I am aware I voted no to the Presidency thing. I understand how this looks but ultimately if it exists I am all for trying. I never once made a secret of my ambitions to be a moderator here, yet I accept that both due to aggression I had to a couple of users here early on and due to me being a social outcast amongst the 'clique' who are moderators, I'll never be one for the foreseeable future.
So, I want you to know what I can and will do for you if you put me in the president position and explain why I am better than almost anyone else who will run for it.
Defense Attorney Guarantee
I absolutely promise you that no matter what Chris, Supa, Ragnar, David or whoever does to gaslight or silence you if/when a ban heads your way and you speak harshly against it, I will both personally represent your case to them even if I disagree with you and think you earned your ban as well as to create a thread myself that they won't dare to close, about your ban for the community to discuss in.
To prove to you that I represented you, I will post captions from our conversations regarding your moderation to a thread I create after the verdict is finally given or they ignore me completely.
Politics/Religion and Bias worries
I identify as left-wing and religiously you could call me agnostic but really I have my own theory that is close to Taoist philosophy in its conclusions and the way I go about life.
I can't promise you that I am going to be completely immune of bias in terms of caring as much if someone who agrees with me is censored vs someone espousing views I disagree with and I think any other candidate who promises you that is not self-aware.
What I can promise you is unless you have been particularly nasty to me personally, I'll unblock you and hear out why your particular censored content is wrongly treated that way.
In cases of harassment and two-way bullying, I have never and will never just instantly say the left-wing person or less religious person is in the right. To me, BrotherDThomas is a much bigger issue to the website community than Ethang5 despite the former blatantly being an atheist troll guised as a Christian and the latter being an unabashed Conservative Christian.
I know what bias is and am aware I have it but I will do everything in my conscious power to correct it. If and when it does happen, I am open to criticism, it will be something I'll need to prove doubters wrong on. I'm not immune to it, I accept it.
My agenda
My primary agenda is to make DART more of a website I'm not ashamed to show off to my family and IRL friends or whatever. As it is now, it's bit of a cringey trollfest in many departments and it's not as much an issue that the trolls are active as it is that I feel not enough special events like debate tournaments and actual worthwhile threads are created and contributed to.
I am going to heavily ensure if someone is baited by trolls to overreact and then gets banned that such user doesn't need to operate here totally afraid and instead ensure that the mods see who the provoking member was and to put into context each post.
I also want to give tips and advise to users in situations that I, as an ordinary user, perhaps never get to hear about or see in a combination of private and public clashes. As you know, I support using the block function much more readily and without the shame that most do. I'd always advise that as a default but I am quite good at seeing situations from both sides and would give tailored advice to any user who is feeling targeted and doesnt know how to handle it without lashing out and who feels the mods don't care.
I want this website to be a pleasure, a website you open every other day excited to see what's being posted rather than worry which nuisance has posted and made you not bother to use the site anymore due to. Those who don't know what I am referring to or how it can be achieved without censorship are welcome to vote against me. Those who want to see if I live by my word, should vote for me and see.
I am not going to cower to Chris, Supa, Ragnar or any of them. I am my own person and my agenda is entirely independent of whatever their clique may approve or or laugh into silence. Whatever you want for the website or to get heard in your defebse, let me know. If you're banned and feel nobody heard your case out, I'm not entirely sure what to do yet as I am not keen to give an email nor would I regularly check one but eventually off-site communication can be arranged. At the moment the presently banned seem to all be severe cases. The only one I think actually could be overturned would be Type1 but that's without knowing when he'd next go wild. When he tries, he's an extremely active and entertaining member. When he doesn't try, he becomes toxic and stupid and I do think personally that he knows that but anyway, the rest I'm not sure about. They all seem legitimate permabans.