There is often a fine line between a "community" and a gang. Some people don't recognize the difference. But there is.

A gang is a self selected group of like minded people who provide unconditional support of one another and consider even relatively minor resistance to their opinions as a great affront that must be attacked.

A gang considers gentle and tolerant behavior between members of the gang but treatment of outsiders can be very nasty, even violent.

The recent melodrama that we saw on the message boards is something that at first looks like just another flamewar.  But looking back on it, what we really have is a confusion between what is a community and what is a gang.

For example, in this recent incident, 3 users, Lady Akasha, Apocalypse67 (to a far lesser extent), and Green Armani, were disgruntled by things they saw on the message boards. Specific behaviors that they considered "unfriendly". But how do you define unfriendly behavior? Well, it seems having looked over their posts, unfriendly behavior is any behavior that disagrees with their points of view.

For instance, in one thread which was yet another complaint about the wallpaper section that, like so many, quickly had one side making baseless accusations against the moderators which eventually got me involved. I said essnetially "I don't care about the wallpaper section. I could care less if any more wallpapers were uploaded." The point of my message was that wallpaper authors do not hold a special leverage. The way we run the wallpaper section is "as-is". Polite discussions on changes are welcomed but threats and peole taking their walls and going are not going to work.

Wallpapers on WinCustomize get more downloads than wallpapers on any other site on the Internet. So we feel justified in the way we run the wallpaper section. I.e. we must be doing something right.

But the response to this was anger and 2 people taking their walls and going because of feeling "insulted". WC was clearly not a "friendly" place.  We don't show "respect" to people here.

All of these words turn out to be code-words for "agreeing with me unconditionally".

All 3 users went to deviantART and proceeded to not just attack WinCustomize in their journals but personally attack the users here and myself specifically with name-calling and the what-not. 

You can see this here:
http://greenarmani.deviantart.com
http://lady-akasha.deviantart.com
http://apocalypse67.deviantart.com

In the Devious comments you can see Lady Akasha and Green Armani saying all kinds of vile things. And yet at the same time, are "disgusted" at the people here and myself in particular. consider that for a moment. I don't recall anyone treating them anywhere nearly as nastily as they are posting over at dA about other people.

In one good example, Green Armani had a problem logging on for some reason. No one had done anything to him. It happens sometimes (not often but it's happened to me too). His first thought was that we had deleted his account for having a differing point of view. He went as far as to imply that the admins of this site are similar to the Nazis and others who would silence dissenters. Except that we had done no such thing. When he managed to log on, several minutes later, no formal apology. Only complaints that he no longer had elite access (which you'll find in every case that these people feel they are entitled to).

But in all of this, the charge is that there is no community here. They're wrong. What we don't encourage here are gangs.  Instead, we value honesty, integrity, objectivity, trust, and fairness. These are the cornerstones of a healthy community. But it's not a gang.

Every once in awhile a community site will find gangs form in their midsts. That is, in my opinion, what we just witnessed.  Such gangs try to impose their views on others and consider any resistance as something to be crushed. the ultimtate code of the gang is that members of the gang are treated with kindness and those outside the gang are treated with utter ruthlessness.

And from reading their posts both here and elsewhere, the ruthlessness and meaness of their personalities has really shown that they don't understand the difference between a community and a gang.