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On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:45:25 +1000 |
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Stuart Longland <redhatter@g.o> wrote: |
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> On a somewhat related note... I've sat back and watched this |
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> argument for some time now. Banning people seems like an extremely |
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> drastic measure. Sure, it's easy. It's also easily circumvented, |
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> and is only a short-term solution. I don't think it's the answer. |
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Banning people is not drastic. We do it all the time on #gentoo and we |
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have rules in place to stop ourselves from becoming power crazed |
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maniacs as well as giving banned channel users the benefit of the |
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doubt. |
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|
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Circumventing (evading) a ban on IRC means giving up your nickname, and |
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if you happen to value your own name, you won't, hence you will not |
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evade the ban. The same applies to mailing lists. If you ban a user and |
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he comes back using a different e-mail address, you just ban him again. |
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Getting banned from a community happens to be a lot worse than just not |
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being able to get your point across (i.e. continue the flamewar). |
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|
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Losing the right to use your own [nick]name / e-mail address within a |
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community is an extreme penalty indeed, but if the ban is temporary |
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(in the case of MLs, say two weeks or a month), even the people passing |
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the ban can live with it. |
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|
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> How's this for an idea though... Rather than banning |
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> *people*... why not temporarily ban a thread? I know this is easily |
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> possible on forum threads -- mailing lists are more difficult, but if |
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> one could lock a thread for a day or so -- that might allow people to |
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> cool off before picking up the thread again. |
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Banning certain threads isn't just infeasible (technically impossible), |
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it's actually worse than banning someone from your community: by |
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"banning a thread" you censor whoever is left in the community. |
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And actually, circumventing a "thread ban" is much easier than getting |
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back on a mailing list: you just start a new thread. In fact it happens |
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all the time on this list when someone thinks writing a new subject |
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will make all the difference, or tries to set a new tone to the |
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conversation. It just does not work. |
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Banning certain users, perhaps banning them for a period of time to |
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maybe cool off, is easy to implement and these bans are easy to |
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maintain. What you are suggesting, i.e. moderating the content of this |
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list before it even hits our mailboxes, is censorship of the worst |
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kind, and would be impossible to uphold. |
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As someone suggested before, maybe the forums.g.o people might like to |
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chime in and give their view on "debate management"? I wouldn't think |
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it gets as heated as IRC does, but maybe there are some parallels |
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between forums and MLs that could be of interest. |
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|
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Kind regards, |
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JeR |
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-- |
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gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |