Echo's rants, and the enabling of them (or the blind eyes turned towards them) have driven away a number of users who belong to the groups of people he's seriously labeling mentally deficient or jokingly labeling inferior. All that's driven others to just distance themselves from the community and be Very Very Quiet except in side channels. I know about dozens of instances like this, and for the dozens I know about, there are surely far more that I don't.
I haven't specified this earlier in the thread because I am not going to name names, either because users have requested that I not do so, or because I'm just not going to "out" people, especially when they have (almost to a one) chosen not to "out" themselves. But… at some point, something's gotta be said anyway.
And yes, Echo has continually harassed specific members and groups of members. He has specifically targeted certain people for months on end. Fortunately, he also stopped doing this entirely (as far as I know) sometime last year. But his rants still drive otherwise cool users away and that isn't okay.
Frankly if a channel op ranted about gays/bisexuals/etc in the same ways that Echo does, and he was enabled the same way he is or was until just recently, then I would full stop not still be a part of this site. It's not about being offended, or wanting to be politically correct, or any of that nonsense. It's that I get enough of that shit IRL and I don't need to deal with more of it from a bunch of random people on the internet.
That's why people are driven away.
Also… People who engage in similar rants about groups that Echo sympathizes with, like (say) some flavors of conservative people, DO get kickbanned for those similar rants… by Echo. Don't get me wrong, I make the same kicks, because it's IMO the correct thing to do. My point is that it's hypocritical.
The proper analogy here is (some) Christians and their beliefs about everyone else being tormented in eternal agony forever and ever. It's not and should not be an issue to us if members of our site or staff believe that, even though many of us personally find that offensive. It IS an issue if people (esp. staff) go out of their way to push that belief on people in #site19 where people are majority non-Christian and none of them want to be told that they're going to burn in hell just because you sincerely believe that and you have an "@" next to your name, and it's not cool to expect them to deal with that.
That's what's happening here when Echo goes on his rants about his personal beliefs.
(And they are ONLY personal beliefs, sorry - scientifically speaking, it's on the same level as phrenology. Them's the breaks, man.)
I would also like to take the opportunity to agree with Sorts as well. This isn't about being PC and it's not about pointlessly banning a list of words across the board.
It's not about the people who could be listening and might take offense, it's about the people who are listening and who I personally know were driven away.
I do understand that several of the ops involved in 19 are unaware of this, or just don't understand why there would be an issue, including you, Waxx. So I really should have made more of a point to raise these issues before - even years before - but shit, man, I like Echo, and I'm a hesitant fuck. This has been a problem for years and I've barely said anything except in PMs. That's really 'my bad', and I am sorry for it.
I don't want to be a staff member of a community that drives away people for being specific things that they can't control. It's merely worse because I am one of those things. If it was just me, believe me, I wouldn't even be talking about this.