Banning People

You know, sometimes a person says crazy shit that’s illegal or threatening or a little too real for a public forum, and I understand that circumstances exist under which is it necessary for a user’s privileges to be completely revoked. But at the same time, it seems like some of the crazier people offer the rest of us a unique opportunity to pick the brains of well, some of the crazier people.

I’m not sure how the board really works in a technical sense, but I do recall that at one point Ladyjane was cast into the pit of mundane babble, and made unable to post in other forums, so I assume that’s an option that’s less harsh than an outright ban.

Other times I have noticed that some users have been permanently removed.

If it were even my place to have an opinion, (which it may or may not be), I would almost always vote for people to be restricted rather than outright banned.

I suppose of course that if it became a legal or safety issue that a total ban would be a matter of obligation for the moderators, but in any other case I would like to see those users in question treated less harshly, (not as if it were lots and lots of people or anything).

But I mean, I’ve been on the internet for a very long time, and I’ve posted on multiple forums for multiple topics, and no matter what anyone may have to say about ILP one way or another, it is certainly a beacon for free speech and exchange of ideas.

I think it would serve that reputation to be welcoming of some less articulate and somewhat crazy users.

A board full of rational logical people is a wonderful thing if we were starting a think tank to solve real problems in the world, but a board with a few crazies has the potential, (I think) to offer more entertainment.

I mean think about it, you wanna convince someone they’re wrong and you’re right. You also want an intellectual challenge. So how about arguing with a person who doesn’t even have a coherent position? I know it can seem pointless, but it’s alot more like the people you’re going to deal with in the real world.

And if I could be said to have an opinion about an opinion voiced by someone who may or may not have had the place to have it, I would agree with every word.

I like the way you put that.

ILP’s policies are plainly laid out. It’s not like people are arbitrairily banned. There is much discussion concerning and opinions are expressed by the moderators before any decision is made in any regard.

There is a lot of behind the scenes discussions made during the consideration of a particular member. Sometimes it boils down someone wanting to push the envelope of forum rules for attention at a site. There is nothing esoteric about decisions made by the moderators. If the decorum of ILP’s rules from members acting beyond those confines is compromised, then everyone suffers. Moderators don’t take pleasure is taking action on someone who wants to circumvent this site’s protocols. At least I know I don’t.

Well said man. I know that this isn’t the kind of site where people are rampantly banned. Like I said I think it’s literally a beacon of free speech.

Maybe it’s the paranoia that accompanies my lifestyle, but I’ve even felt as though I’ve had to edit myself in the past, but I can’t say that I’m sure I had to.

I remember the 1st couple of threads that I posted in here and it didn’t take me long to realize that people were generally allowed to say what they wanted. I was kind of worried that I might get someone mad, but after a while I realized that the people here are usually more than reasonable.

I guess I’m just thinking about how entertaining it can be sometimes to read Ladyjane’s posts. Whoever that is has really nailed the whole, “draw out the philosophical uncertainty in even the most evidenced cases of knowledge” thing.

None of this is in question here. Nobody is questioning the transparency, thoughtfulness, or motivation of the moderators. A thoughtful suggestion was offered about ILP’s policy on bannings.

I wouldn’t have any final decision making on policy changes. That would have to fall to the senior Administrators of ILP.

This is just a discussion. What do you think about Smears’s OP on bannings?

Smears,

Think about it this way, you have general society, and if a person can progress along well-enough in general society that person does not need to be imprisoned. Theoretically, a person becomes imprisoned for violating a law which all goes back to social contract. On this board, though, there is an actual effective and deliberate contract when a new user agrees to the Terms & Conditions which include abiding by the posting rules of the board.

When a person fails to abide by those terms to a great extent and derails Forums other than Rant House (society) that person may then be restricted to Rant House if their posts are otherwise somehow valuable.

There comes a point, though, where someone should not be imprisoned because even prison is a society where they can’t get along very well. These people tend to be insane, or have some kind of massive chip on their shoulder. They derail Rant House threads and decrease the overall value of Rant House as a Forum consistently. That’s pretty tough to do, so those people can be said to have no redeeming qualities as posters and we decide to ban them, which I suppose, could be considered the equivalent of being taken out of jail and put into an asylum.

