Recently on BoardGameGeek, a cartoon lampooning Tom Vasel's work ethic was posted. In the ensuing posts, a comment came up referring to an episode of Tom's podcast, The Dice Tower. The episode in question had his wife as the co-host. While listening to this episode, their interaction stood out to me as peculiar. I can't remember for the life of me what the content of their dialogue was, due to the way Tom handled his wife. It was so jarring, I was more drawn in by their curious interaction, more than the topic at hand.

Well, obviously, I wasn't the only one. This post's conversation soon turned to how many other people noticed this too.

Then, it was gone.

Censored.

Matthew M. Monin (Octavian) felt that the thread violated the site's posting policies and killed it. Matthew then went on to kill every post that mentioned the incident. According to him, mention of a deleted thread violated the site's posting policies. He then threatened me with a revoking of my ability to post, if I brought up the incident again. Matthew was determined to sweep this under the rug. To quote him, "No...and please be advised that despite this misunderstanding future behavior of this sort that is in blatant disregard of the posting guidelines may be met with restrictions placed on your posting privileges."

It appears that if you become a big enough celebrity in the boardgaming microcosm, people will leap at the chance to cover up your indiscretions and further enable your behavior.

Matthew M. Monin, connoisseur of Black Markers, Thought Cop and Serial Thread Killer. And in my book, one of many thin-skinned cowards who would rather shape their world by chopping off the unseemly parts, rather than accept criticism.