I'm not angry. I simply disagree. I do believe it's possible to disagree without flinging insults.
I mean... the guy comes and badmouths the forum, talks shit about the admins... what am I supposed to do? Leave it?
There's a point at which "free speech" becomes too much.
You can't shout "FIRE" in a public building. It would be too dangerous.
Also, private organizations reserve the right to limit what you say. That can go too far.
For example, if you were a member at Erudition, and said this just now here on MES, it's not going to affect the way I think of you on Erudition. You can go to other forums and badmouth me and the forum, or Apple, or even my momma all you want. It's not hurting me, and there's nothing I can really do about it.
But when you're posting on someone's forum, you're a guest. By being a member of a community, you have to set aside some of your free will for the good of said community.
Now, I'm against editing posts unless they're blatant trollings. At that point, I feel that all bets are off.
Other forums have tight policies against trolls. They won't hesitate to enforce a code of conduct.
Simple things...
Duplicate posts will get nuked
Pornography is not allowed
"Hate speech"... that is, bigoted, racist statments against a person or group of people... is prohibited
Some forums have other rules that we might find strange
Posts with all-capital titles are not allowed.
Large images are not permitted (they'll edit it to make it a link... but some places don't do anything but nuke your post)
Some places won't let you have certain names, or will ban you if you ever change your name.
People have to play by the rules of the house. If not, there's penalties.
MES has never had a clear policy on dealing with troublemakers... that's why they've flourished. They stay out of the forums that have tough mods and just have a field day in others.
But you know, I don't tell you how to do your job, so don't tell me how to do mine. I'm out to ruin a troll's day. I'm an asshole, a dickhead, call me what you will. I don't think anybody here will disagree that I'm an ornery, boisterous, rude, cocky loudmouth butthead.
I love belittling people and making them feel like their day is a total waste. When I'm policing the forums... I take it all out on trolls. I'll edit their post, then lock the thread and let it sit there for a little while, that way they can see what I do.
They don't deserve a "fair chance". If their post has some value, then it'll probably escape the axe. If it doesn't, it's gone. If they keep their trolling up, then guess what? They're banned.
We've got some examples of people that have turned out to be good, contributing members. Take Viper, formerly Zombie, for example. He's a good, well-behaved member... he just prefers Windows. He'd be openly welcomed at Erudition.
But he used to be a troll supreme. Yes, in the end, he turned out to be a good member... but for the longest time... he wasn't.
We'd rather not take the risk. If we let every troll come and waste the place, just because we think "oh, they might turn out to be a fine, upstanding member one day" then Erudition will fall into the same funk that this place has.
We have our methods. We're certain in our execution. We've seen what went wrong in our opinion, and we're going to make our attempt to do it better. We're sure that we're going to make it work. rkfucker be damned.
If caring about keeping Erudition clean and actually fighting trolls makes me a Nazi, then I'm gonna go don my SS uniform and go troll hunting. Now where's my luger and MP40?
[ October 29, 2003: Message edited by: The Merciless Darth Jimmy James ]
