It's impossible for anyone to make a judgement call here since we have no idea what the post was about.

That said....

Why in the f--k is any part of IFPA trolling people's social media? It's (last I checked) literally forbidden for anyone to be banned from an IFPA tournament for pretty much anything other than bad behavior(cursing, harassment of others, any threats at all, machine abuse etc) at an event. Open events have to be....open.....or it's not a fair competitive environment, it's just a couple of assholes point farming amongst themselves. That was the entire reason they stopped scoring tournaments under X number of people, or why you can't have a "league" of 2 people.

Also...what kind of absolute garbage are you reposing that Colin went after you? The guy hates my guts, and hasn't ever gone to that length to bar me from anything? I can't speak for vendor space, as I've never had a reason to get a spot for that, but I don't *think* Ed or Colin would really have any legitimate reason to bar me from doing so if I really wanted to, and I don't really "get along" with either of them. *scratch head*

From the IFPA page:

Q: How does an event become endorsed by the IFPA, and eligible to award World Pinball Player Rankings points?
A: The IFPA only recognizes open divisions of play to be included in the World Pinball Player Rankings. If certain players are prohibited from playing based on age, gender, skill or personal reasons, those results will not be counted.

Like...you can't bar someone from a ranked tournament just because you disagree with their politics, for example. Believe me...there's a lot of people I would block out if that was not the case.

Bullshit. I've been critical of IPFA plenty of times, and been blown off completely by Sharpe's direct response to my posts about it several times. Nobody ever threatened to ban me, or even suggested it.

Interesting. I guess I'll run some pseudo-invite-only events then and see if they get scored. Because it will only be the people I want there, and if I'm allowed to just arbitrarily ban them from the venue, which happens to be my house, and I don't feel safe having people of a certain political alignment there.....then....I guess there's no repercussions for them, right?

It's got to be this. 100%, no questions asked. There's more going on here. This is *Texas*....land of misogyny, and where the vast majority of the population supports people that just do not believe in human rights at all.

I should've asked for that refund, I won't at this point (for this year) but with the pure hypocrisy going on here I may have to seriously reconsider some things.......it's been perfectly acceptable for what...a decade now.......for several people in the TX pinball community to make me seem like a total piece of shit over having passion for how I play in tournaments, or that I'll argue a point I feel strongly about, to say ridiculous made-up shit like I abuse games (which has literally never happened, but yet nobody said shit when some high level guy coffin drops a game in a public location at a STATE CHAMPIONSHIP and wasn't punished at all, much less banned)...but THIS is ban-worthy? Okay.

That may be true (I don't know the story here, but I'm all ears at this point..), but how does that explain the issue above. Enforcement is uneven, at best, and the higher ranking you are, and the more buddy-buddy you are with the state reps and IFPA officials, the less shit you'll get, even when you do something shitty. There's something wack going on here, and I'm not sure anyone's going to get the real truth of it.....but this is a *really* "slippery slope" premise to start banning people from IFPA and venues on. I'm pretty sure I can find something offensive on at least HALF of IFPA's participants facebook profiles, if not more.

I guess end of the day I'm just glad that I more or less got out of IFPA dick-waving-chase years ago, so I don't have a real stake in how this plays out......but if we're now talking about banning people for what they repost on Facebook from shows.....over....this? We're not getting the whole story. None of this makes any sense. Even with the wonky enforcement of "rules" as far as IFPA goes, this is something that is far beyond anything I've personally experienced with IFPA. Like.....if there's not more to the story here, then IFPA really needs to immediately put up some kind of social media policy so that people are aware they're going to be banned for this stuff. Insensitivity is bad.....but....ban-worthy? I dunno.

No, it's exactly the same if there isn't more to the story here. Reposting that, on it's own, doesn't indicate any hostility or aggression towards anyone, or engender an assumption that they will do anything....assuming you're a reasonable, level-headed person. We're seeing NOW that there's probably more to this story than that, however, my post was predicated on the point that the simple act of posting that image doesn't constitute any threat whatsoever to anyone. The propaganda pushed by people I would ban, however, has an extremely detrimental DIRECT effect on...well....anyone female or transgender? I fail to see a difference.

As much as I dislike Colin (and he dislikes me).....I really can't see him doing this. I've been wrong about people before...but....eh. If there was ever someone I would think he would try to get booted out of a tournament over a flippant personal grudge, it would be me lol. I wouldn't put it past him to turn a blind eye to some things, but to go out of his way to get someone banned over a single social media post is bordering on just being completely unhinged. Doesn't really fit his MO.