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Chapter and verse on this one:
People are asking if I'd ban someone just for asking to be banned, and I want to make it clear that wasn't the situation here.
This thread was ongoing, discussing PW's presence on the board and a decent proportion of people on the first page of the thread are already talking about banning him. After a few pages of discussion in which it was pretty clear that he wasn't engaging with anyone's comments, these opinions became stronger. At this point, people started wondering whether they should bring me in and paranoid writer himself pushed straight past that and asked basically for my opinion.
A couple of pages later, I come in, read all the comments and try and get my head around the situation. At this point I say that if a significant proportion of people supported a ban, I would feel comfortable going along with it. I suggest giving him a second chance - specifically an attempt to simply show some respect for the community by actually addressing some of the arguments seriously and either defending his position logically or apologising for it.
At this point some board users - including Anna , Falcon, Sheik Zed and Pegs say that they're not sure he deserves this second chance and that he's pretty much definitely going to throw it in our faces. The views in the thread expressed so far have been for the most part an outright desire to ban him, a sense that he doesn't deserve a second chance but should probably be given one, a certain amount of confusion and exasperation from people who generally can't see why he's acting the way he is and think it's going to end in a ban. Generally, the impression is that he's getting a final opportunity and that this is either what he deserves or more than he deserves. No one declares that it's worse treatment than he deserves.
The position is restated, he queries exactly what he's supposed to do a day later. The position is clarified and restated again. In all of these cases he is not asked to justify all of his opinions or beliefs, but just to make a serious and concerted effort to engage with the board. After the third time that this has been stated over three days, he answers none of the points, refuses to show the slightest respect for the board or the process, says shame on you, declares that we have killed him and indicates that he has no interest in participating further.
At this point, I think it's justifiable to ban him. Not because he stood up and asked to be banned, but because he refused to do anything that would indicate that he was prepared to engage with the concerns or issues of the community in a serious way. Refusing to argue your case, engage with anyone else and prefering just to state annoying stuff that aggravates everyone else is the definition of trolling.
The previous cases of people demanding to be banned and not being banned are not because I didn't take them at their word, it's because they were causing no harm. If you actually want to stop posting, then you can just stop posting. That's pretty easy. I don't need to ban you to help you not post. If, however, you are actually a troll and state that you have no interest in not being a troll, and you've been given clear suggestions about how to not get banned and you throw them in everyone's face by challenging someone to ban you, then sure, you get banned.
Key phrase there is probably:
Refusing to argue your case, engage with anyone else and prefering just to state annoying stuff that aggravates everyone else is the definition of trolling.
Sooo... from that PoV, if a number of people express the belief that he should be banned, and he does not seriously engage with the question of why that pass has been reached, and how it might be resolved, banning is appropriate. So, Electric Monk's point - that he does not think that N. will ever not be unproductive in his engagement with the board, including in any engagement with this thread - is relevant. |
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