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Moderation requests & discussion thereof

 
  

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Ganesh
02:20 / 13.07.05
Can you give me examples of such failed attempts?

Yep. The individual whose persistence shaped the entire board for several years initially registered as The Knowledge. Eventually, after wave upon wave of well-meaning newbies like yourself going through the familiar gamut of "why don't you ignore/reason with them?" questions, we devised a specific FAQ linking to various of the individual in question's contributions to the board. These are only the tip of the iceberg, really; there's a whole ancient history underpinning these threads. The poster formerly known as The Knowledge seems to have mended his ways (for reasons unconnected with Barbelith) and, I believe, wants these threads deleted. They're currently still on the board, though, so check 'em out which you can.

Morpheus isn't in this guy's league when it comes to sheer bloody-minded obsession with wanting to belong to a club that doesn't want you as a member. The cycle of arguments for and against tolerating/banning/warning/ignoring/reasoning with The Knowledge was rehearsed many times, though, and is perhaps the reason some of us are being a little short with you now.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
02:27 / 13.07.05
I think you'd be surprised at how rarely anyone returns as a cleverer or subtler troll.

Really? Is that true (sincerely)? My experience is limited in this respect, I fully admit. But isn't more akin to terrorists in a foreign country. As Ms Triplets typed somewhere:

"Terrorists: trolls of the real" (or similar words to this effect)

One never knows for sure who is doing what at any time in any arena, especially in a faceless environment like the internet, no?

Besides, if these problems keep coming back: what does that tell us? Of course, it shows there may always be Trolls out there, waiting; but the fact that they affect us so much shows that despite a long battle with such offenders, our tactics may not be working as well as we think. Maybe when you swamped some Troll in the past, they went away, became even more bitter, and sneaked back in determined to cause more trouble. But of course, I need to do some trawling and find specific examples of past Trolls to say anymore about the application and result of past tactics, etc. (links please?)
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
02:32 / 13.07.05
Cheers Ganesh. I'm going to go away now, read a lot, be quiet, then come back and type anything I consider appropriate. Most probably it'll go something along these lines:

"Yeah, you're right."

Oh, and were you being short with me? I hadn't noticed (honestly).
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
03:01 / 13.07.05
Sorry, may I ask one last set of questions (please feel free to PM me with answers if it stops me posting here anymore and annoying y'all)? I know, I know, I'm like a Troll with an itch sometimes. But please, humour me?

Are there Trolls out there who know what they are and are proud of it? I'll bet there are, but if so, one has to ask do they really feel justified in and by their behaviour; why do they feel justified in this behaviour; can they ever be seen to be justified in the behaviour, and/or is their behaviour ever justified; do we ever help justify their behaviour to themselves;... etc...?

i.e. Understand the Troll, Love the Troll, save the Troll, etc.

I mean isn't a Troll just a wannabe "rebel without a devoted fan-club"?

Thoughts?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:17 / 13.07.05
e.g. You ban me today and I'll come back tomorrow under a cleverer, subtler, and more spiteful guise. This is the internet, we're only human, and it's not hard to fool anyone.

Hi.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:24 / 13.07.05
I'm with Ganesh- I've been doing the swamping thing, but if we're gonna be in agreement with the ignoring campaign, then I'll do thaty instead.
 
 
Evil Scientist
07:56 / 13.07.05
If PMing him has already been tried then that's cool. During my many years in the wilderness (ie before I actually joined) I've read some of the more archaic threads from the dawn of Barbelith, so I do understand that the long-running members have had to put up with trolls of varying tenacity.

I would like to know what locking Morpheus into a single thread is going to achieve? I agree that it would protect his freedom of speech as he can argue to his heart's content without roving across the length and breadth of Barbelith offending and aggravating at will.

