Best ban ever, IMO. If you ask me, he had a history of painting a big red bullseye on his head and daring someone to take a swing… just trying to push people’s buttons so that he could then claim superiority in not being emotionally invested a thread that he’d dragged out a half dozen pages. It was inevitable that someday he’d get bored with the SDMB and start playing his tiresome reindeer games with the mods, knowing he’d get banned. And so it happened. And he’s probably reading this thread right now, chuckling up his sleeve at all the losers who are getting so worked up over his innocent little comment.
His biggest crime was being so damned tedious… if you’re going to be a troll, stir up some colorful drama, don’t just sit there poking people and saying “I’m not touching you” for 10 friggin’ years.
Correct. The instant you started to get over him in a debate, he made it personal and declared that you clearly were unable to understand his brilliance and maybe you should just shut up.
On a board of egomaniacal elitists, he stood out as one who thought he was clearly better than others. It infused every post he made.
This is not the current policy. This is worthy of debate, in my view. If we do that though, the mods would probably have to put a problematic poster under explicit probation, a category that would imply that the rules will be enforced more harshly against them, insofar as suspension is concerned. Otherwise members will notice and complain about uneven enforcement. Probation might last 6 months. There would be no need for a user label though: we don’t need to put “Under Probation” beneath the username.
On balance, I would think that Sam’s proposal, even when tweaked, would add to the drama. But I might be wrong. It merits discussion. All that said, mswas was trolling for a banning today, so I have no objections to it, though I actually liked the perspective he brought to the board most of the time.
Another tweak might be to hand out 2 month probations for repeat offenders.
I don’t agree with repeated (and, unless I misread, an infinite number of) suspensions. All that means is that a poster can cause grief for the general message board population, take a cool off, come back for a while and then cause grief again, take a cool off, ad infinitum. It also sets up a very clear distinction, codified, between old time posters and noobies, and that divide in moderation practices tends to rub me the wrong way as it is.
And why shouldn’t there be such a distinction? Back in the day, if a new person moved into a community, there was little tolerance for bad behavior. The person is an unknown, and is not invested in the community in any way, so at the first sign that the person is not the kind you want hanging around, you’d run him out of town on a rail.
On the other hand, if a person of good standing who has a long history of contribution to the community suddenly gets depressed or otherwise behaves abnormally, a lot more deference will be given, both because people know the person better and understand that this isn’t usual behavior, and in recognition that once you have roots in a community, it’s a much bigger deal to kick you out.
Again, I’m not claiming that any specific poster did or didn’t deserve a banning. I do think that we are approaching a time when issues like this are becoming much more important. mswas had been here for ten years. Clearly the SDMB has been a big part of his life, and it’s not a trivial matter to take it away. As the internet becomes a place where we spend more and more of our time, issues like this have to be revisited.
On a related issue, the actual content of the SDMB, while owned by the Reader, needs to be treated very carefully. A lot of us have thousands and thousands of posts on this board. It’s a pretty big record of who we were and how we changed over the years. Some day, my child or grandchildren might want to read it. If this board ever goes down for financial reasons or because people are just tired of running it, I would hope that the board content would be posted in the public domain or archived somewhere where we can still get at it, or at least an exported version be made available that we can keep for ourselves. It’s ultimately the Reader’s property to do with as they like, but good stewardship suggests that they keep the interests of the people here in mind when they choose what to do with the database if the board is retired.
Nobody took the SDMB away from mswas. He (or she) shoved the SDMB away with both hands, causing the SDMB to tumble into the 27th row of the stands, earning a double technical, a misconduct penalty, and a lifetime suspension as a bonus.
You can try to spin this for as many posts as you care to invest, but all mswas had to do to stay was not post the thread proclaiming that she (or he) was giving the mods the double finger while screaming drunkenly “I double dog dare you to ban me.”
mswas left deliberately and of its (or his or her) own volition. The mods merely made it official and spared the rest of us. They did the community a favor. They may very well have done mswas a favor. You are doing nobody any favors when you try to create an alternate universe in which none of this is true.
I don’t know the internal machinations of the mods, but I do know that the usual rule with committees, company boards etc is that you show “cabinet solidarity”. If you have an internal disagreement, you work out that disagreement in private. To the public you present a united front. You do not, as a solitary or minority committee member come out and say “sure, the committee decision was x, but personally I thought y”. Doing so will destroy the credibility of the committee, and it will get you ejected from any committee I have ever heard of.
