TM,
You and I will probably never agree on this, but hal's position is unique only because his behavior is unique. But this thread isn't supposed to be about hal specifically, and like I said, we'll never agree on it, so on to the larger issue.
Lali: I'm pretty clear on what I'd like to see: b77 should have a way to ban a member who is repeatedly disruptive. Period. That doesn't violate anything that we stand for.
Depends on who gets to define "disruptive". And whether that definition gets uniformly applied.
Really though, no one person can disrupt this board. It takes a cooperative effort. If someone starts a thread (or even multiple threads) saying that Angbasdil is an asshole, I have two options. I can ignore him, in which case
he is the asshole. Or I can call
him an asshole, in which case we now have two assholes. And if other people start taking sides on which of us is the asshole, then the asshole factor grows exponentially. (Do the math, it really is exponential.)
The truth is that every single person (including me) who ever posted in a "disruptive" thread was, at that time, a disruptive influence. The only way to kill Teh Drama is to starve it. I know it's not easy to ignore sometimes, but as I've said before, this whole community thing ain't for wimps. And from a practical perspective, it's kinda fun to watch someone get more and more frustrated as they try and fail to get a rise out everybody.
=:)=:)
Bottom line - we founded this board on the idea that banning someone was an asbsolute last resort. And if we turn our backs on our principles the first time someone challenges them, then we have no fucking principles, we are not who we say we are and everything we do is a lie.