Anthem, new IPs can obviously be acquired as he was banned by IP address - I think he… likes you
Worse things happen in life than being harrassed on a philosophy forum by a smart-arse - I’m sure you will look back on this as a happy point in your life!
Do what is best for you, but think of it as a learning curve, coz life will throw many of them your way and they don’t have to be viewed as bad things you know…
Really anything anti-social or disruptive warrants a warning. There is no hard and fast list of impermissible actions, because there are an infinite number of ways that people can make a board unpleasant. A warning says “don’t make a habit of doing that, because you are spoiling everyone elses fun”.
Sorry if that’s vague. There used to be a list of rules, but it got to the point where it was difficult to intervene when someone wasn’t technically breaking the rules, but was obviously being a pain in the ass. The “Forum Philosophy” was supposed to make the goals of the site clear, so that anything that got in the way of those goals would be understood to be frowned upon. Since all the staff are regulars, we (hopefully) have a good idea of what makes for discussions and what kills them, and we moderate accordingly.
In my experience (and others can feel free to contradict me) it isn’t so much a policy of laissez-faire but rather of benign neglect. Semantics, but if we’re already quibbling . . .
Is this the original ‘Someone is at the door’? I’ve moderated in other sites. Not that it was something I wanted to do…I recognized help was needed to keep those sites running smoothly. I know this personally, because I had my own philo site. I could have had mods on mine , but I didn’t want to pose duress on anyone else. I had problems and decided to finish out my contract there because of the pettiness which ensued and let the site go.
I was asked to help here and did so. I can appreciate the trouble it takes to have a site like ILP. Granted the one I had was nothing on the scale of memebership ILP enjoys. In my particular case, I opened mine because I enjoy seeing what other’s thoughts are and share mine.
I don’t operate under the ‘gotcha’ or ‘you’re wrong’ point of view. My interest is in learning by expanding my viewpoint through observing the human dynamic. In some instances I am prejudiced against having converstions with some folks because I know through viewing their posts nothing positive will become of it. The ones I have had unproductive discussions with I choose not to interact with anymore.
ILP’s forum rules premise are agreeable with me because it closely aligned with my now defunct site and personal operating structure. I don’t agree with a lot that is discussed, but I am still interested is seeing those different viewpoints.
I don’t take any pleasure in doing that. I consider myself something of a laissez-faire Moderator. It may be true that I might be one of the first people to put the possibility of a ban on the table, but I don’t take action of any kind unless a definite infraction of the Rules has occurred.