I haven't played Mafia in a long, long, time. I came back after playing the card game with family a few weeks ago because I forgot how much I enjoy it. Having said that, I'm still learning the "meta" if you will for some of the setups that seem popular, outside of the standard cop/doc/3 town/2 mafia.

I played the setup with Sheriff on a day start, and claimed Sheriff as town hoping it would draw attention to me from maf. Apparently, this is "incorrect" I guess from the way you're supposed to play. I didn't know this, and I didn't realize how harsh people here are about playing only one way or what not without any deviation. Suffice it to say, I certainly didn't think it was "game throwing."

Needless to say, I got reported for this because some of the community would rather just report instantly and throw curse words at you rather than help educate and mentor and explain why perhaps there's a better way or what is wrong with the strategy you employed.

I appealed the ban, which seemed a bit over the top to me, it's just a game, and I thought something like game throwing implies the crazy trolls who out their mafia partners and things of that nature. The mod slowbro responded as follows:

"Save the "pitiful noob" act for someone else. This is your third instance of GTing and you'd already be lobby banned if mindful hadn't been lenient on you."

Several issues with this. First of all I don't know where he gets "third" instance. I got reported for not killing the cop I guess when I should have used telepathy to know who it was? Again, I'm still new from a very long break of several years, I thought we were in an auto loss position, and didn't realize somehow that's game throwing. But beyond that, is that really how mods speak to people? "pitifil noob" act? Are we all 15 years old here? I'm 31 with 3 kids. Can't we be respectful and talk to each other like adults? How does a community expect to grow and foster a warm environment when everyone reports instantly and mods are more than happy to respond with instant bans for "game throwing?" Would it really hurt to help take people under your wing and provide suggestions, advice, etc.? Not everyone who plays sub-optimal is trying to troll games and game throw.

In the grand scheme of things, I can just make another account, I have multiple IP's etc. But it's not about that. It bothers me that this would be considered an acceptable response to people on a game that should be about respectful fun. This is a family game, at least that's how I grew up understanding it.

I'm very disappointed by what I see as a lack of professionalism, particularly during the holiday season. Let's try to be a bit nicer to each other and a bit more understanding of those who want to be a part of this community.

• Josh