An odd member

[Jean-Luc Picard]

We have a tight-knit community, except one member: stratego. His posts are full of falsehoods, and he's made a post denying the holocaust.
We know him from another forum, and know he doesn't have a capacity for learning or obeying rules, but we don't want to ban him off the bat.
What should we do?

[Willow]

Well TBO, I would warn him a few times and then if he continues ban him. Not knowing what your forum is like, I don't know what level of accuracy is expected, but coming from someone with two graduate degrees in history, I can say that these type of people are the scourge of academia. I ran across many of them along the way and it always drove me mad in the attitude of "if history isn't what I like, I will deny it." Drove me mad!

[Jean-Luc Picard]

Apr 17, 2017 20:02:41 GMT -8 Willow said:

Well TBO, I would warn him a few times and then if he continues ban him. Not knowing what your forum is like, I don't know what level of accuracy is expected, but coming from someone with two graduate degrees in history, I can say that these type of people are the scourge of academia. I ran across many of them along the way and it always drove me mad in the attitude of "if history isn't what I like, I will deny it." Drove me mad!

You're always welcome to take a look, or maybe join. We could use some company!
But yeah, I agree. Probably will go down that road.

[Willow]

Apr 17, 2017 20:04:52 GMT -8 Jean-Luc Picard said:

Apr 17, 2017 20:02:41 GMT -8 Willow said:

Well TBO, I would warn him a few times and then if he continues ban him. Not knowing what your forum is like, I don't know what level of accuracy is expected, but coming from someone with two graduate degrees in history, I can say that these type of people are the scourge of academia. I ran across many of them along the way and it always drove me mad in the attitude of "if history isn't what I like, I will deny it." Drove me mad!

You're always welcome to take a look, or maybe join. We could use some company!
But yeah, I agree. Probably will go down that road.

Well I might do that for Jean-Luc Picard.

[Kami]

To me, holocaust denial is tantamount to overt racism against Jewish people so I'd ban him outright. I don't tolerate "different opinions" when those opinions actively hurt real people and contribute to BS they have to face on a daily basis in real life. An opinion is "apples are better than oranges", not "this horrific mass murder based on race and beliefs that has unending documentation is not true".

Consider: how many people of Jewish heritage on your forum, or visiting your forum, has this person hurt? Maybe they feel they can't approach the staff about this because they have been allowed to continue. How many non-Jewish people who may have been hurt by the Holocaust (Rromani people, LGBT people, mentally ill and disabled people) have seen his posts and have been affected? Is that the kind of content you want to be okay for your forum? Food for thought.

Not going to lie, this strikes me as an odd situation to have questions about. You state outright:

he doesn't have a capacity for learning or obeying rules

Why on earth would you not want to ban him right away? Like, serious question, please explain this train of thought because it is incomprehensible to me that you would knowingly allow a person who you know will not respect the rules of your forum or learn from their mistakes to be a member of your community.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

Apr 17, 2017 20:39:10 GMT -8 Kami said:

To me, holocaust denial is tantamount to overt racism against Jewish people so I'd ban him outright. I don't tolerate "different opinions" when those opinions actively hurt real people and contribute to BS they have to face on a daily basis in real life. An opinion is "apples are better than oranges", not "this horrific mass murder based on race and beliefs that has unending documentation is not true".

Consider: how many people of Jewish heritage on your forum, or visiting your forum, has this person hurt? Maybe they feel they can't approach the staff about this because they have been allowed to continue. How many non-Jewish people who may have been hurt by the Holocaust (Rromani people, LGBT people, mentally ill and disabled people) have seen his posts and have been affected? Is that the kind of content you want to be okay for your forum? Food for thought.

Not going to lie, this strikes me as an odd situation to have questions about. You state outright:

he doesn't have a capacity for learning or obeying rules

Why on earth would you not want to ban him right away? Like, serious question, please explain this train of thought because it is incomprehensible to me that you would knowingly allow a person who you know will not respect the rules of your forum or learn from their mistakes to be a member of your community.

I'm not the one in charge, although I am the liaison to the outside community. The main admin is much more forgiving, more so than I'd be, although I think your post might sway him.

[Kami]

Apr 17, 2017 22:03:49 GMT -8 Jean-Luc Picard said:

Apr 17, 2017 20:39:10 GMT -8 Kami said:

To me, holocaust denial is tantamount to overt racism against Jewish people so I'd ban him outright. I don't tolerate "different opinions" when those opinions actively hurt real people and contribute to BS they have to face on a daily basis in real life. An opinion is "apples are better than oranges", not "this horrific mass murder based on race and beliefs that has unending documentation is not true".

Consider: how many people of Jewish heritage on your forum, or visiting your forum, has this person hurt? Maybe they feel they can't approach the staff about this because they have been allowed to continue. How many non-Jewish people who may have been hurt by the Holocaust (Rromani people, LGBT people, mentally ill and disabled people) have seen his posts and have been affected? Is that the kind of content you want to be okay for your forum? Food for thought.

Not going to lie, this strikes me as an odd situation to have questions about. You state outright:

he doesn't have a capacity for learning or obeying rules

Why on earth would you not want to ban him right away? Like, serious question, please explain this train of thought because it is incomprehensible to me that you would knowingly allow a person who you know will not respect the rules of your forum or learn from their mistakes to be a member of your community.

I'm not the one in charge, although I am the liaison to the outside community. The main admin is much more forgiving, more so than I'd be, although I think your post might sway him.

Oh, that's fair. I was under the assumption that you were the main administrator or co-admin, as generally speaking either the main admin or co-admin of a forum tend to post in this section.

I do hope that the person in charge will reconsider. Even if we put aside the holocaust denial (and quite frankly I do not think that should be done) there is no room in a thriving, or hopefully-will-be-thriving, community for someone who you know has no respect for the rules in place to keep that community functioning with good relationships amongst its members. It's a very bull in a china shop situation; maybe the bull hasn't started breaking things yet, but do you really want to wait for it to happen when you know the situation is precarious?

As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. What would y'all rather be dealing with? A pre-emptive strike of behaviour you know will occur based on this person's behavioural history? Or the fall out when he starts flagrantly disrespecting the rules, your staff, your members, possibly causing a rift in the community?

[stevecureboi]

I'd agree with Kami to be honest. If the admin allows this sort of posting it could alienate a lot of people & either stop them participating or even starting a flame war (I would hazard a guess the latter is what stratego is actually after).
Remember, a "standard" is what you are willing to accept & if accepting opinions like this is what the forum staff are okay with, that could set an unhealthy precedent.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

Kami's logic convinced the admin. The member has been banned.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

This member has TOR and no shame. He's trolling now.
Anyone knows a way to get rid of him?

[Kami]

Im glad to hear that, truly.

As far as trolling unfortunately the internet hasn't caught up with the ways around bans. My suggestion right now would be to turn on restricted registration so you can manually vet all accounts that sign up, and disable guest posting in all boards (and the shoutbox too). If there are any common themes between the usernames he is using, i'd also add them to the reserved names list.

He will likely continue creating new accounts but you can always check to see if the account email is legit (see if it's from a throw away site). Make sure you banned him via global account as well to make it more irritatating for him to continue registering.

Eventually once his account making doesn't allow him to post content he will give up and leave you guys alone. It may take some time, but in my opinion this is preferable to him spewing racist rhetoric on your boards.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

Apr 18, 2017 9:01:06 GMT -8 Kami said:

Im glad to hear that, truly.

As far as trolling unfortunately the internet hasn't caught up with the ways around bans. My suggestion right now would be to turn on restricted registration so you can manually vet all accounts that sign up, and disable guest posting in all boards (and the shoutbox too). If there are any common themes between the usernames he is using, i'd also add them to the reserved names list.

He will likely continue creating new accounts but you can always check to see if the account email is legit (see if it's from a throw away site). Make sure you banned him via global account as well to make it more irritatating for him to continue registering.

Eventually once his account making doesn't allow him to post content he will give up and leave you guys alone. It may take some time, but in my opinion this is preferable to him spewing racist rhetoric on your boards.

Knowing this clown from another site, he'll keep coming back for months.

[Pebbles]

to reply to earlier events
it saddens me to see yet once again
someone who owns a forum
refused to ban someone that literally is no good for the community 

sure it is nice to be a forgiving human being
but at same time
what are you doing, owning a forum and having forum rules up and then not ban when they get violated?

so whats been said earlier

it is incomprehensible to me that you would knowingly allow a person who you know will not respect the rules of your forum or learn from their mistakes to be a member of your community.

i feel the same way, makes no sense

it is good to see the admin changed his / her mind
and i hope they can learn from this
 
(i was in a similar situation, i had a troll and a person who did not care for my forum rules and i gave them a shot to become a decent member but when i realised they were truly no good , i banned the person. lucky for me , the kid never returned or tried again with a different acc.)

Jean-Luc Picard
if the person keeps on making new accs and uses vpn etc to avoid the bans
all you can do in the end is try to ignore them 
if you give attention to trolls, which a lot of people do not realise, you are literally feeding them
and if you do that, they WILL stick around as they love to get the attention - whether its good or bad, any attention will do for them
that is what trolling is all about in the end anyways
so if everyone ignores the troll, i am sure the guy or girl will give up eventually

if a troll doesn't get attention, they get bored

[Kami]

Apr 18, 2017 9:48:52 GMT -8 Jean-Luc Picard said:

Apr 18, 2017 9:01:06 GMT -8 Kami said:

Im glad to hear that, truly.

As far as trolling unfortunately the internet hasn't caught up with the ways around bans. My suggestion right now would be to turn on restricted registration so you can manually vet all accounts that sign up, and disable guest posting in all boards (and the shoutbox too). If there are any common themes between the usernames he is using, i'd also add them to the reserved names list.

He will likely continue creating new accounts but you can always check to see if the account email is legit (see if it's from a throw away site). Make sure you banned him via global account as well to make it more irritatating for him to continue registering.

Eventually once his account making doesn't allow him to post content he will give up and leave you guys alone. It may take some time, but in my opinion this is preferable to him spewing racist rhetoric on your boards.

Knowing this clown from another site, he'll keep coming back for months.

Then stick it out. Again, look at the choices:

- allow him to come back and demonstrate to him, his friends, and all your members that staff authority means squat if you're persistent

- monitor new registrations for a few months and keep on as a happy community

This is par for the course in running a community. Sometimes you have to deal with persistent jerks who want to make your life miserable because they are big babies who throw tantrums when they don't get their way. It sucks, but it's part of the package. He's teasing yalls mettle: will you crack, or stay strong? What kind of image do you want to project? What's message do you want to send?

I've been running the same forum for 12 years. Folks try to test me (I've been stalked, as have other staff members by the same person, we've had people threaten to hack or doxx us, you name it) but I am liberal with the ban hammer and I don't care what the people I ban think of me. My members know I'm fair and I don't instaban without reason. As a result the last actual drama we had on the forum was in 2007 (yes, literally 10 years ago!), and the members who took issue with policy changes left on amicable terms and we affiliated until their site closed down.

[The Maniac On Wheels (The MOW)]

Apr 18, 2017 7:05:18 GMT -8 Jean-Luc Picard said:

This member has TOR and no shame. He's trolling now.
Anyone knows a way to get rid of him?

ISP ban.