Charles was a good poaster and I appreciated him here; he was an important part of the site culture code and he did good work. If he's gone, I'll miss him. I hope, hilariously and defiantly, that he stays and continues to participate. But he also flouted what has been the cardinal rule of this place since at least the lolsuit days, so I'm told, which is that you don't out yourself, at least unless you have nothing to lose (hence why I share so much about my life in Roanoke).

The reason for that rule back then came from a realization that this site, for all its wonders, also attracts a fucked underbelly. And that hasn't really changed over the past 10-15 years, has it, although it now seems to be becoming amplified in the culture writ large too, with people ready to pounce both on and beyond the bort.

Charles also freely threw himself into the stewpot of politics here which has become its own beast since ~2016 and fundamentally affected the flow of the code. Like his decision to out himself, that was also his own decision; plenty of poasters to this day still weave paths here with very little interaction on political topics. But Charles opted in to that, with all its back and forth electronic barroom brawling &c.

So you have a deadly trifecta of someone with a lot to lose, revealing himself for "reasons," and routinely jumping into the vicious political fray. Is it so surprising that that grenade eventually blew up in his hand? To be clear, I don't wish what happened to Charles on anyone; it's total bullshit.

One response from rach might have been, simply, to do nothing at all. And to let this storm blow over and everyone to move on with their lives. There are very few if any other poasters here who hit that combination of risk points that Charles had. But rach's response instead has been to essentially make inscrutable a collective archive of a decade's worth of thinking and writing, laughing and brawling, satirizing and deadpanning, building and creating together. He's pulled the rug out on essential pillars of a site culture in response to an isolated, unfortunate, but frankly somewhat predictable incident. And that's probably an overreaction and a miscalculation in the grand sweep of things. I say all of this as a man who loves xo.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4581161&forum_id=2#40590262)