Why? Why not just select the option to hide his posts? That's what I did.
I don't think banning people is a good idea.
If an anonymous account's only contribution here is innuendo and ad hom, they can watch from a distance. That kind of behavior would have been tolerated for 60 seconds on PhysicsForum or StackOverflow. Banning all the time and lots of people is no good. Banning flagrant trolls is not only good but desirable.
I don't like banning much - but Keieueue's contribution here has been so consistently appalling that I'm inclined to agree in this case. Anyway it is for mods to decide...
K, before being banned, compared his trolling with the people here (me included) who say negative things about Rossi.
The difference is that the negative comments about Rossi have both direct facts and inferred "best guess" from facts in support. Both of these get complex, and the "best guess" inference will inevitably be controversial. Another difference is that being positive about Rossi pretty well guarantees being negative about IH, and vice versa, so negativity here is not unmixed.
Can I suggest that Mods need to hold back on the hammer. Perma-bans should be used very very sparingly. Smart-bans and with a 2 day (cool off) types of bans, can be just as effective.
Thanks
The hidding of posts seems the best strategy for me (with exception of apparent spammers). BTW How is it possible, that Keieueue has the same amount of likes like the posts number? He's apparently cheating the voting system with some sockpuppet account.
Well it just goes to show. Some approve of banning, some approve of post deletion, some like both, some like neither. Which goes to show you cannot please all the members all the time. 
But feck it, Merry Christmas to you all! And a happy new year. 
QuoteWhich goes to show you cannot please all the members all the time
The web technology already allows it rather easily at personal basis. For example, you could set up, how the users labelled for ban/deletion would be handled for you: permaban or just hidding of posts or no action - as a part of your private account settings. Personally I would prefer the option for private based moderation rather than all forms of centrally driven censorship - no matter how well minded it can be. Of course, the averaged private ban lists could be used as a basis of private settings defaults for to make the life for new or unregistered users of forum easier - but the registered users should always have some sort of control over moderation attempts of forum admins.
You are already able to ignore a user yourself by going into the user profile of the specific user and selecting "block".
The problem is: If not done globally, spammers and trolls will still hit guests or people who don't know how to ignore a user.
Sometimes a ban is necessary.
It is like the psychological research that shows you get more vandalism in an estate that already has broken windows.
The argument for preventing persistent trolls is that they lower the tone and make other trollish contributions more likely. Although all the 100% trolls like K could be personally filtered many will not do this, and pour encourager les autres applies...
Happy Christmas to all (except the trolls)
THH
Can I suggest that Mods need to hold back on the hammer. Perma-bans should be used very very sparingly. Smart-bans and with a 2 day (cool off) types of bans, can be just as effective.
Thanks
Individuals here are welcome and invited to block users they find annoying. I had K and several others blocked for many weeks. Most of the people I had blocked occasionally had interesting comments and were not flagrant trolls. Often it came down to me just not finding value in their posts. K and one or two others have been flagrant trolls, persistently engaging in innuendo and ad hom, and have poisoned the waters here a little bit.
I recently took all of the blocks off because I wanted to see the stuff I had been ignoring. As THH points out, there are many guests and new users who do not know about or have access to the blocking feature. If they come to LENR Forum and see a lot of spammy, catty insults, they will correctly take away the impression that LENR Forum is not being properly moderated. A small number who join and stick around will justifiably get the impression that that kind of behavior is tolerated, normal and ok. Some of the best forums (PhysicsForums, StackExchange) are ruthlessly moderated: if you misbehave you will be warned and then unsentimentally tossed out. That approach keeps those places sane if a bit stuffy. I'm just one mod on a team here that already has its own style and preferences, so it's not for me to try to move LENR Forum to that kind of approach, even if I thought it was the right one for this place, which I don't. I've been on Vortex for some time now, and I like how the moderation there is very light. Bill Beaty, the list admin, is off doing other things and usually only responds after receiving requests. There have been several points in time on Vortex, however, when a flagrant troll came along and tried to bend the group to his own will, making it extremely unpleasant to follow the list. It would have been nice for Bill to step in many weeks earlier in such cases. Those were flagrant trolls, easy to spot from early on. (Here I'm not thinking of Yugo or Cude, who were also tossed out for different reasons, but were not attacking forum members.)
People whose only contribution here is to be obnoxious and toxic should definitely worry about being perma-banned. I will do it again if the need arises. People who have something interesting to say but are obnoxious part of the time do not need to worry about being perma-banned by me (although I cannot speak for the other mods), which is not to say that something more measured won't be done in specific cases. People who see all kinds of interesting technical and legal details to be mentioned, sorted out and debated dispassionately on their merits and without bringing in other forum personalities into the discussion are the kind of people we want here.
@Eric Walker: I couldn't have said it better!
Moderation is an art form. LF is doing well now without Abd, nonetheless it would be nice to have him back. Is he banned?
Moderation is an art form
Moderation is no art, it is culture, Alan Smith is here right now demonstrating what culture is all about, he is struggling with his decisions, he is trying to find better solutions, but at the end it is his own judgement, if a single post of a user needs moderation or not, and right at the moment he is the best personality here in this community for doing this job!!!
Thanks Alan and greets to all of you
Felix
Moderators can do what they want, I think they've been reasonable so far.
I don't think Abd is banned, he just left because he doesn't like the moderation.
On a related note, he has a domain here http://coldfusioncommunity.net/ , and is complaining that his links to the forum are being 403d. Technical glitch or trolling from the forum admin?
has it been said yet?
Merry Xmas to all!
QuoteModeration is no art, it is culture
Moderation is an anoying stuff for both sides, it's always better to leave it on users of forum as much as possible. But currently only very few forums provides effective tools for application of direct democracy.
Keieueue was funny and harmless. The only valid reasons for banning from a forum should be things like spamming with ads, extremely obscene comments where the obscenity is gratuitous, entering walls of random chars or blank space, and very flagrant libel, for example that ______ is in a mental institution or is a child molester (when _____ is not).
I don't recall K doing any of that but then private forum admins can do what they want. Nobody argues with that. I just think banning participants or editing or deleting otherwise harmless posts is poor form. Abd's verbal diarrhea, for example, could be annoying but he made definite contributions (even if you disagree with them). I do not think he or K should have been banned (and I often can't stand Abd's stuff plus he heavily censored my posting on his forum!)
Mary, just to be clear, Abd's situation is entirely different from that of K's, who has been a flagrant troll. Forum warriors such as you who have been in the trenches of forum wars for years will see K the way you do — as harmless and funny. People who are not accustomed to such nonsense but who do have relevant knowledge to bring to discussions here will often find such behavior both noxious and entirely preventable. We have more forum warriors here than we could ever hope for, on all sides of all issues. What are needed to advance the conversations here are people with specialized expertise. Those people will often have little appetite for avoidable nonsense, and it is those people we hope to make this place inviting for.
I am dense as I have said before. Per the above post what is Abd's "situation?" I am missing something. I thought he took a break (one way or the other) but I never thought of it beyond that. Is he now banned? and if so when does it expire?
I am dense as I have said before. Per the above post what is Abd's "situation?" I am missing something. I thought he took a break (one way or the other) but I never thought of it beyond that. Is he now banned? <i> and if so when does it expire? </i>
Abd is here: http://coldfusioncommunity.net/ dutifully analyzing every one of our posts without the fear of having posts be deleted.
Merry Christmas Abd! :hi:
