Reasons for banning individuals

I wonder if being banned can produce a Near Forum Experience?

 

If it did would the experience feel 'more real and vivid' than the normal one?

 

The no interaction bit sounds exactly like posting on here normally. I suppose in the post-board state there might be a feeling of detachment and joy though so I guess it is a plus.

 

Hard to imagine.

 

I have decided to begin selling forum insurance.
You never know when you or a loved one may be banned.
Simply bury 25.00 U.S.D. in a suitable container in your backyard, and one of our agents will contact you.

 

But doesn't that change it from insurance to a protection racket?

 

I'm pretty sure protection rackets are marketed as insurance.

 

I guess I'm just agreeable or not very civic minded because I rarely think about the moderation and don't understand why people get in such a tizzy... throwing temper tantrums, etc. If I had a serious problem with moderation I'd PM David before blasting my emotions all over an unrelated thread.

Maybe I feel like in order to complain too strongly, I'd have to be willing to do the job myself and I certainly have no desire to moderate.

I guess if forced to have an opinion, I'd say that I do think banning occurs too quickly or frequently. I voiced my opinion on the banning of the "Bible Thumper" earlier.

But it's not like David is taking them off to the gulag... they can come back.

 

You have to admit mutual of oleo,has a nice ring to it.

 

Agree pretty much completely.

 

I think it is more likely to induce an Out of Forum Experience.

.

 

Or a Dying Forum Experience.

 

Just a brief note to let folks know that the moderation team and I have (amicably) parted ways due to a difference of opinion on moderation principles and policy. To be sure, my post (#328) in the "Global Warming: Are Sea Levels Rising?" thread wasn't helpful to unity, and I justify it only as a (possibly rash) last-ditch attempt to elicit public support for, and encourage the rest of the moderation team to get behind, a cause for which private barracking with the rest of the moderation team had been fruitless. I continue to believe in this forum, and will stick around. I continue to respect both David and Alex, we just differ on how to moderate. Thanks, guys.

 

Sad... Thanks a lot for trying, Laird.

 

I'll respond here, Laird, so as not to take up more space on that GW thread.

I'm afraid not. Perhaps in some alternate reality where the boundaries would be more fluid.

 

Yeah, that's sad. The forum needed the kind of commitment you brought, and new ideas to improve the forum, etc. It also offloaded David's workload as sole moderator for the whole forum, I think. Alex mostly moderate, and post, in the Skeptiko Show-thread, if I'm not mistaken?

I haven't really kept up with the whole moderation-debate that has been going on for a while, I just hope it sorts out.
Well anyway, I hope you stick around as a "normal" poster.

 

Thanks, Pollux. I do plan to stick around. I still value this forum and the energy, ideas, knowledge, wisdom and wit everybody brings to it, including yourself.

Yes, it's a pity that David no longer has somebody to take some of the burden off him. Maybe somebody in line with the dinner-party-host principle of moderation will step up to the plate. The moderation debate is basically about whether that principle or a more minimalist/liberal principle should rule moderation (to boil it down to its very, very bare essence, necessarily oversimplifying).

I can't really comment on Alex's moderation, except that it seems that he only steps in where he sees a need - but yes, he does seem to focus on the podcast threads.

 

How unfortunate.