To date, my assessment of Walter is that he's dodged the issue poorly and with cynical disregard for the intelligence of those involved, shown no willingness to seriously engage in discussion no matter the tone (hence my increasingly confrontational voice), and generally treated the matter with condescension and dishonesty.

This isn't exaggeration at all. He's told lots and lots of fibs; I don't trust him. Whereas prior to being booted I simply wanted him to stop harassing alts and artists, now I'd really just like to see his profile disappear: let tribe.net deal with its social networking tool in a professional rather than personal manner. He's *not* the right man for the job; it's the wrong job. He might be a great guy, but this is not work for a great guy; maybe that's part of the reason for this fiasco.

All that aside, the main thing is that the service is besieged by problems that wouldn't exist if its staff would simply stop succumbing to this bizarre need for control. Let people do as they will; let people steward their own internet experience. Hiding 'bad' things doesn't make them go away, it makes them worse. Example: I didn't use to spend much time telling Walter that he's fucking up by lying.