Posted by Chuck Tribolet on January 11, 2002 at 13:11:18:
In Reply to: Poll: GLinSD on BBS, in or out posted by seahunt on January 11, 2002 at 08:31:24:
Off with him.
Freedom of speech doesn't include the right to
yell "fire" in a theater, plot the overthrow of
the government, or slander someone. Likewise,
enforcement of the rules here does not prevent
this from being a "free and open" board.
I moderate the ba_diving list up north. I would
have bounced GLinSD off ba_diving a LONG time ago.
He does make personal attacks: "clone puppets"
and such.
I'd also have bounced several other people here,
though I suspect that in most cases, if there were
tighter enforcement of the rules, they never would
have been provoked into the actions I would have
bounced them for. There's been a gradual
escalation of the war of words. If they had been
told "cool it!" earlier, it would not have
escalated. If you allow anarchy, everyone becomes
an anarchist.
I've only had to ban two people from ba_diving in
a year and a half. Both were banned for
commercial posts (we have a no commercial posts
rule), neither was a California resident (One
Florida, one foreign). I think that's because
people know I mean business about keeping the
debate rational and police themselves.
One of the problems with this list is that there's
no enforcement of the requirement to enter a real
e-mail address, so it's all to easy to become a
sock puppet. That also means there's no way to to
automatically enforce banning someone.
Chuck