Pixelsmith Banned?

[Schuyler]

Yeah, a forum court. However I think we already have one.... the guys that PAY for the bandwidth.

Fair enough. If that's the way it is, that's the way it is. I would point out that users do, once in awhile, at least, contribute to the cause and also help PAY for the bandwidth. I've learned that on forums you just have to go with the flow and the prevailing mindset. You can't express right-wing ideas on a left-wing oriented forum and you can't do the opposite either. Nobody will be happy. That we all support the 'free expression of ideas and points of view' is a myth; and in a privately owned forum, you don't have any 'right to free speech.' Them's the breaks.

One of the most interesting methods of user input is found on slashdot.org. There every member who contributes earns a certain number of 'Mod Points' which he can spend as he sees fit. 'Good' posts get 'modded up' and 'Bad' posts get 'modded down.' The more good points you get the better is your 'karma' and excellent karma earns you Mod Points faster. There's also a 'meta-moderation' system that everyone can participate in. It used to be that the system judged the fairness of moderations (an interesting approach) but now it simply judges the posts up or down. So, for example, if the moderators tanked a post but the majority of people thought the post was good, that would affect the award of mod points and the karma of the poster. Nobody knows how the Mod Point algorithm works, but basically a frequent poster with excellent karma who also meta-moderates will get Mod Points frequently and those with bad karma and poor posts rarely will. Number of posts and tenure on teh site also give you privileges and affect points. In this way everyone gets to particpate if they want to.

One interesting feature of the site is your ability to read at a certain point level. So if you only want to read highly-rated posts you browse at +5. Poor posts are rated a negative 1, so you can skip those altogether. People are rarely banned there. Slashdot is run by Geeks and is a unique system where the code is tweaked daily. It's not an 'out of the box' system. I wish they would make it available. I doubt they will.

You have some choices here, too, of course. I've put Daz on ignore because I think he is a supercilious prig who has an exalted opinion of himself. He likes to beat people up unmercifully. I think he is one of the poorest players in the sandbox I have ever seen and I don't care to raise my blood pressure over his idiotic posts. I'm sorry Aaron was banned in that context because I would have done exactly the opposite.

But hey! It's not my sandbox.

 

[Ron Collins]

I have always viewed this forum as an "at the will of Gene or David". They started it, pay for it, and it is a part of their show. So that gives them the right to do whatever they want.

Now, in a hypothetically perfect world banning someone should be used as a last resort after many many warnings over overtly bad behavior. Perhaps a warning to take it to private messages before a ban is warranted would be nice. Obviously banning immediately in some instances where the behavior is intolerable would still occur. Like some jackass selling erection pills. Basically, you want to get the reputation of banning behavior not ideology.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I have always viewed this forum as an "at the will of Gene or David". They started it, pay for it, and it is a part of their show. So that gives them the right to do whatever they want.

Now, in a hypothetically perfect world banning someone should be used as a last resort after many many warnings over overtly bad behavior. Perhaps a warning to take it to private messages before a ban is warranted would be nice. Obviously banning immediately in some instances where the behavior is intolerable would still occur. Like some jackass selling erection pills. Basically, you want to get the reputation of banning behavior not ideology.

We actually have modified the banning system. From here on, it will take two warnings for a temporary ban and four (being a pain in the arse after you come back) gets you dumped for good.

But if someone is impossible to deal with out of the box, the full ban is immediate.