Gather 'round children and let me tell you a story.

As most of you are aware, a whole lot of crazy went down today. As one of the few who came out unscathed, allow me to detail the events that took place since many of you still seem to be confused. I'll try to be as bipartisan about this as possible, so hopefully no one feels as though either side is being attacked.

As most of you know, DeanB is a long time member of the Kotaku community and an avid contributor. As such, he voiced his opinions as to what he felt were flaws with the way Kotaku handled their business and was destarred for this a while back.

Flash forward to today and the culmination of that event had reached it's peak. DeanB was banned for making off topic remarks and trolling.

As such a large force in the Kotaku community, this obviously didn't sit well with many veteran and active Kotaku users, especially those of the Kotakuites community and Kotaku's steam group.

Some people were civil in their discussion and simply asked why this event had taken place, but had their posts grayed or destarred for making off topic remarks (which, admittedly, they were), while others were more inflammatory and were banned because of it (See: Bill Clinton).

The lack of any real answers as to why this was happening seemed to spark the opinion that D-Day had come and that the oppressive Kotaku regime was going to destroy us all - which wasn't the case, but people took it as such. Then all Hell broke loose.

Tempers flaired, posts were livid, and the anger spewed out into the sea of commenters. One after another, posts were made with Crecente's head on Hitler, expletives every other word, and all manner of chaos ensued.

Thus, the Kotaku Intern Army was called into battle. An ocean of disemvoweled comments as far as the eye could see. Unfortunately for a lot of people, the interns' job was only to settle down the riot rather than handle quality control and a lot of great commenters were destarred or banned altogether in the process.

However, things have since died down. Many of you are at this point wondering what the hell happened. Now you know. The rest who witnessed the events are curious as to what will happen or if they even want to continue visiting Kotaku anymore.

For those who aren't a member of Kotaku's steam group or the forums, the editors have gotten in touch with some of the Kotakuites. Owen popped in Steam chat and Crecente had a discussion with Komrade_Kayce which can be viewed further down here in SpeakUp.

It seems over the next few days, things will be resolved and we'll get an official response over today's events. Crecente's comment on the matter can be viewed here: [kotaku.com] So don't think the world has ended.

I see a lot of wonderful commenters talking about hanging it up and going elsewhere, but that's precisely why I'm shedding a light on this. I'd hate to see all of you leave the site over today's events simply because things got out of hand from both parties. Stick around and lets see how things turn out, shall we? Kotaku has the best community around and I'd hate to see some of you guys leave over what occurred, especially when the whole ordeal is being resolved.

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@Kanji08: I was just going to ask what happened. Thanks for the summary.

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@Kanji08: This is the best comment I've read all day. *claps*

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promoted by Kanji08
@Kanji08: Both the editors and the commenters acted like children today. Both should be ashamed but I am more ashamed at the commenters. Seriously.

Children. I am disappoint.

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@Manly McBeeferton: Really? Huh. You're a vet, I've only been registered for 9-12 months I think, so I'm inclined to accept your read on the situation. Plus you always seem to have a pretty level head. From my perspective, though, things looked like this:

dean got banned, a lot of commenters reacted (mostly) in solidarity, and mass bannings fell from on high.

I certainly saw some comments that qualified as over-the-top, but I also don't have a hard time understanding why people reacted that way.

Again, I realize my perspective is really that of an outsider - I've been coming here for forever to read Kotaku, but I've only posted within the last year, and sporadically at that. I just saw things in a different light, which surprises me.

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@Kanji08: Are you the kanji from the Kotakuites forum?

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promoted by Kanji08
@Kanji08: Awesome summary.

I will drink a beer in prayer for the return of DeanB and Bill Clinton

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promoted by Kanji08

@Kanji08: Post of the day, bro. Informative and fair, good job. They should make a link to it from the front page for everyone wondering what happened, cuz there's a ton of em.

This pic also made my day.

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@Kanji08: GO YOU!
You cleared up a lot. I know many of us were confused.

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promoted by Kanji08
@Kanji08: Thanks, Kanji. And you're right: the world has not ended. At least Texas hasn't, from where I'm sitting.

Cheers all.

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@Kanji08: Thanks for the summary of what happened. Figures I have to go to work right before all the crazy stuff goes down.

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@Kanji08: Hinteresting. So the editorial shenanigans aren't just limited to Jezebel, huh?

Solidarity, brothers and sisters!

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@Kanji08: Thank you very much for the clarification. Also, instead of D-Day, can we mark this, July 5th, 2010, as Dean(B)-Day/D(ean)-Day?

Get it? It's punny!

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promoted by Tiller
@Captain_Goober:

Yeah, Dukakis was hungover from the forth and missed everything. It's the only reason you got to pun that first. XD

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@Kanji08: I did the right thing in this by ignoring it completely on this site, but discussing it on the forums.

I did not want to add fuel to the fire, but I was also paranoid over losing my account due to this mess since I thought the editors were ban crazy. Thankfully, for complaints about Kotaku, there will be a new monthly Kotaku topic which will occur.

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@Kanji08: Thanks for the explanation. Of all the days to take a vacation from the internet...

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@Kanji08: Wow. Saved again by my lack of (home) internet.

I'm starting to think that AT&T's service delays are a blessing in disguise…

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