A little earth ground humor

[Robert Reed]

MrAl
I too feel ashamed for being dragged down to this level, but as with others it becomes inevitable when the troll enters a post.If you read through this post and see the worthless diversion and downright nasty repllys he has posted, it becomes apparent why this happens.This was one of my replys and written in earnest -

"Oh no, you are mistaken
We are just a friendly group having a very interesting and knowledgeable discussion. And as such each shared a little bit of knowledge that aided all of us in a leap-frog style fashion.
It is called learning from others and aside from your negative replys, I think the rest of us will walk away from this post having a little more insight on the subject!"

This only resulted in another vicious attack by the troll at ones credibility and knowledge,while at the same time offering no worthwhile information to the thread.
I know what the problem is, you and bodgy and Michael know what the problem is , the whole forum knows what the problem is - And everyone knows there is only one solution here. And until that takes place, nothing will ever change inspite of the best intentions.

BTW - I opened this topic with the thoght that a little humor would have lightened up the situation that took place on the prior 'AC grounds' post. But the humor didn't last for long

[Lenp]

To All

This whole thing is similar to road rage but I think it can easily be controlled.

I agree with the thinking that banning or censuring is not the answer. We already have enough Big Brother in our lives and another one is unwelcome.

What I feel would be an approporiate control is to simply ignore any inapropriate posts, that contained rants or raves. Naturally, an outright viscious attack should be dealt with differently.

Like others, have been guilty of throwing meat over the top of the cage from time to time, maybe its an ego thing, but, If it places the future success of this worthwile forum at risk, I don't think it's worth it. A preacher without a congregation saves no souls, but only makes an echo! Any animal, supplied wih excess food, thrives and grows while starvation will cause withering.

Let's try this approach and see if things quiet down. Consider that if you are secure in your knowledge, have a firm background, and are comfortable in your position, why give a hoot what fact lacking professor of all knowledge with a left-wing attitude thinks? Is it worth digging through the smelly trash for the few crumbs that MAY be there for the taking?

I really do expect a lash back. It's the core of the epidemic problem, but, before you waste any bytes, remember that I'll just try to ignore it if it's out of line. If you really want to do some a one-on-one contest, spare the other users and send a PM, but then, You'll not have an audience!

Censure with a silent keyboard!

Len

[philba]

the simple fact is that shunning or silence doesn't work. This is because it requires 100% participation and that simply never happens.

On the subject of banning. Consider this scenario. You are in a restaurant and one of the other patrons starts swearing in a loud voice. People start asking him the stop it but that just makes him swear all the more. What should the management of the restaurant do? Ignore him? Ask the other patrons to ignore him? No, he kicks the guy out. The management reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Now, tell me how this is any different?? This isn't about big brother, this is about maintaining a civil discourse. And this forum isn't public, it is a private establishment where people gather at the pleasure of the management.

To carry the restaurant analogy farther, if they don't kick the jerk out, the patrons leave and don't come back. They go to some other restaurant the next time they go out. and that is exactly what's happening here.

[Lenp]

Philba,

You may be right about shunning. 100% is near impossible in any society.

So...
As to your restaurant comparison, there is 'management' with power to control, and bear the responsibility. In the restaurant scene, the patrons complained and the management acted. Does such a 'management' entity exist on this forum? If so, why then, since complaints have been lodged, is there any discussion about the action required?

I do see from previous posts, that there seems to be a reluctance, or lack of policy, to ban an undesirable member. If indeed the policy exists, then it should be enforced if it is applicable. If not then the policies should be reconsidered, and possibly changed.

As a last resort, adopt a new set of forum rules, for all members,
Something on the order of the software EULA could be used. Make a draft, put it up for a vote and if agreed upon invoke it after adoption the next time a user logs in. Like it or not, agree or not. It's your option.

Will some refuse and leave, probably; but then some will also leave if the forum degrades beyond recovery. If it is done without malice or bias, I think the only losers will be the ones who leave, not the ones who stay, and the mechanism to remove offenders will be firmly in place.

No wars intended!

Len

[philba]

From the FAQ:

What are Administrators?
Administrators are people assigned the highest level of control over the entire board. These people can control all facets of board operation which include setting permissions, banning users, creating usergroups or moderators, etc. They also have full moderator capabilities in all the forums.

So clearly, there was the anticipation that users would be banned.

to remind people, here is my proposal: http://forum.servomagazine.com/viewtopic.php?t=7496
No such thing will occur since the N&V management doesn't really understand forum dynamics and perhaps don't sense the true potential. They should go look at electro tech and realize what they could have been. But again, I doubt that will happen.

