The week of March 24-30, on the Q&A/Social Networking website called quora, the teenage community was suddenly attacked by an organized series of Trolls. They did not merely annoy them, rather harassed with a ferocity unparalleled by any other act made on the website. The trolls only recently were persuaded to cease their brutal actions, but it was far too late: the damage they did was the equivalent of a mortal wound in the minds & spirits of the teenage community. However, the enemy was vanquished, and they could finally celebrate.

Or they would have. Had not Quora moderation decided to finally take action against the trolls. You see, what the trolls did was, amongst other vile, despicable actions, most of which cannot be repeated on this site for the fear that innocent eyes may stumble across it, create multiple accounts. Ironically, the solution to this came in the form of one very brave (and handsome) Quora Teen creating an alternate account, and using it to pose as a troll, and convince several others to stop harassing. This worked as well as could be expected, coming from the mind of one with a prowess for deception, and the trolls were, for the most part, defeated.

Unfortunately for our hero, Quora moderation decided to crack down on multiple accounts, in effort to rid the world of trolls. An action that would have been applauded had it come at literally any time before then. Unfortunately, by then the only people with alternate accounts were those who decided to wield them for good. And thus, the defenders of the teenage quora community were struck down by the very website that they were trying to save.

The damage has been done. Many of the people banned have no means of communication with the people they called friends. Many of them were suffering from depression, fueled by their upbringing. Quora was a place where they could belong. Where they would not have to be alone. A place for real, true, healthy relationships. A place to make life worth living.

but now, no longer. Quora decided that because policy was broken, they deserved to be stripped of the only place that made them feel welcome.

A girl who tried to run away from home.

A girl who was sexually harassed by her own father

A boy whose parents disapprove of all that he does.

A young boy who found a place that he felt he could finally make friends.

A place for all, a place no more.

But it does not need to be this way forever. You can help.

As Martin Luther King jr. once said: “An unjust law is no law at all” Should we be to blame for doing what was nessecary? What we had to do, to save the place that we loved? The place where our friends were? 

Ask yourself: is this fair? Is it right, that in trying to solve the problem, when the only solution was reached, the solution to a problem Quora decided to ignore, the solution that was formed from pure necessity!

We are the ones who get punished? This was so easily avoidable! And yet when we asked the gaurdians of the site to extend their reach to get rid of a threat to our place, they refused? And when we were forced to make our own solution, we’d were punished?

let me ask you: do you want to live in a world where people can ignore & punish the people who want to change, make their lives a better life, just because they were tired of us speaking up?

I believe that if one refuses to solve a problem on their own website, rather leaving it to fester & burgeon until it infects everything good about the haven that was built by those who needed it, then they cannot even remotely be expected to suddenly uphold the rules when it gets rid of an annoying group of users, who dared to try and make moderation get off their ass and actually do something. I think that those banned should be allowed back to the website.