This would probably be the fairest option. But if he's not showing any sign of actually engaging with others and remains trollish in aspect then banning him seems to be the method that ties off the stump easiest.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:25 / 13.07.05
Works in theory - but for all the cries of "censorship" that go round here, we've only ever banned about four people (occupyiing a number of different fictionsuits). It's exceptionally difficult to ban people from Barbelith - not so much in terms of the technicals but in terms of the popular opposition.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
08:32 / 13.07.05
p.w: "e.g. You ban me today and I'll come back tomorrow under a cleverer, subtler, and more spiteful guise. This is the internet, we're only human, and it's not hard to fool anyone."

Haus: "Hi".


"Er,.... hello stranger! Have we met?"

Soz, I'm actually still in the process of reading the archives, I've had little sleep (as per bloody usual), and have absolutely no idea what you meant there, Haus, ol'chap. Don't worry, you won't here another peep out of me; I'm just going outside, but I may be some time....
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:44 / 13.07.05
Sorry. The telescoped version of that was:

"Well, we have a reasonably large number of people who have been on Barbelith for quite some time, and in the course of that have found that, actually, as has been mentioned, trolls tend to come in at the height of their abilities, and therefore don't usually have another gear to move up into. They just do what they've been doing, but more so. This is doubtless annoying, but it's not generallly a threat to life, and at the moment, since people who want to join Barbelith have to submit some proof of existence and wait for authorisation, banning a trolling suit would put a serious crimp in that troll's ability to interfere with the action of Barbellith. Even when suits were easily registered, the cycle time between new user turning up and troll being identified and ejected tended actually to shorten. We have enough seasoned users with reasonable trolldar to make this less of a worry."
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
08:50 / 13.07.05
Oh, OK. "Trolldar"; I likes that a lot. Back later, if that's still all right.
 
 
Char Aina
10:11 / 13.07.05
can a HS mod change the typo in this post?

the thought of a straight man who likes to suck the occasional cack is terrifying me and exciting me all at once, and it's distracting.
cheers.
 
 
Triplets
17:11 / 13.07.05
Are there Trolls out there who know what they are and are proud of it?

I give you: the GNAA (Really not safe for head).
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
20:15 / 14.07.05
I'm baaaaaaaaack! And yeah, by the looks of it: "You're right". But then, I'm waaaaaaay out of my depth on this one, and my "study" on 'Models of a Progressive Society; the elastic rules of a Dissipative Structure' has probably got a lot more reading and thinking to do yet. Hope my questions (etc) were taken in the same good faith with which they were intended. Thanks for your patience.

(Ms Triplets, thanks for the link. For a while, I had absloutely no idea how to interpret that site, but I had fun trying. Again, thanks. I guess the double-f**k name is good in that it makes people pause for thought, but a little like the appropraition and adaptation of "Nigger" to "Nigga" in some sections of black US culture, I'm still not so sure whether this is (counter)productive in the long run. Hmmm.....)

Sorry for any possible threadrot, and best wishes one and all.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:45 / 15.07.05
Can someone delete this post in Books? It's a duplicate.
 
 
Ganesh
16:42 / 16.07.05
As suggested by JtB, could a friendly moderator with lots of time on his/her hands tackle this thread? The "Islam = warlike" stuff needs to be split off from my original premise, and perhaps set up in a thread of their own.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
19:33 / 16.07.05
If nobody gets to it before me, I'll give it a go (probably won't be until Monday or so that I have time, though...)

What's the best way to deal? Cut'n'paste the off-topic responses (although I feel removing the on-topic ones and starting the thread afresh while changing the title of the existing one may be a LOT easier, so far has it drifted...) and post 'em, accredited by poster, into the first couple of posts of the new one?
 
 
Smoothly
23:25 / 16.07.05
I reckon that's about right, Stoatie - it's probably best to c&p the on-topic responses into a new thread (with the same title and summary) and retitle the existing thread as appropriate - 'Is terrorism more a feature of Islam than other religions?' or something.

