_OC_ is banned from the forum.
In the end, it wasn't a hard decision. You can't make comments on a football forum that Black people are ruining European countries. He knew this when he made the post, and he acknowledged the possibility of the post getting him banned when he made it.
I don't think _OC_ is a racist or a bad person. I still remember making a podcast episode with him back in the late 2010s. He's a good bloke who I always enjoyed talking to, both on the forum and during that recording. However, the number of incidents he's had on this forum continue to stack up. He's gotten into infraction-worthy altercations with at least three separate forum members over the last three years. At some point you need to acknowledge you're the problem. He doesn't fit the culture of our forum.
_OC_ did make valid points in his lengthy post.
We are going back to taking a firmer stance against political posts. Infractions will be given immediately, without warnings. This Argentina singing/chanting saga is a polarizing topic, but there's no need to discuss it on the forum unless it's directly pertaining to the possibility of Lautaro getting suspended and the impact a suspension would have on Inter. I admit I am guilty of talking about this from a political lens, too, and will be better in the future. As I stated in my response to _OC_, I am worried because political posts are often hard to discern. Some (such as the racially charged one he made) are obvious. Others are not. I'm going to pick on a noted right-wing forum member and show an example of "challenging" posts to moderate.
Is this political in nature? Does it deserve an infraction, even though it doesn't interact with other forum members? As a moderator team we're going to need to make decisions on posts like these now. You may not always like our decisions, but we'll always be open to having conversations about our thought processes behind our decisions.
_OC_ also stated he believes our moderation team is biased. I obviously do not agree with that, but if you have any issues with our approach to the moderation of political topics on the forum, please do not be afraid to speak up. I don't want the optics of this to be "_OC_ criticized the moderators and got banned." As stated above, he was banned because of his comments and assertions about Black people. I acknolwedge I've made mistakes as a moderator and am open to critcism if there's anything you think we're doing wrong.
For the most part, we don't do much actual "moderation" on this forum. I firmly believe you guys do a great job managing yourselves in the community. Even with all these political discussions the last couple months on the forum, we've had only to give our three infractions - two for personal insults and now this banning. I'm active on Reddit and see the complete waste of space their Inter-related conversations are. This place is special to me, and you guys are the reason why.
Happy to answer any questions about this.