Well at first it was enough to respond to Windows XP User's moronic comments decrying each one in turn because that's what you do when people tell you what their idea of the truth is and do not listen to anybody else.
Then, it was enough to tell him to piss off whenever he posted, when it became obvious that he was not even interested in posting relevant information in relevant topics (which is reallynot that hard).
Then it became obvious that he was periodically posting in ever topic in the "Today's Active Topics" list one after the other with deliberately inflammatory posts. This in itself is not too huge a problem, the knock on effect however was huge. For each one of his posts there are usually several angry responses, often within minutes. After that a discussion often does not get back on subject, or if it does, many people will steer clear of it because they do not wish to read through pages of flames just to get to the substance.
Windows XP User has made almost 60 posts and to nearly every one of these, there has been roughly three or four angry replies. This makes 200 to 300 useless posts in total, clogging up the boards and wasting everybody's time. It is my opinion that this is exactly the effect that windows XP user wishes to perpetuate.
In response I took the ill-fated decision to delete a couple of XP User's more worthless posts in the hope that this would curb the flow of angry responses flooding in by the minute and clogging up the forums, but this had little real effect.
It has been mentioned to me that deleting posts for reasons other than that they contain illegal content is a very bad idea since it denies true freedom of speech. Now that this has been pointed out to me i agree totally, and I will not be deleting any of XP User's posts from now on unless they do contain illegal content (and they will not, i am almost certain).
This does however leave the matter of the angry responses. I am asking everyone who posts in these forumsto please not respond to Windows XP User's posts unless there is something of relevance and substance to respond to. I am not asking in my capacity as a moderator or anything pious like that, just as someone who likes to read through a topic without having to skim all the insults just to get to the actual information, discussion or subject matter.
There's only so many times you can tell someone to go away, and i think XP user has used up his quota.
[ June 07, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
