to be Permabanned from Citizens of the Imperium after a third and, for me, the showdown with the mods over the subjective interpretation of the rules and their egos being shot down.

I had supported COTI through three usernames sequentially from 2002 to the present, sometimes taking years-long breaks from the nerd chaos that usually ensues on such forums. However, after the original owner passed away and the Far Future Enterprise took over, I noticed a chilling nature regarding the mods and admins. By 2019, I was having a hard time respecting Marc Miller’s support of some of the admins and the subjective nature of their enforcing the rules. One user could get away with what another couldn’t. Twice, I was accidentally made a moderator and could peek behind the curtain regarding the running of the forums. On both occasions, I witnessed the abuse of power and saw how groupthink and sycophancy came into play. In the beginning, I acknowledge when you sign up for these boards, you agree to accept their rules. But there are some cases I witnessed, and some I could read the notes from behind the curtain that disturbed me. I saw a trend of warped perceptions of reality, and in some cases, I had to question the mental fitness of some of the Mods. Petty personal feelings and subjective rule interpretations were the order of the day, and a complete disregard for basic tenets of due process. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the mods suppressed some outright plagiarism. Since I have brought it to people’s attention, more cases have been identified. The mods, even when told “no harm, no foul,” in my case, subjected me to “moderation,” that is after the board owner had said they wanted to see me continue to post on the forums and such. They “just couldn’t let it go” and decided to punish me and then feed me a cock and bull-story of how I was in trouble. The biggest mistake was making me a moderator afterward and allowing me to see what had been written. It didn’t matter that a severe breach of copyright and intellectual property laws had occurred. Their silly little rules, a personal attack, was a well-founded accusation that the party of focus admitted that the crime had happened and was genuinely sorry. The mods are missing the forest for the trees. More so, they reflect the hand-picked nepotistic nature of a senior micro-manager who, by his admission, is very mentally ill.
I will not tell someone else not to join COTI, But I will caution about the cliques, nepotism, and the necrotic nature of administration that occurs there. I would, however, strongly advise against purchasing a subscription