By my reckoning, with that topic retitled (with maybe an explanatory note at the top), you'd just have to move Ganesh on 13/07 @ 01.35 - Sleaze @ 11.11 (ie. the first 7 posts). Then add to that Solitaire Rose @ 16.20 - Solitaire Rose @ 16.48, m @ 21.53, and Cherielabombe @ 19.12 on 16/07.

That's not perfect and there's ontopica mixed into other posts, but it'd be quite a job to separate it out. People can always restate those points in the new thread.
 
 
Mazarine
00:55 / 17.07.05
If you want help, Stoatie, I'm game.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:54 / 17.07.05
It migth be better just to delete the offtopic responses - everybody involved knew the risks of posting offtopic. Especailly because it isn't so much a discussion of whether Islam is more prone to creating terrorism, but rather a masterclass in how not to post to the Switchboard. Certainly, most of the responses in that thread have no great value, and it would be a shame to clog up the thread Citizen Frances has now started on Islam and terror.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
09:51 / 17.07.05
That's true... I feel a little uneasy about deleting so many posts, though... how about locking the topic, grabbing the few posts that are still relevant to Ganesh's original question, and putting them in a new thread, leaving the others available for people to repost bits of as/when they feel they are relevant?

I'd like to know people's opinions on this before I go about doing anything drastic.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:09 / 17.07.05
Lockign the thread and linking to it as a reference for two new threads - "7/7 and 9/11" and Frances' thread on Muslim violence - might work.
 
 
sleazenation
13:09 / 17.07.05
Yeah, there is a lot of stuff I posted in the original thread that I think is important and relevant to Frances new thread, so I'd like to be able to rescue that if possible.

I'd also prefer to see the original thread locked because any attempt to edit it is going to make it less readily understandable than it is at the moment. Rather than evicerate that thread it's better to leave it as an unfinished early draft that spawned two further topics...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:14 / 17.07.05
Sounds eminently sensible- I've proposed a lock on the original thread, and I think out of politeness I'll PM Ganesh and ask if he wants to start his original thread again himself- if he doesn't (and I understand he's fairly busy at the moment) I'll ask if I can just start a new thread using his original post.

Does that sound reasonable?
 
 
grant
17:58 / 17.07.05
Works for me...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
19:34 / 17.07.05
If Ganesh hasn't expressed an opinion by, what? tomorrow evening, say? should I just go ahead anyway?
 
 
Mazarine
21:47 / 17.07.05
Sounds reasonable to me too.
 
 
Ganesh
22:04 / 17.07.05
Apologies for not getting back to your PM, Stoatie. Yes, fine by me. As you say, I've got my hands full at the moment, so if someone else wants to start a new '7/7 vs 9/11' type thread on my behalf, that'd be grrrreat.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
22:11 / 17.07.05
Cool. I'm probably a bit fucked at the moment, but if nobody's done it by tomorrow morning, then we're go!
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:05 / 18.07.05
Okay, in a much better state of sobriety this evening, and have started the new thread. Is this okay?
 
 
Smoothly
22:04 / 18.07.05
Looks good to me Stoat. And I've copied over my initial response, which I feel a little bit sheepish about. I hope that's okay. The threadrot didn't grow from seeds I planted there, did it?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
22:13 / 18.07.05
I really don't think so. And nothing to feel sheepish about- the reason the original thread's been locked (and not deleted, though I don't think that was ever an option) is exactly so people CAN have access to comments they've already made (for the cuttin' and the pastin'), if they're relevant and they still stand by them.
 
 
Smoothly
22:45 / 18.07.05
Cool. It was just that it suddenly felt a bit presumptuous when I actually came to do it.
 
 
Triplets
23:35 / 18.07.05
Hi guys, I've not seen anything about this here yet, but, can I suggest we lock the original Headsick and rage thread before it gets worse? It's like watching kids rape the corpse of an angry old man.
 
 
Ganesh
23:56 / 18.07.05
Kids with bobble-hats on.
 
  

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