On 22.05.2017 16:31, bachmeier wrote:
On Monday, 22 May 2017 at 12:04:39 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
Once you start banning + deleting non-spam its a real slippery slope.
This is an argument I've never understood.
First, _this not a significant problem around here_. The forum
self-moderates reasonably well.
That said:
Ignoring trolls is both effective and convenient. Why would anyone be
affected by what such a person posts in the first place? Their thoughts
have no relevance as they lack maturity. Therefore, all they do is waste
a tiny little bit of time now and then.
Moderation also wastes time, and it is not actually easy to do well.
Seems to be dominant here.
It's part of the reason why I'm here. Attacking someone personally for
supposedly being hostile is a great way to derail a technical
discussion. It's a popular trolling strategy.
The way it has worked here so far is that if you are not able to give
someone the benefit of the doubt, you simply ignore them.
Not banning and deleting is a slippery slope.
If you use a newsgroup reader, you can block people's posts at will.
Why does there need to be a central authority? It's just overhead.
As soon as such an authority is established, people will try to move the
line around and argue about definitions of fuzzy terms in order to get
the central authority to ban precisely the set of posts they do not
like. This is not a productive use of the forums.
Also, aggressive moderation does not necessarily solve a problem. People
can simply get more sensitive (e.g. they will get offended about
trivialities such as exclamation marks and other unreliable cues) and
then newcomers, whose first language is not necessarily English, need to
learn arbitrary rules in order to be treated respectfully.
