Yup. We are volunteers. We have lives, families, all sorts of stuff. We also are thin these days, as a lot of us have had life events that have kept us away from the site. Add to that the fact that we stick to our parts of the site (for example, I do comments, and don't even know half the forum people), and the fact that some of the forum mods are extra busy means things take time. Of course we don't put up with that sort of thing. We do our best, but we, understandably, have to take care of our real world jobs, families etc. first.

I've brought this to the attention of some of the forum mods, or, at least, messaged them. We'll get on it. Please be patient. We are not bigots. We do our best.

@horgen: sometimes not even.

I think a part of it is the sheer volume of problematic posts was too much to handle. I think the idea of “that’s what the mods are for” forgets that we’re volunteers. Some have drifted away, some have gotten busy with life, etc. COVID made our lives complicated, too. We would wake up in the morning, there would be 300 comments in each article, so many fights between users, so many things on every part of the political spectrum that needed to be modded, and we just didn’t have the manpower, time, or energy. Every single one of those articles led to four, five hours of work, at least, and damn, you try to do that with three kids doing remote learning. We couldn’t keep up.

If we could open those comments and not wake up to…..that….we would. We can’t deal with hours of work. We’re just normal users. If everyone would just be nice, the comments would open.

@bitjetkit

Ok, Bran. Here's an explanation, as you don't seem to want to listen to Byshop.

It's gibberish. Total gibberish. It's weird, it's bizarre, it has no place here. We've told you that. And your alt. And now this one.

LET ME BE CLEAR: The ONLY reason you are still here is that SOME moderators remember you from your mod days when you didn't pull this stuff. So yes. Mod experience. Good on ya. This is why we've all been so very patient.

My thoughts: You may well be trolling us on purpose. You show up, you post the exact nonsense you've posted before, you get Byshop all in a lather, you come to the mod board all self righteous. Rinse, repeat. If that's the case, knock it off. Now.

Other thought: You might need help. If that's the case, please get it. But this is not the place to look.

Even the original post here makes no sense. "mine IS locking down?" "I got banned against three days?" "I volunteered seconds -- my seconds --" Dude, I have a college degree, too, so I can tell you, one grad to another, that your grammar is a mess, your logic makes no sense, and you sound like you need help.

You didn't used to be like this. You've changed.

So I hope you find a way forward in your life that makes some sort of rational sense. I hope, at the very least, that you learn grammar.

But you know? That's really between you and you. Ex mod or not, you don't have a right to come here and babble. And it IS babble. It makes no sense to anyone.

I'll quote your last missive so we're (and by we I mean the mods and staff) all on the same page:

I got the college degree, Computer Science, and I AM. And I got in the Master classes: the Cybersecurity Policy. And I AM. And I have death opportunities Get the college degree, EE and CS, and get a job. Do not be a risk against your instruction, AND your own correction. Sword.

Drivel. Pure drivel.

Absolute, pure, DISRUPTIVE drivel.

And if we keep seeing it, you're gone for good.

Well, if you liked Tomb Raider, the sequels are pretty darn similar. If Bethesda is up your alley, Fallout is pretty similar in terms of difficultly. Fallout 4 is a flawed game, but fun. If you can go grab three or New Vegas, they're dated, for sure, but certainly worth a play.

As for the others, what level are you playing them on? You can turn down the difficulty on all the ones you said were too hard. AC, Uncharted and even the Witcher are pretty much as easy as Skyrim, if easier, if you turn them down to easy or "story."

Good luck.

@Mercenary848: Heh. You could say that. Yes, yes you could say that.

I'm sure trial litigation (I did mostly wrongful death) is worse than say, tax law, but...well, let's just say that a) we had a bar in the office which we used all the time and b) I walked away and don't miss it one bit.

Anecdotal evidence, but that's my anecdote.

@Mercenary848: Sorry, I chucked cuz going from patent law to DUI is kinda like saying "Well, I thought being really rich would be fun, but I decided to be really poor."

Think hard about law. There's money to be made, it's so, but man....let's just say that when we had kids, we wanted one parent to stay home. I'm OldDADGamer because my wife was very happy, and very much wasn't. I don't miss law at all.

@gamerguru100: well, that's a bit of an outlier. That was nuts even by law standards. And the dude was this tall, muscular, charming guy, like, one of those dudes so perfect you'd hate them if they weren't so damn much fun to hang out with.

Some guys have all the luck.

@Mercenary848: Some do. But I was a trial lawyer, and there's really two paths there: take a private firm gig and not try a case for years, or go into the trenches of criminal law, make nothing, but try two or three cases a week. Show the private firms you can win, then jump ahead of all the dudes who went there straight out of school.

But criminal prosecution or public defense? Not exactly big money.

Of course, I had a friend who had the qualifications to be a patent lawyer. He walked out of school at the ripe old age of 25 into a job at a Manhattan firm and a starting salary of 450K a year.

Yet another reason I really should've studied computers.

@Mercenary848: I started a trial law career at 24, my wife started an academic research career at 22. Crazy of us both. But it worked out!

I also think a factor is, are you in a field where you tough it out, climb the ladder and be pretty sure you're doing a-ok by the time you're forty, or are you in a career where the max is pretty close to the entry and you gotta make your money the whole time? My wife and I, both of us had/have careers where you didn't make much at all early, but, if you toughed it out, there was a big payout later. We spent our years living a terrible apartment, living on store brand pasta, but here we are living quite well, quite well indeed, in our early 40s. But not all careers are like that.

Always make sure you know where the NEXT logical step is, and plan accordingly.