Quote Originally Posted by Tonyz View Post
were you one of those banned at some stage, come back as another person...
Well it was a bit more complicated than that. I have retired my own usernames a few times due to poor behavior of others (members and moderators).

I don't do that any more as it is tiresome starting again and building up a post count and some credibility so now I fight back when provoked. It is actually easier in the long-term. The most recent time this has happened was earlier this year so I called him out on his bullying tactics. I now know he was going through some severe mental health issues at the time and I really hope he has sought help. It has been a fortnight today since his last post, which is really unusual, so I hope he is ok and getting treatment.

I was only ever banned once and that was over 10 years ago. That was as a result of a rogue moderator and a discussion about who is legally allowed to work on electrical equipment that is unplugged from the power source. The moderator in question was the holder of an electrical leads testing certificate which you get after a one-day course, so naturally he knew more than the rest of us after such an intensive course of training. So when I posted up the appropriate legislation he deleted my post and planted warning messages all over the thread. He then started editing my posts throughout the forum to make it look like I was saying things I had not said. There were a few other complications and personality clashes to further muddy the waters and I think it is fair to say that the person who actually banned me had been misled as to the actual facts of the matter. In any case I was back with a new username and IP address the same day.