You forget that Goldengates also left for the other client donated over there and realized it was junk and came back. Eliot and Cinnamon aren't denied yet, if you asked them they could tell you.
People make mistakes why should we punish them forever for it?
Trust me it isn't about friends, i make the promotions and i ask for their vote of course, but in the end it comes down to me. I want the best staff team whether the others think it is a good idea or not. Just because they left doesn't mean they still aren't the best, they came back and I went to them.
Lets look at your friend theory
Jordan- We didn't like each other at all
Mikasa- I made a post asking for his demotion when he was global mod
Raflesia- He denied me for mod for months
Smart- I suggested him for mod to Kati and Raflesia before I got demoted.
Gilgad- Someone we had our eye on for over 1 month before we promoted him
Sherlock- A very great moderator and very great Chat Box Assistant, has the knowledge to handle a lot of things, I was never friends with him, nor did i ever speak to him other than recently.
Arctic- A very trusted user, that has previous experience on another site that hasn't been here that long, but shows the dedication it takes to become a great moderator
Solstice- I used to mod with him back in the day when we were both very young, and we did reports faster than anyone and handled everything appropriately. Yes mistakes happened and we both lost our rank, but we are back better than ever.
As soon as Laz told me he was promoting me to admin to get a staff team together the first thing i did was UNBLOCK jordan from skype and ask him if he was staying at osbot because i needed him on my staff team.
We have over 3,000 people on per 24 hours, we have less than 10 mods, I don't want to be one of those forums like PB and the admin replies this to me when I ask him when my report(of a post) would be taken care of. "It will be taken care of in less than 24 hours."... It takes literally 30 seconds to handle a reported post, I don't want someone to have to make a thread asking why their report wasn't handled.