Deleting posts by banned users

The BBQ Pit
41

I’m not sure that’s the case, but assuming it is, fine: rename them as something in binary. No-one’s ever gonna be able to tell 00010011011001 from 000100110101001, so still, no public notoriety. The troll might keep track of which 15-digit string of ones and zeros are which, depending on how obsessive they are, but no-one else will. And unless they subscribe, they can’t search anyway.

  1. The current method is getting the sock attention. When a thread’s deleted, people post, asking where it’s gone, people discuss if it’s worth starting new threads on the same topic, they even start pit-threads discussing the policy! :wink: (which is why I think the “ignore 'em” method never works–they’re never truely ignored.)
  2. And anyway, the current method doesn’t seem to be working all that well. I’ve noticed an upswing in the number of deleted threads not a downswing.

But why remove the salient points? Leave the OP and their contributions–they’re banned, and they’re providing content for us paying users for free. Let 'em. Why remove actual information that paying members can use.? To use just one example, that’s one of the things that pissed me off so much about the old Diablo thread: actual content that I found useful was disappeared because it was posted by someone with a sock-puppet. link Note: I realize that this is an old thread, but it’s the first time I became aware of the policy of deleting content.

42

Checking IP addresses won’t work reliably for users with non-fixed IP addresses (which I assume would be most users). If a user is banned and then the same day shows up under a different name with the same IP address, then you could reasonably assume it’s the same person and deal with it. The longer the time gap, the less reliable the check. All you know for certain is that the two use the same ISP.

43

Or label them “Sock 1”, “Sock 2”, or something like that.

The only possible problem would be where people have quoted them in threads, and that would show their original user name. But you already have that from deleting their posts, so who cares?

44

Can we make it so Guests cannot start OP’s for, say, 3 days?

By that time, from the Guest’s posts we can tell if he/she is a sock, and ban them without having to delete any threads (since they haven’t started any).

After this trial period, Guests can start OP’s.

(Although I’m not sure if vBulletin is capable of allowing a user to post replies, but not to start new threads.)

What say you?

45

And if socks try to get around this by registering and not posting anything during the trial period (to avoid being recognized), maybe we could make it so that Guests can start OP’s only after posting, say, 10 replies in other threads.

46

We get many good questions from first time guests over in GQ. If we made them wait 3 days to ask, they’d probably go elsewhere, never get their ignorance lifted, and never sign on as paying members of the straight dope.

47

We don’t know this for a fact.

I could just as easily claim that people might keep themselves busy for 3 days replying in other peoples’ threads, knowing that in 3 days they will be able to ask their questions.

Maybe there’s a way to do some “market research” to see how Guests would really react to such a restriction.

48

This is just a foolish strategy from the start.

It GIVES power to the trolls.

Trolls know they can start threads, get people to contribute, get an interesting discussion going, and then…HA! It gets deleted. That’ll teach 'em to ban me. If I can’t take part in the discussion, nobody can!

And yeah, it also sucks for all the real members who were participating.

49

It sucks for the Moderators too. Basically, when we’ve got jerks, they spoil things for everyone.

Let me repeat that legitimate members who get banned do not have posts deleted. We’re only talking about people who were banned who keep returning.

Such people have no right to post anything here. Their presence is an insult to every legitimate poster. It’s not different than spam. Some spam is interesting – I mean, really. Some of the wild stories I’ve seen requesting me to send my bank account numbers or to just click on this link, they’re marvellously entertaining. But they’re spam nonetheless. People do respond to straightforward spam – the last one I remember was someone posting about how to reach salvation, and getting seven or eight replies. But it was pure and simple spam.

So, we’re really caught here. On the one hand, we do not want people posting who have forfeited the right to post – no matter how interesting or entertaining. In the same way, we don’t want links to porn sites, no matter how interesting or entertaining. We don’t want links to commercial sites, no matter how interesting or entertaining. We don’t want posts made by people who come here solely to break the rules.

On the other hand, we certainly recognize that even a complete jackass can raise an interesting question.

We need to find some sort of compromise here, and we need some understanding on the part of the members. There MUST be some penalty for banned people who keep trying to reappear. The penalty is that they and their posts disappear. Is that a nuisance to other readers? Yes. Who’s fault is that? Answer: this is the fault of the jerk. They KNOW that their future attempts to sneak in will be disapeared, and they do it anyway. They’re yanking your chain. And, obviously, successfully.