In other words, what I would expect to know is only the outcome of mod decisions. Not reports of internal disagreement. So you can’t draw any inference from the lack of such reports to my mind.
Which is an odd rationale, when you consider that the Supreme Court does this without any real problems. The dissenting opinions can be as important as the actual decision.
mswas was capable of having an intelligent debate and sometimes took an outsider viewpoint, yes. It’s not fun to have to kick somebody out when they have something to contribute. I’d rather we never had to make that call. But as far as repeat suspensions go- if we have to warn him every month or so and suspend him for a month every couple of months, what’s the point of having him post here at all?
The SDMB may have occupied a significant portion of his time, but since he outright refused to change his behavior at all and was just baiting people at the end, I question how significant it was in his life. And I don’t think it matters much. He knew exactly what the problem was: almost all of his warnings were for insulting people. It’s not our problem he wouldn’t comply with the same rules as everyone else- it’s his.
Even if you saw him as a great proponent for his views, at some point the disruption of having to caution and warn him over and over again outweighs the benefits. He might’ve enjoyed the board, but other people are allowed to enjoy the board and it’s only reasonable to go so far to accommodate him while inconveniencing them by excusing his insults and other problems.
Exapno Mapcase, as I said earlier, mswas and no one else has to bear the responsibility for this. I do think, however, that Sam Stone has a point.
I don’t know what mswas’s problem is, but several people here have mood disorders or mental illnesses that don’t cause problems normally with posting. But sometimes a person may exhibit symptoms of depression with this very kind of hostile burnout. She or he may not even be aware of why he is acting this way. It’s an illness, not a character flaw. And it comes and goes. As I said, I don’t know if that is mswas’s situation.
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not advocating that this person not be banned. But I am agreeing with Sam Stone that the history of a person’s participation should be considered in determining whether or not that banning is permanent.
You must not be aware that “once banned, always banned” has not always been the rule.
I have not in any way criticized his banning.
Whether or not I want to “hang out with him” or participate in “splinter boards” is none of your business and totally inappropriate for you to suggest. Please consider the feelings of my family members who read here. For a mod, you certainly seem trigger happy.
I can’t tell if this is serious or tongue in cheek. The bit about the family suggests the latter, but the tone of the rest of the post suggests the former.
If you are being serious, then I suggest taking a deep breath and a couple of anti-paranoia pills.
I not sure how anyone’s feelings would be affected in any way by the comment twickster made. It strikes me as a factual statement that mswas may or may not be posting at a splinter board and you (or anyone for that matter) who still wants to discuss things with him can do so elsewhere.
Amongst all the verbiage about and from **mswas **in the past couple of days is a linkto a post made by mswas just after he returned from a suspension where he apologised to all posters and staff for his behaviour, and attributed it to a mood swings.
That wasn’t really the case here IMO. For the 5ish years I’ve been here off and on, the guy always seemed to be trying to be as much of a jerk as possible without running afoul of mod action. Sometime over the past year he lost that latter skill while retaining the former, with predictable results. One has to question whether baiting people for years on years really constitutes ‘good standing’.
We’re not the Supreme Court, we’re volunteers on a free message board. We’re not about to start publishing majority opinions and a bunch of dissents.
Of course twickster is aware of this. Before we went to the suspension system, you were either banned or not, and on rare occasions people were allowed back after apologies and vowing to do better. (For the most part, this did not work out; most previously banned posters who were allowed back resumed their previous behavior in short order and were banned again.)
The suspension system essentially acts as to readmit posters who have been temporarily banned and allow them demonstrate they are capable of following the rules. Once you’re banned after a suspension, you’ve already been given a second chance and failed.
I don’t think this is very relevant. Firstly, my point is just that the inference referred to in my final sentence can’t necessarily be drawn, rightly or wrongly.
Secondly, courts are very different to executive bodies. Courts don’t have to implement their decisions. They have a national constitution behind them which means they don’t give a damn if they are viewed as non-cohesive: they are invulnerable. Their decisions will be implemented by force if necessary whether they are unanimous or bare majority. They can just pronounce and damn the consequences.
This is not true of executive and political bodies that have to show a strong leadership, solidarity, direction etc
