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Karel Jansens's Avatar
Posts: 3,220 | Thanked: 326 times | Joined on Oct 2005 @ "Almost there!" (Monte Christo, Count of)
#6
Originally Posted by Texrat View Post
I look at it this way: over 7000 members and a tiny handful of troublemakers (4 of which I strongly suspect are actually one person). Given that, there really isn't a huge problem here and it's not like Reggie will likely be banning people right and left.

Thing is, this is a more professional forum than, say, a gaming or wrestling forum and while having fun or even poking each other is fine IMO (as Karel and I have ) outright harassment is over the line. I'm using Ignore on the troublemaker accounts but for it to be effective against a committed miscreant it has to be used by more than 1 or 2 posters. In addition, if the troublemaker spams then you wind up with a jackass filling his ignored posts (which of course show up as headers) in between the good stuff, adding unnecessarily to the page count.

I think Reggie is striking a good balance here, and I highly doubt there will be any of the "admin abuse" I've seen elsewhere.

So don't say "byebye" Karel. What other curmudgeon will I spar with?
I am a believer in freedom of speech, and especially in the freedom of expression of opinions that I detest (what else is freedom of speech good for anyway?).

Furthermore, it is only words. They cannot hurt anyone beyond one's feelings, so what's the point of going all Spanish Inquisition on them? If a troll and its detractors want to start a flaming war, I say let them have their puerile fun; it's no skin of my back. Actually, it's usually a good sign for a forum if the local troll population starts to pay attention: it means the forum has achieved escape velocity and is now cruising happily above the event horizon (Prof. Hawking would probably have me crucified for mixing metaphores like that).

Finally, when I "spar" on this forum, it's usually to get a point across or, sometimes, to apply a bit of (poor) socratic irony: on occasion things need to be said with brutal exaggeration to get noticed. I'm not saying I'm good at it, mind, just that I try...