Well it's a bit of a shock. I don't know anything other than what I've read on here, but I know John's a reasonable and patient man and I will assume he made a reasonable decision. I do not believe John would make an accusation that he was unable to corroborate. I'm sorry this happened, but I think in addition to the valuable contribution he made, unfortunately Doug may have been his own worse enemy too. One part of me has to admire his subversive tendencies, but I know the Administrators certainly did not have to admire nor tolerate disruption of a forum that they provide as a free service to the public. I tried to avoid the whole Spartacus issue because I basically stopped reading the threads that got degraded with the back and forth attacks. Those kinds of attacks don't interest me because they're irrelevant. But trying to be objective about it, it appears to me that Spartacus was temporarily suspended to save the feelings of people on here. Disruption of the forum was a side effect of that whole matter. Apparently from what John has stated, he acted because disruption of the forum was the goal, and not just a side effect of whatever Doug planned to do. But whatever, the matter is not in my hands and I'm happy that it is not.
Doug and I butted heads a few times, but I learned to tolerate his approach. Yes, he often contributed useful information among much junk mail. His style made it sometimes difficult to sort the useful from the junk, but that's our problem, not his. Nobody was forced to read or digest Doug's contributions.
The sooner everyone makes an effort to stick to a discussion of issues, and leave the personal jabs out, the better this forum will be. I know as well as anyone that it is difficult to not have an emotional reaction to certain things that are said, but I urge us all to avoid immediately voicing that emotional reaction as one's stance. To do so makes us too similar to anti-gun groups and individuals who always lead off with some sort of emotionally-charged statement, and nothing beyond that because they do not think past the emotions.
As for promises to not renew WCI memberships, to me that's not unlike kicking the dog when you get home from a bad day. Why take it out on WCI which has nothing to do with running the forum? As Nik pointed out, WCI exists well beyond postings on OCDO. Your membership, or lack of membership, ought to reflect whether your agree or disagree with WCI's approach and goals. WCI has no approach or goals or involvement with the decisions of OCDO administrators. I can't speak on behalf of OCDO administrators, but I doubt they care whether a person withdraws their participation from the forum. I suspect their goal is to provide a forum that is conducive for a good dissemination of information and to allow like-minded people to communicate with one another. There goal is not to make any particular person happy.
If you believe that it is appropriate to end membership based on the actions of a third party (in this instance OCDO) then I will suggest that you haven't thought it out very well and perhaps you'll reconsider when you've cooled a bit.
I would also suggest that the same goes for a decision to withdraw participation in the OCDO forum as some sort of protest. If you believe you have nothing of value to contribute, then fine. Don't post. If you believe your contributions are valuable, post-- but don't deceive yourself into thinking the forum will fall to pieces if you no longer post your valuable contributions. It won't. It will chug along as it always has.