Posting disabled until further notice

greenspun.com : LUSENET : ER Discussions : One Thread

Due to recent events -- specifically, a small number of people seemingly going out of their way to make my life as a moderator as annoying as possible -- I've been unable to do a proper job of maintaining the database that sits behind this bboard. Consequently, I'm disabling the initiation of new threads until further notice. Users wishing to ask questions or to hold conversations should make use of other fora (not my mailbox) until three things happen:
  1. A new acceptable use policy is forumlated.
  2. The backlog of idiotic posts is purged from the database.
  3. A method of removing users who violate the posting guidelines is developed.
I figure this will take about a month, but who knows. Fixing this problem is not exactly high on my list of priorities at the moment.

In the good old days of the Internet, social and peer pressure were used to maintain order. Those of you who have monitored this service over the past few months probably realize that social and peer pressure are not all they're cracked up to be, and can probably identify without too much work the individuals repsonsible for causing this problem. For reasons I cannot quite understand, some of these people insist on using this corner of the Web for their own amusement.

Non-subtle hints about my unhappiness regarding the overall tone of conversation on this bboard (specifically, the recent "Mother of All Threads") seem to have failed to bring this forum back on course. Non-subtle directed requests don't work, either. (Free hint: If I tell you to stop posting because you're annoying me, and you continue to post, most ISPs/NSPs will consider your behavior harassment, and this is grounds for account termination or sanction in many cases.)

And now I'm out of ideas. I simply do not know how to communicate with a minority of users who seem to be hell-bent on turning this bboard into a replica of Usenet, the WB bboard, or some other discussion forum, or using as their own private sandbox; either way, it's not what I had intended when I set this thing up. I set it up so people with specific questions could get specific answers. It wasn't created so you could masturbate in public. I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, or why you persist in doing things I've specifically and repeatedly asked you not to do, but you do it anyway. So I give up, at least in the short term.

Contributions can continue to be made in existing threads, though after a week, they will spool off from top-level. This is not an invitation to use existing threads as long-winded conversation pieces, or to continue using them to get around the "no post" restrictions; they are still subject to all policies regarding topicality and good behavior, and will be culled appropriately.

Note: I apologize to those users who are seeking actual answers to questions that aren't covered in the existing FAQ, or to the people who were abiding by the guideliens (which, admittedly, was the vast majority of you) -- I know I'm depriving you of a useful service, and it's with the greatest reluctance that I do this. But the simple truth of the matter is that keeping this forum as a useful service (as opposed to, say, an amusement center for immature adults, or bored junior high school kids, or fanboys) is a depressingly Quixotic process, one that is costing me a lot in terms of time, effort, and energy. I simply don't have that much to give right now, nor, I have to say, am I particularly inclined to try at this point.



-- Mike Sugimoto (phloem@fumbling.com), March 09, 2001


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