Check your email.
Exactly. This policy only feeds into the trolls who like to wreck havoc. “Ha ha ha, I basically ruined a whole bunch of threads and such for the rest of them!”
Because then you have long, old threads that we sometimes go back to for reference, that no longer make sense, since they’re missing posts, or they’re no longer there at all.
Quite frankly, if it’s a returning banned member, I would think the policy was to just be able to post again without being detected. And in this case, I think it was pretty obvious who this person was, and I’m surprised the mods took so long to figure it out.
REALLY shitty policy.
Do you think Lynn is lying about their logs?
Same for me (and even if I haven’t been here long enough).
I repeat myself, like history. Guinistasia, please relax. It’s not like major threads were wrecked. Generally, when trolls start threads, they’re NOT interesting or important or useful. Most of the threads that are disappeared are things like “You can buy Ginko Knives for half the price at my website!” or “White supremacy forever!” Most of the trolls do NOT contribute anything of value. When you read through an old thread with “missing posts,” the odds are you’d never know there was anything missing.
And usually we’re talking about perhaps a dozen posts or threads. It’s just not a big issue, in general.
In the specific instance, we felt we needed to call it to your attention, because there were a lot of threads started by our jerkess. I can speak for Cafe Society, and tell you: the vast majority of threads she started had zero, one, or two responses. Most of her comments in other threads were things like, “Right on!” and “Wow!” and similar non-content. There’s not much that anyone will miss.
For Cafe Society, I went through the threads fairly carefully. If there was any content, I found a way to leave the thread. (See the examples above. Did you notice any major hiccup in the space-time continuum?) What’s gone? Well, the prime example would be a thread where she started by asking, “Did anyone see Blah Blah episode of So-and-So TV series?” and someone would reply saying, “Yeah, it wasn’t very good.” End of thread.
So relax.
We have, however, always been at war with Eurasia.
Can you e-mail me too?
Let me ask you this…had the banned poster done anything under her current incarnation to merit banning? Is it possible she returned a reformed sinner and didn’t know she need to alert the mods that she was turning over a fresh leaf and would like a new start?
Granted, I’m not that aware of her postings, and it’s possible she was being a PITA, but generally those Dopers stand out, so I’m working under the assumption that since she didn’t strike me as a PITA she wasn’t doing anything annoying. Unless she was hugging the secret knowledge that she managed to pull the wool’s over the mods’ eyes for 2000 posts?
I don’t think it’s as simple as that: as far as I know you can’t just waltz back from a banning, announce that you’ve changed your ways, and have The Powers That Be kill the fatted calf. You have to do some pretty serious grovelling to convince them that you’ve actually seen the light: as far as I’m aware, due to the rate of recidivism it’s pretty rare for the banned to get a second chance.
Good reasoning works in practice, not just in theory. In fact, the whole purpose of reason is to examine the practical merits of an argument.
Regarding the topic, the administration is pretty much damned either way: leave the posts and threads intact, and the troll has a legacy; delete them, and the troll has a legacy. A troll is an evil entity whose most valued aesthetic is destruction. By the time they’re caught, their damage is done.
That’s what I’m saying…she was banned. She thought it over, and decided she had indeed, been a Jerk. So, she comes back in under a new name, and proceeds to join our happy little club.
Of course, I have been known to be blind when it comes to character faults, and it’s possible she decided to see how long she could get away with her new secret identity.
What made you turn the spotlight on Mal Ova? Or is that Secret Mod Stuff?
I’m going to email you the info, but let me just say this is not a reformed innocent, this was someone banned for good cause, well aware of the rules, and (you’ll see in the link I provide you) unrepentant.
Thanks, Dex, for the explanations, although I still think you all are going to a lot more trouble than it/she would be worth.
Thanks, ETF. I’m sure I will go “Aha!” after I check my e-mail.
And, indeed, I did go “Aha!”
I also see how she was outed.
Guin, surely you’ve been around long enough to know about the “report post” feature? If you had your suspicions about a poster, why not notify the mods? Even if it is only a suspicion, with nothing concrete behind it, the mods still welcome heads-ups like that, and once they hear of the suspicion, they can often check in more detail.
Um…could I get that mail too?
TIA
Ditto
Done.
And done.
Got any more copies of that email?
Sure do!