>>With all due respect--that is nonsense. It takes no less time to read "message ignored" (or whatever it says) than to NOT read the damn message.
I agree. That wasn't the point I was addressing.
>>But pretending to ignore somebody as a childish game (while you are reading all the messages) is simply disgusting--DON'T YOU THINK?
Yes. I wasn't addressing that point either.
>>Who has ever provoked someone into creating a "ban"? You know as well as I, that in the majority of cases, "bans" are levied to stifle free speech and to assuage warped egos.
The majority of users would prefer to discuss their positions on the merits, but others can't settle for that so they resort to name-calling, threats, vulgarity, personal attacks, and provoking others to ignore them or ban them from boards. You can consider it to be sophistry if you wish, but it's reality. That's not to say there are not moderators (and participants) who prefer to have only like-minded discourse on their thread, which is perfectly acceptable since anyone can start another thread on the same topic.
>>So we have only to look at how sensible "bans" are. Thread heads are "provoked" into creating them, you say?? What if there were only TOU? They could not THEN be "provoked"--could they??
Bans are a two-edged sword, originally created years ago as a user feature when dealing with "disruptive" posters became an overwhelming task for site admins. Bob and I have been discussing the merits of requiring board moderators to select a valid reason for issuing a ban, and having some type of structure that would automatically enforce time limits on them with permanent bans being available only to one of the site admins. That would give a little more meat to the FAQ on Bans, which reads in part:
Q: When can I ban someone?
A: After the person to be banned has posted. If someone is going to be banned they should at least get a chance to earn the distinction of making the thread's ban list. Silicon Investor encourages participation, and thread moderators should as well as long as the poster is not overly disruptive and conforms to site rules and thread guidelines. Within the scope of those broad guidelines, ban/unban decisions are at the moderators' discretion. Users who are unsatisfied with a moderator's use of the ban feature should look to other threads on the subject, and can also start a new thread if no suitable alternatives exist. On 10/10/04, all pre-bans (bans of users who had never posted to the thread) were automatically removed.
The site admins have the ability to ban/unban on all threads, including non-moderated threads. Banning activity is logged, and moderators found to be egregiously abusing the feature are subject to losing their moderator privileges. |