When we delete the posts, sooner or later these jerks go away and leave us alone. If we don’t delete such posts, there will be no disincentive whatsoever. IN that case, no one will ever bother to pay, since they can just reappear as often as they like with no consequences. Every time you’re banned, you just show up under a slightly different name, until that name is banned, and so on.

How about if we allow an occasional really interesting thread (over a page long, say) to remain, on request?

50

C K Dexter Haven, Are you sure that you can’t just go and TP their houses? I really like that idea a lot.

I do like the idea that you make some sort of a call as to the merit of the thread itself, and leave it open if it seems to be especially interesting or fun. The questions is; what is the mechanism for doing so? If we notice a vanished thread, do we email, or do we open a “where the hell is thread X?” thread, as I have basically done here?

I do understand the dilemma that you face with returning guests and the like, but did think that this topic was worth some formal exploration as I have been noticing an upswing of deleted threads of late (some of which contain pearls of Binarydrone wisdom that it would be a pure crime to deprive the world of!).

51

I like this plan. The very inconsistency of it means that socks cannot find a reliable method of gaming the system. No matter what they try, they’ll mostly get burned.

52

To play devil’s advocate for a second (since I was in favor of resurrecting the mini-series thread) wouldn’t that encourage socks to simply post innocuous threads and polls, since those are the ones that will most likely not be yanked?

I see the “Changing diet based on sinkers and floaters” thread disappeared, thank Og. But won’t this policy simply drive the socks to be a little more circumspect?

I don’t know, maybe we should all start giving a drop of blood to be kept in the Chicago Reader’s basement, so we can verify who we say we are.

It’s not a perfect system. Let’s see if the thread-by-thread basis will work for awhile, but short of meeting these people IRL and giving them a stern talking-to, I don’t know of a fail-safe method to keep our little community pristine.

53

The renaming isn’t meant to be a badge saying “This person is a shitbag that never contributed anything and was eventually banned.”

It’s just meant to mean “This user is no longer a participant in the community.” That applies to lapsed guest accounts as well as banned members. I suppose it could also apply to lapsed member accounts, but I figure the membership fees can be considered to buy you a place in history.

It could also encourage people to sign up.

Zabali_Clawbane, I meant the worthwhile material of both lapsed guests and banned members get the same treatment. It’s a neutral label, not recognition of this user being a badass. You were one of the Teeming Million before you signed up to be a member… and that’s what you’ll go back to when your account dies.

If the only person benefitting is the person that shouldn’t have been able to post, then this argument is good and sound. But unless they’re just trolling the fuck out of the board, everyone else also benefits by having questions asked and answered or points discussed.

:confused: :frowning: :mad: We need an :and the horse you rode in on: smilie. :smiley:

54

:blush: :smack:

Sorry 'bout that. But um…to be honest, I know you because I read the binary in your name as “That guy with the binary user ID.” (166 in decimal, right?)

If there were 50 more of people with binary names, we’d never keep you all straight, although you’d stand out like the shining gem you are. :wink:
Seriously though, the point stands, even if binary as such wasn’t used. Hell, use ones and capital "i"s and lower case “l”'s and it would be truely hopeless for a sock to get notoriety. I mean II1l1lIIIl vs lI11IllIl1 ?

55

I don’t like the idea. I’ve experienced this artificial delay on a few message boards before and it was extremely annoying.

56

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

57

Hey, thanks! You’d never get this kind of service at $GENERIC_MESSAGE_BOARD. :smiley:

58

Actually, it’s 666 in decimal. Made me chuckle when I actually took the time to do the conversion.

59

“Rewriting history”? Oh, please, this is a difficult enough situation without going histrionic. We’re not pretending that the threads never existed, we’re only saying you can no longer read 'em or post on 'em. I mean, c’mon, the steak house on the corner has been torn down to build a parking lot, so I can’t go there any more. Does that mean that the construction crew “tried to rewrite history”? Nonsense. It just means that time marches on.

60

I don’t envy you mods your jobs at all. You guys have a tough balancing act to do. I hope you find a balanced solution to this this.