A ding dong in the forum.

There has been much wailing and nashing of teeth in the Com forum apropos the sudden *firing* of WP volunteer moderator drmike. It was inevitable. It is OK for an old misanthrope like me to complain, but a moderators responsibilities are different. drmike has repeated used his position as a platform to take endless sideswipes at *staff*. That was clearly unsustainable. There are private channels. He could have resigned. But no. He stayed and did his best to embarrass Automattic at every opportunity. Mark is right. He needs a rest.

drmike also engaged in some very confrontational guerilla tactics with some very experienced WP users. Words like *spammer* should not be used lightly or inappropriately. He can’t complain if some people fight fire with fire.

I have posted in the WP forums for a long time. Sometimes to good effect. Sometimes controversially. But I have until now never butted heads with a mod because it is a no win situation. They have a thankless unpaid task. They are inevitably not perfect. So why diss them? drmike though falls into a different category. I wish him well but I think he needed time to regain his perspective. WordPress dot com gave him that.