Well… except that we’re talking about socks on a Message Boards, not students with a physical presence. When you prevent a student from participating in a discussion, you can actually prevent them. The thing about socks is that there’s nothing to prevent them from registering again, and again, and again, under different names. They could, in fact, participate and be able to reply, over and over. That’s the whole point – they’re not rules-abiding posters. They don’t care if they’re banned, they just re-register under a different name until that one is caught and banned, then they etc etc.
So, our goal is not to PUNISH them per se, but to DISCOURAGE them from coming back again and again. We believe that we do this best by causing their efforts to vanish. If you have better suggestions for how to discourage that behavior, we’d be glad to listen. But leaving the thread/posts open, letting others discuss them? they’re attention-whores, and that’d be playing their games.
We do understand (believe me!) that this can be frustrating for those who participate in a thread in all innocence, and unaware. If it’s frustrating for you, we’re hoping it’s even more frustrating for the sock.
PS - When we can, we just remove the posts of the troll/sock, but that’s not always reasonable.
We actually don’t get that many people asking about disappeared threads and posts compared to the number that get deleted. I’ve vaporized a number of trolls (with all their posts) about which no inquiry was made, either publicly or privately. Most people, I think, are aware of the policy or soon catch on from comments others have made.
People notice mainly when we have allowed a troll thread run on for some time, either because we haven’t been aware of it or we’re discussing whether it’s trolling or not.
I understand the problem with serial offenders. I’d suggest banning IP addresses as a partial solution. But I realize that this may not stop a truly determined miscreant. Then again, nothing will stop a determined miscreant. I remain unconvinced that the present method is any more effective than simply banning. I wouldn’t mind having something beyond mere assertions, but I won’t press this point any further.
Still, my own personal experience here is interrupted, even somewhat diminished, by this policy in its present form. Yes I manage to guess the reasons somebody has disappeared, especially given certain posters’ actual participation. So I don’t usually ask for clarification. But on a cost / benefit level, I really don’t think the boards would be hurt by providing a bit more explanation, even at the expense of a small amount of attention. So if you don’t want to leave the threads open, at least retract the policy of absolutely no mention. Ban 'em. Delete their posts if you must. But at least give us notice. I can’t imagine that “So and so was banned as a sock” in ATMB is going to be such an incentive to offenders in the real world as to outweigh the benefit to us regular members.
Isn’t this thread itself evidence that **Giraffe **is right? I didn’t even see the thread in question, but I saw this one, and the ATMB query one, and so now you’ve got my attention twice. Had the thread remained open, but the sock banninated and labeled, I may or may not have joined in the thread’s content, but seeing “BANNED SOCK” would have been the only time my attention was raised, and my ire wouldn’t be raised at the same time.
I can tell you that I’ve had threads I’ve participated be deleted, and it annoys me greatly and makes me pretty angry - especially if it was a good thread and I was waiting for the next reply - but I’ve never emailed you to ask about it. That’s because I know the policy, sure, and I feel like attempts to influence policy around here are a fool’s quest. It’s not because my attention isn’t raised or I don’t mind the practice. Don’t mistake silence for assent.
I’m starting to wonder if I’m no longer speaking English. Wasn’t there a Twilight Zone like that, where the guy stays the same but everyone else is different?
Implicit, I don’t even know where to begin. I’m saying “just throw the farting guy out of the party, don’t bother stopping the music and sterilizing the section of carpet he was dancing on” and from that you’re reading that I want people to shit freely and often in the punchbowl.
I’m fine if people prefer the current strategy, but at least argue with what I’m actually saying and not some bizarro extrapolated filtered version.
It shouldn’t matter if a sock or troll gets satisfaction, as they are banned. If they can come back, then you have a lousy banning system. If they can’t, why the heck do we care what they think? All that should matter is what the posters want to do with it.
We have a handful of serial returnees. Several of them seem to be mentally ill, and nothing we do is going to deter them.
However, my perception, based on several years of moderating, is that the majority of trolls are one-off. They don’t keep coming back after having their threads and posts deleted.
Of course, there’s no way to test this without making the experiment, but it does seem to me that being banned PLUS having your threads deleted is going to be more of a deterrent than simply being banned by itself.
