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I have the strange sense that Doug is the rapey name and Kenneth would be edgy, and I have no clue why it would be that way. I've never known a Doug or a Kenneth! Anyways-
Males in even slightly feminist spaces get the same feeling. Since The Motte moved off reddit I've spent more time at /r/blockedandreported than here, and while it's not "explicitly" feminist per se- one quickly finds oneself on the backfoot when certain issues or writers come up; say anything with disparate impact on men, or Julie Bindel. It has its fair share of type-B trolls, as well. And yet! There is some value to it. So I stay.
That said, there is still a line. Maybe Julie Bindel isn't quite equivalent to one of the JQ types that haunt The Motte. If Noel Ignatiev, Donald Moss, or even Tema Okun showed up, would I find it tolerable to stick around? Could I roll my eyes, downvote, and move on like with the JQ types? Maybe. But for how long? If they keep toeing the line, getting banned but coming back? Probably not.
A mod in a different forum once said that she didn't do a permanent ban "to not create a certain kind of martyr." Instead that particular problem returns on schedule, almost but not quite clockwork, to make an outrageous post and get banned again. That forum is small enough it doesn't matter. Maybe if it was only one, who showed up annually for a day or two, it wouldn't matter here, either. Alas.
I don't know where I'm going with this, so I'll end it here. If you go, I'll miss your comments, though I completely understand why you'd find this place uncomfortable to stay. I do hope you'll be better than I would, in the alternative situation, and find it in you to stay.
That is one of the unfortunate side effects of moderation based largely, though not entirely, on tone. B&R shares that issue. The calm denier gets a pass, the gasket-blowing lib does not. They get a pass for calling Appalachians retards (it's not a direct insult of another comment, you see); I get a suspension for calling them a bigot. So it goes.
I kind of think that "successful" forums basically need to commit to one of three styles: Strict on Tone, Anything Goes, and Bare Minimum Social Standards. Trying to toe the line between these types leads to nothing but suffering. Strict on Tone, which is kind of The Motte's attempt insofar as I understand it, at least has some kind of consistency even if there are tradeoffs. Bare Minimum has the appeal of being commonly understandable if not technically consistent. And as the OP mentioned there's a certain charm to Anything Goes. I don't think Strict on Opinions works long-term. I don't think Slightly Elevated Standards works because it's too subjective too quickly. The one caveat is that "topic bans" actually work far, far better than you might imagine, despite being annoying and worsening the forum in some way. For example, for all of its many (many) problems, reddit's AITA low-key benefitted from banning all wedding topics, even if it made the subreddit far less enjoyable by their absence.
Topic restrictions work well because healthy communities - particularly though not exclusively healthy male-coded communities - have a purpose and the types of conversation that you don't want are almost certainly not advancing the purpose of the community. My understanding is that a key vector of wokestupid rot was SJWs in social environments which normally stayed on-topic convincing the mods that advocating for under-represented groups was so valuable and so obviously harmless that they should be allowed latitude on this point.
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Things like this will always remind me of the Something Awful poster who was banned for posting solicitations for one of his personal businesses in a subforum where that isn't allowed for 11 years. Then, 11 years to the day he broke the exact same rule in the exact same subforum. He caught another 11 year vacation and everyone fully expects to see him in 2035 when this one expires, assuming the forum still exists.
11 years! What a performance, I appreciate the commitment to the bit.
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