Perhaps I can help, having been the acting mod for the thread.
If I understand correctly, you were wondering why the post you referred to with Green Zone violations was not removed. Then later you saw that it had been. It just took a while for it to get done, and that was what Cave Diver was saying. As it happened, I was sound asleep in my faraway time zone when the post was made, and I woke up to see it, and then promptly took care of it.
As to what effect one particular member has on the moderation of other members, I would say no specific effect. We protect all of our members, and we don't protect any individual member more than any other individual member. We do, however, try to shield certain groups--new members, and especially those who are also new divers--from the shock of the strongly-worded replies that are frequently encountered in the more advanced forums.
You're partly correct in what I was asking ... but I'm not referring so much to a specific action or post as I am a pattern of behavior.
I'm quite in favor of shielding new members, and especially those who are also new divers, from the shock of strongly-worded replies ... in fact, I've come to their defense on many occasions against such things.
What I'm not in favor of is shielding new members who display a pattern of behavior that
invites those strongly-worded replies ... only to then complain about it when people disagree with them. It's not a question of being unfriendly ... I certainly have never seen, in all her posts, TSandM being unfriendly on this board. Does she deserve the abuse this poster heaped on her simply because she disagreed with what he had posted? Does the poster deserve automatic protection from her ... or anyone else's ... dissenting opinions simply because he's new? This poster has ... in a short time ... developed a history of creating threads that are lightning rods ... not because the topics are controversial, but because of his proclivity of stating absolute opinions on topics he knows very little about. And even when someone makes an honest attempt to explain something to him, he takes it as a personal attack. Some of the moderation in those threads has left me shaking my head in wonder at how the staff doesn't see that they're enabling the behavior ... what amounts, to my concern, to a temper tantrum that you'd expect from a toddler. You don't break that behavior by shielding the toddler ... you break it by making the child understand that it's not acceptable, and you're not going to put up with it.
That is the other side of this coin that must also be considered, because it's just as disruptive. The post I referred to was just one example of this behavior ... both with this particular user and with other users who have done similar things in the past.
I concur that the Green Zone forums should protect users from strongly-worded replies. But when the thread opens with a strongly-worded premise, perhaps the appropriate action would be to notify the OP that the thread is inappropriate for that forum because of the special rules, and move the topic to a more appropriate place, where it can receive the treatment it deserves.
Because ... like in diving ... we must all bear responsibility for the consequences of our decisions ... otherwise, like in diving, we encourage people to depend on others to "keep them safe" ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)