Is it better to ban someone from a message board..
 

... or just let the users "ignore" whoever they want?

Case by case basis.

Examples?

No... If the "rules" for banning are described too explicitly, then a dick can dance around just short of the cutoff saying "I'm not breaking the roooo-oools, you can't ban me!"

HM is right on. The rules are "don't be a dick" and the interpretation is up to UT.

The rules are "don't be a dick" and the interpretation is up to UT.

And the indivigual interpatation is up to the indivigual , UT is pretty alowing unless you are being extreme , then he will dump you like the load of shit you are !!!

On a private message board like this one, the persons who runs it gets to make his own rules. If you don't like them, no one is forcing you to hang around here.

Can we get a smilie for Dead Horse?

Are you inferring that I "don't like them"? Or is that the universal "you"?

who ARE we talking about, anyway?

No one. I was just wondering about people complaining about a user to the owner rather than just ignoring him/her. Why people would do that.

And then I started to think why have both, an ignore option for users to use, and also a banning system. Banning someone erases a user for everyone, when maybe everyone doesn't want that user gone.

I used to ask why do you need an ignore feature. But now I wonder, why ban when users can ignore?

I did expect people to respond with "If you don't like it, too bad." But that doesn't answer my theoretical questions.

It can be an attempt to modify the bad user's behavior.

^^^Edit Alert^^^

(@Steve: I knew what you meant)

Not if the complaints are "You should ban that person! I can't handle reading what he/she has written!"

It is only your PERCEPTION that I think you, personally, don't like the way things are done here.

By "you" I meant the entire world, K?

Oh, and BTW, I adore ME, and I'm not going to change my posting style to please ANYBODY because I am soooo perfect! And if you perceive this as a sly innuendo, well, all I can say is that I love EVERYONE, and I'm not responsible for anyone's PERCEPTIONS re my posts.

Thank you. :rolleyes:

you need to be able to ban people. what if they start spewing your personal info, or making threats, or posting illegal images (kiddie p*rn) etc.

you can ignore someone to an extent, unless the rest of the people on your board like them, and talk to them.......

i tried to ignore marichiko for a while, but the rest of us are not as strong as i am in my distaste, so they talk to her, and i follow the conversation sometimes. now, if she's talking to someone else lame, i can tune it out pretty effectively. i would not vote to ban marichiko. i would, and have voted to chase her away, though. it only took for about 2 months, but it was fun at the time. for some reason, she gets off on me bashing her. true attention whores dont care if the attention is pos or neg, i guess.

Well there's always the problem of ignoring stupid new threads. And there's always the "why waste the disk space", thing. But mostly, because this method has worked for us so far.

Answers to all these sorts of questions follow the Cellar culture. Members are expected to act like grown-ups and exhibit some self-control. UT takes care of the very few folks who can't manage that.

On another topic, have you noticed, Steve, how many of your threads are meta-posts (posts about the Cellar, the Dwellars, comparisons with AG etc.)? I think your other threads are more interesting.

Based on my observations, banning is used most commonly here on spammers - because no one likes them. Occasionally a ban-worthy troll visits us. Jochser sums it up well "He really is just pure troll. I haven't seen any other side to him, except just trying to annoy and put down people."
I don't use the ignore feature, I don't have the willpower I guess. Even if I find <strike>mari</strike> someones posts completely worthless, the blank spots left where their posts should be, and the replies that don't make sense because I've missed something, bug me.

damn. you're so much more subtle than i am.

Hey, LJ! Have I ever told you that I really, really, really, really, REALLY love you? :love:


:lol:

From 1990-1999 I think we banned like one person. The system worked well at the time because it took a little more effort to get on and participate.

In recent times the number has jumped to like 50 bans in the last six months.

Did I mention that 48 of those were spammers? Are you applying your thinking to them too? Because, consider:

- Any community on the net that's worthwhile, is worthwhile to spam
- Any community worthwhile to spam and not moderated, will be ruined by spam

AND,

- Any community on the net that's worthwhile, is worthwhile to attention whores
- Any community worthwhile to attention whores and not moderated, will be ruined by attention whores

Everyone hates moderation, but a community on the net can't survive in the long term without it. Also,

- If one applies *any* rules, one is seen as the "final arbiter" and it then becomes a responsibility to apply *enough* rules, consistently and fairly, for the community to survive and for users to understand what it's about.
- No *automated* or *user-based* system of moderation yet developed is more effective than a interested, enlightened, light-handed moderator or set of moderators, combined with a strong community.

Slashdot, there's your user-based moderation at work. Is it so great? Kuro5hin, on which every comment was rated, turned into a clique of enormous proportions and eventually partly failed due to personal attacks on the owner. (Have I been personally attacked or threatened due to the Cellar: yes)

There's also a paradox:
- Any community worthwhile will take resources
- Resources are a cost to someone
- Anything that's a cost to someone requires them to see a benefit
- Benefits are usually editorial or commercial
- Editorial/commercial bents make shitty communities

On the Cellar, most of the costs are handled by donations and I accept the headaches of actually running it because it's a cool hobby to have. Plus I'm fascinated by the online society, and have studied it in detail all this time.

The paradox is why there are precious few completely unmanaged communities like AG, which I'm guessing only lives out of the goodness of some anonymous sysadmin's heart. In the long run, someone has to pay for the new disk and someone has to take the time to install it. Why should they?

. . . hmmmmmm . . . because AG rocks so hard?

Seriously though, I figure AG stays up because #1 it runs a little ad space #2 it provides a link to other commercial ventures, and #3 Michael must have a soft spot in his hearts for us.

What you've managed here, without commercial interest, is very impressive.

AudioGalaxy was based on a file-trading model of community building, and as it happened, the community stayed in place, to a degree, after the music went away - lo those many years ago. For better or worse it continues to chug along, with occasional maintenance by Michael, for whatever his reasons are. Many of us have speculated that AG is a massive sociological experiment - sound familiar?

it is a well established conspirousy theory that their are only about 3-4 actual cellerites , every body else is just a dummy account ;)

Inference and implication aren't the same thing.
And yes it does matter.

Glarkware rules!

We have the same conspiracy theory at AG. At times I'm almost convinced. Of course we're all dummies over there!

Yes, it sounds like plastic.com. I bet you'd enjoy it. You should check it out.

Thanks, Helpy McHelperson! (plagarism, I know)

Oh, man, the replies in this thread. I laughed, I cried. Some were great answers exactly what I wanted to hear (particularly LJ's response regarding banning those spewing your personal info, or kiddie porn), some where well thought out and maybe rehearsed (UT's), some were attacks rather than answers some were answers but meant to attack.

About AG, there is an owner there that does ban spammers and trolls, but they have to go a LONG way to get banned. I've never had an account banned, actually I only have one. But, Flint's right, the owner of AG only keeps it open because he has a soft spot for us.

And, can I say that I don't enjoy others telling me that I "might enjoy" another message board? It's like "don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out". I like The Cellar.

I really appreciated UT's answer that included some history, because I enjoy the idea of a message board as an interactive hobby. That's why I'm here everyday.

Apparently you *can* say that. I wouldn't call Plastic a "message board"; it's more complex than that. But you won't find out if you don't check it out, and obviously you haven't. In fact I did think you might actually enjoy Plastic...combining as it does online community with considerable "social experiment" backstory.

But on reflection, the time investment required to enjoy it might exceed your attention span. Any gluteoportal interactions during departure are your own problem...

More cellar.org history is of course available at the FAQ.

;) Good come-back. I enjoyed that.