Let me show you a comment.

Nice play, but I'm actually surprised at the streamer. She's a women, comely, and she's actually good placing in mid-high EU master. Why haven't I heard about her before or seen her on the launcher and why doesn't she have like hundreds of viewers?

Pretty cringe, right? Easy downvote.

Now here's a question: Why? do you dislike this comment?

A. It reads like it was written by a creepy virgin who spends his free time awkwardly flirting with girl streamers.

B. It reads like it was written by a cynic who thinks girl streamers get easy views by virtue of being born female.

C. It's sexist or it is insulting to the streamer in question.

D. Two or more of the above choices.

E. Other.

Stop here for a second and make sure you're straight about what your answer is.

Now here's a no doubt surprising revelation /s:

>! The comment was made by me !<

If you answered A or B, then I'd suggest that you just keep reading. If you answered C, I would ask you to briefly explain exactly what sexist claim or implication is in that comment. Failing that, I would ask if, in your opinion, the comment is obviously sexist and needs no explanation.

As you have no doubt gathered, I didn't think it was obvious. And I asked for an explanation. A direct quote of my request is:

All you're saying is "rule 2 prohibits sexist remarks" and that you found my post "sexist". So that narrows down that it's not racism, an insult, homophobia, or otherwise discriminatory. But it leaves unanswered what is sexist about it. This shouldn't be difficult. Even for posts where I've criticized mods, I could isolate a string of words that could be interpreted as a rule violation and give a brief explanation why. I disagree with how you handle it, but at least there's a kernel of reality there. Where is the kernel of reality here?

To show that I didn't ask for something impossible or unreasonable, here's a quote of a comment by /u/4trevor4 (random guy I found with a modded post):

griefing is a slightly annoying offense now. Go fuck yourself you blizz fanboy

Now I can tell you here that this entire comment is not offensive. The first sentence is fine. It's the second sentence that's insulting. And it's more the "go fuck yourself" part than the "blizz fanboy" part that's insulting. "Go fuck yourself" is a well known phrase of abuse and is easily classifiable as an insult. Done. I identified concrete words in the post which make it a rule violation. Any further explanation would have to go into the details of why "go fuck yourself" is insulting.

Is a simple explanation of the basic lexical facts too much to ask of a group people that boasts a lawyer as their member? Should people who can in 2 seconds delete a comment that could have taken you many minutes to write demonstrate at least some evidence that they gave it some thought before deleting it? The mods don't think so themselves because they never gave me an explanation, muted me for 72 hours to get the last word, and said that it's a "community standard" that their actions can only be discussed in PM.

Don't take this post as an indictment of the mods. Even if you agree with the vast majority of what the mods do and think that my comment was garbage, just try sorting my comment history by controversial. You'll see that the few negative karma comments I have are unpopular opinions about things like smurfing, game-related stuff or saying that I don't think RichHero is all that bad. Very few of my posts are "uncivil" and the ones that could be called that are mostly over a year old. So I'm not a bad guy, and I can make a "bad" post and I'll get downvoted or even modded. It's plausible then that "good" mods can sometimes be less than stellar in their conduct. But for some reason, they can't be publicly challenged and any explanation they provide is on unilateral terms that benefit only them.