[Chris Smith]

Did any one mention banning Ignorance?

Seems to me the loudest controversial posts here that don’t stop, come from the “you cant do it crowdâ€

[MrAl]

Hi again,


Seriously, many people here are talking about banning other members,
but how do you decide if someone should get banned or not?

If someone posts 9 out of 10 replies that are perfectly known to be
wrong technically, does this mean they should get banned?
Or should it be 8 out of 10, or 5 out of 10?

It's also very hard to judge the technical accuracy of subjects that
can come up. What else happens is that someone 'says' another
person is wrong about something and then later it's found that that
person was actually correct.

It seems that other people will argue their point until the day they
die, even if shown numerous reasons why it wont work or is not
that feasible in reality. But, is this a reason to ban someone?

Just some things to think about.

Also, i'll remind members here that i am only a moderator, not an admin,
and if you think you have a good enough reason that someone should
be banned then you should talk to an admin because i cant ban anyone.
As i said in the past several times, if you see a post that you think is
bad and needs to be removed due to objectional content (such as
slander) that's something i can do something about, but it makes it very
hard if you dont tell me where the post is because i might end up having
to read through the whole thread, and as we all know, the worst threads
are the longest ones <chuckle>.

Also, if you tell me right away that someone has slandered you that
gives me a chance to remove it or modify it slightly so it doesnt
attack you personally anymore, but if you argue right back calling
the person that attacked you names also, then not only will that not solve
the problem that will also not give me a chance to moderate efficiently
because the posts get piled on top of each other and it gets harder and
harder to tell who 'started' it (ok we're back in high school). I would end
up having to read the whole thread.
The only thing i can do in this case is to moderate the post that
someone tells me has slandered them (if it really did of course).
This means that if person A yells at person B first, but person B doesnt
tell me about it but instead yells back at person A, then person A tells
me that person B has slandered them, all i can really do is moderate
person B's reply even though they didnt really start the problem.
The reason for this is again that it would take too much time to try
to figure out who threw the first insult because it would require reading
back many replies sometimes.
This means of course that if someone slanders you the best thing
to do is PM a me with the post (a link please) and this should be done
in a timely manner. Since no moderator can be here 24/7, you can
post a reply that states that you have notified a moderator and/or admin
about the offending post.

Well here we are, in the middle of the information age,
so enjoy it friends

[philba]

It's straightforward. I remind you what I said.

- Create an acceptable use policy forbidding abusive, racist or otherwise unacceptable behavior.
- Threads that have policy violations get locked (but not deleted). Anything that violates forum policy get's so noted by the moderator in the thread.
- Individuals who violate policy get a warning.
- anyone who receives 3 warnings (ever) gets booted from the forum
- record IP addresses so people can't come back with a different name.

The acceptable use policy can be deeply arbitrary or cooly rational. It really doesn't mater as long as it is clearly written. The forum administration can arbitrarily decide violations but, generally, it is not interpreted broadly. So being wrong is usually not a policy violation. Impuning some one's integrity could well be. Racist comments usually are (unless it's a KKK forum, I guess). Spamming usually is. I would classify repeatedly stating the same point endlessly as spamming. Trolling is borderline but often leads to clear policy violations.

In practice, this is not some draconian thing. People almost never get banned since the threat of it is almost always enough to prevent the problem for escallating. The other forums I have mentioned are neither models of decorum nor concentration camps. But they work well and there is vastly higher signal to noise ratio there. I would venture to say the removal of our troll would bring the SNR up to a par with the other forums. I highly recommend any N&V staff and mods go look at them. I think you will be surprised how good they are. Both of those forums are willing to ban violators.

[Chris Smith]

Here is a simple exercise, which Newton’s law did this apply to, “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reactionâ€

[Robert Reed]

Its hard to beleive that a post starting with a little humor to lighten things up has become degraded to the point where it is now. This only seems to happen when a certain person is involved.
Very dissapointed!

[philba]

why would you think a humor post would be different from any other here?

[Chris Smith]

[Edited due to slander aimed toward anonymous person or persons]

[mnboy]

why would you think a humor post would be different from any other here?

(in my most shrill mothers voice) We just can't have nice things can we!

[philba]

[Edited due to slander aimed toward anonymous person or persons]

Uh, I read it before you got to it and found it pretty much par for the course. I though the person it was aimed at was pretty obvious, though.

[Chris Smith]

Obviously Im still not taking any slander from you.

But at least I don’t whine.