Hello Wilco, thank you for dealing with this personally, it is much appreciated and gives me the opportunity to fully explain.
I am aware I was not originally involved in the initial blanket ban, but I was caught up in the situation because I was unable to make a decision, that decision beeing to completely remove those people from my life.
I feel it's important you understand my pov, these people were close freinds of me, I've played most of my free time with and around them playing games, relaxing and having a laugh.
I wasn't aware of their actions towards this Community, and I wouldn't have tolerated it if I had been. I'm aware they were troublemakers, but only to a minor degree, such as their forum behaviour.
The whole situation happened very quick when I was at work. So I got home to find this big mess that then required me to make a pretty major decision and it was something I couldn't.
Since my ban, I've had time to think about it all and I've now been able to cut them out, but it wasn't easy, even knowing what they had done they were still good friends to me personally.
The Community means a lot to me, it does and I feel my time and effort here to make it a better place through positions such as Mentor showed that.
Again, these were good friends of me on a personal level, if I knew of major issues against them, I would have reported them, but I feel it harsh from you to say that me not reporting them is in some way condoning what they did.
I wouldn't call it a change of heart, I'd simply say that I've had the time to look through it all, see what they did, and how they acted...
with this Community being the main place for us to all come together, being banned from it did indeed create a lot of distance, and made it easier for me to move on from them...
Now that I have done that, I would like to return to this Community.