I have to admit that - although he really worked my last nerve back when I served as a BT admin - I genuinely like Louie, both in his internet persona and IRL.

He's no fool, and he can be extremely funny. Countering that, he can be incredibly, bitterly, tenaciously, unrelentingly vicious when he decides to be - and in his online version he "decides to be" on a fairly regular basis - and that side of him doesn't seem to have an "off" button.

I get his Facebook feed and enjoy it, for what that's worth, but it's my impression that he will never abide by the UA here on BT. He may say he will, and he may intend to, but at some point "it" is going to happen, and he'll start rolling, and all those good intentions get blown to smithereens.

I'd love to have Louie back. (JK too - who has always been genuinely nice to me both online and IRL - I've even seen him paddle!!)

But, if they do decide to come back - or if EP/Admins decide to let them back (I'm not sure if their current statuses are self-imposed or administrative actions at this point) - I know exactly what to expect. On multiple occasions they've both come back after agreeing to change the way they roll here on BT/LL, and I've seen them make what looked like genuine efforts - for a while - but sooner or later they revert. They are who they are - it's like Mr. Toad promising to give up motorcars - and sooner or later they succumb to the beautiful "toot toot" of the horn, and they're off again, wrecking motorcars and throwing washerwomen off barges and whatnot.

As I say, I have a great fondness for Toad, and I'm similarly warmly disposed towards both Louie and Kuthe, but I'm not sure how we might feel about them personally matters here. If they are unable to abide by the UA, it's a problem. The only tool the site's administrators have to protect BT from genuine "bad actors" is the UA, and if it's not applied as uniformly as is practically possible, the UA is pretty meaningless. Absent the UA and admin enforcement of the UA, the site either becomes "the Wild West", or a petty fiefdom where administrative whim decides whose opinions and epistles are permissible. I don't think either of those potentialities is better than what's here now.

Just in case y'all were wondering what I thought... ;^)