Finally, there are a few posters whose behaviour in society was so outlandish that we can make the determination that they are not fit to be imprisoned because they will not get along well in that society, either. Those people are banned prior to being relegated to Rant House.

To the best of my knowledge though, with the exception of bots, we have never banned anyone to Rant House or banned anyone from the Board without explaining the flaws in their behaviour and giving them the opportunity to correct those flaws.

If I may, just to throw an example out there, if you PM me there is a website at which I post where a member is relegated to their version of our Rant House and has derailed that Forum to such an extent that nobody except for him will create any threads anymore because they do not wish for him to respond to their threads. That may not seem so bad at first inspection, but many people have fun and let off steam in our Rant House whether or not they are relegated strictly to it, so we do not want to relegate someone to it that will screw even that up for everyone else.

My opinion would be that I’m happy with the constructs of ILP’s policies. It’s tough enough dealing with all these forums as it is. However, if Carleas decides on another course concerning rules, I’m sure he will give the mods a heads up.

I’ll give you two common reasons for banning.

Probably the most common reason is that the member wants to be banned.

The other, often related, reason is that the member tries harder to stop discussion than to foster it. It is a discussion board site, after all.

The reason that a member may be corralled but not banned is that they stifle discussion in a way that indicates that they don’t really mean to - this is often a crazy person. We allow them to be crazy in places where that craziness is not disruptive of threads where noncrazy people want to talk. This is not a hard and fast rule - and it’s not an a priori rule. Some crazy people get along fine in any thread, on any board. Some don’t seem to.

We’re not always sure about you, Smears. But so far, you have passed muster.

In the past, I have been in favor of banning crazy people. But most often the rest of staff have not - not on that account alone, at least. So we don’t ban crazy people just for being crazy. And feedback like yours, Smears (and fuse), reinforces that policy. So, keep it coming. We want to know what members want. I wish more members would take the time to let us know.

The crazy ones who wear their craziness like a clown-suit are harmless, it’s the smoother type you have to watch, those buggers will infect you without you even noticing. They’re meta-crazy.

I love the crazy harmless types around here.

Why thank you anon, I appreciate your kind words. :slight_smile:

Nice one LB. :laughing:

Fourth what other staff has said.

We don’t ban people often (other than spammers, which we ban daily), because we don’t like to do it. When we do ban someone, it is after discussion and deliberation, and even then most bans are temporary. We try to use lighter methods whenever possible. In addition to limiting people to Rant House, we’ve also stripped people of access to individual forums and taken away privileges like the edit button. If possible, we take lighter actions over outright bans.

The people that we do ban, we ban because they literally destroy the website by making every conversation a shouting match, or a discussion of their pet theory, or by crowding out other discussions and drowning out other posters. Crazy is all well and good, none of us isn’t a little eccentric, but we we’re crazies who are here to talk philosophy. When someone’s crazy pushes out everyone else’s philosophy, they aren’t spicing-up discussions, they’re ending them.

Thank you for the feedback Smears, it’s very appreciated.

I love you guys. <3

…right back at ya Smears :wink:

Nice to see you back on the boards - where you been? what you been doing?

More banning.

Seriously? viewtopic.php?f=4&t=170466&start=50

That’s all we get for:

"I’ll take another 3 weeks off to **** with this idiot. **** off you retard, you have no clue what you are talking about, mods band me now this ****wit is back trolling like an *** on a subject he’s been pwned on so many times it’s embarssing to speak to this idiot.

Actually make it a perma ban because that will be too short to have to talk to this semi cognisant zombie retard."

Etc etc…

You’re just bringing down the quality of the site when you let people like this keep posting.

Give me mod powers for an afternoon and I’ll clean things up :evilfun:

Anthem, banning is a last resort for the staff here in ILP. Unfortunately, once in a while members here feel compeled to make a point in the face of posting etiquette. Perhaps they don’t feel a site fits their agenda then makes posting getures to agitate other members. My advice is to ignore such pretentiousness to keep a thread on course.