This is just my personal opinion, but I don’t think ridiculing people whose only purpose here is to be ridiculed adds that much entertainment value to this site. And while it may be annoying to have threads disappear that you’ve been posting in, I think a lot of people would be more annoyed if trolls were more prevalent on this site. While I can’t prove that the present policy discourages trolls more than simply banning, I would say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
My thread was locked, but I thought that this was worth mentioning – I started the thread because the type of error message that I was given – “You do not have permission to access this page” – didn’t indicate to me that I was trying to read a deleted message. I thin it would be worthwhile to change the message in such circumstances to something like – “This post has been removed by the administration.”
What some of us are trying to tell you is it *ain’t *ain’t broke. It *is *broke.
I don’t think anyone here is asking you to keep threads open so that we can ridicule socks and trolls. That’s a misinterpretation brought up by a poster who doesn’t want it, either. What we’re saying is there are sock started threads which contain actual interesting content from other Dopers, and disappearing those threads isn’t sitting well and disrupting the board and giving those socks/trolls more attention than simply banning them and leaving the thread open. Not the same thing as wanting to ridicule them at all.
Incidentally, I don’t recall what thread, so I doubt this will be much help, but I know at least one thread this month or last was started by either a sock or a spammer, and it was allowed to stay open because there was already good content from other posters in it. I think maybe by twickster? I’d be interested to know if that particular OP has been a returning issue since. It’s a small sample size, of course, but there is precedent with which to observe the effects.
Anyone remember which thread I’m vaguely remembering?
Or what about the cases where there’s a legitimate thread, and a troll comes waltzing in. Isn’t deleting that thread also playing into their hands – basically screwing everyone else over?
Are you willing to bet your annoyance at seeing an occasional thread deleted against the possibility of increased trolling?
We don’t usually delete a whole thread in that case, but only the troll posts. And if the troll posts have prompted some other discussion, then we may leave them while banning the troll.
We mostly delete whole threads only when the OP was a troll. And mostly they don’t get all that far anywhere but in the Pit.
Me personally? Sure. It’s not like we can’t go back to the way things are now if we’re wrong and it increases your work load beyond what you’re willing to deal with. (By “you”, I mean the moderators in general, of course.)
Now, I fully admit I’m not much bothered by what y’all consider trolls anyhow, so it’s not much of a bet for me.
I note in passing, that posters at ‘True Christian’ level and above at Landover Baptist are encouraged to have socks. As long as administration is aware of the sockness of a given logon ID there is no problem.
The idea is to foster a diversity of opinions posted, and having distinct personalities for sock(s) is a creative outlet for creative people. If you have ever been on Landover, posters with very high negative reputations are almost certainly a sock. It can be fun to figure out who is behind who, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the various persona. (some of the high positive reputation posters are socks too, but not nearly as many)
The reputation system seems to work well for them too . . .
We want people to ask us by PM when a thread disappears (which is always happens because of socking of trolling). That’s all. We used to answer these kinds of questions publicly while telling people we preferred to deal with them by PMs, but it was pointed out to us that that was inconsistent.
All you need to do is ask. If it’s not worth the trouble to send a PM, this is kind of academic.
We do that.
Regardless of how they feel, we are trying to discourage them from coming back, since some of them do it. That’s the goal.
“We” don’t have a banning system. VBulletin gives us a couple of tools to get rid of people who are not wanted. None of them are foolproof, and people who are determined, nuts, or have too much free time can get around them. Until we get an upgrade that lets us take away their computers and break their thumbs, we’ll make do with what we have.
I like their t-shirts, but Landover Baptist and the Straight Dope are different sites. We’re not going to run our site their way and vice versa.
And since this change in policy, has there been a dramatic drop in trolling and/or socks?
I really think there should be a little more thinking behind this policy. If someone is obviously spam or crazy racist trolling then delete it. But if it is just some normal thread that happened to be started by a sock then just leave it intact and, as said upthread, change the poster’s title to “BANNED SOCK”. People who keep coming back aren’t starved for attention (well, no more than anyone else) so disappearing their threads doesn’t really fit into your reasoning.
