[helene_t]

 glen, on 2013-July-30, 13:14, said:

I'm recommending not to ban, not to warn, just remove personal attacks from the site. It's simple and effective.

I don't think the mods (whether volunteers or staff) should honour the trolls by spending their resources on editing their posts. If someone posts a single TOS-violating post, the time it takes to delete it is plenty - actually since they also have to write about it in the notice thread, it is more than plenty.

Of course editing is praisworthy when someone makes an otherwise valuable post containing a TOS-violationg in an isolated sentence. But ...

And if someone posts dozens of TOS-violating posts then again, I don't think mods should spend resources on things like grace period, justifying the actions elaborately etc. Just give the troll a single warning and ban him/her next time.

But OK it is their decision.

[helene_t]

 gwnn, on 2013-July-31, 00:26, said:

Nicki Minaj has much more views than Hilary Hahn on Youtube (3.9M subscribers compared to 10k).

Or you could take a look at which posts in those threads get the most up-votes ....

[32519]

Victor Mollo is doing his bit to bring about reconciliation in the forums. He wrote about two of the characters in these forums. You can see more here.

[c_corgi]

 32519, on 2013-July-31, 06:00, said:

Victor Mollo is doing his bit to bring about reconciliation in the forums. He wrote about two of the characters in these forums. You can see more here.

He is doing the opposite. I was fine with this:

 the hog, on 2013-July-30, 18:26, said:

My dog has misplayed a number of hands on BBO recently and has come up with some idiotic ideas on bidding theory. I caught him smoking some noxious chemical substances recently...

But now I think the hog was referring to me

[billw55]

 hrothgar, on 2013-July-30, 13:10, said:

If I think that postings and posters deserve respect, I give it.
Conversely, if I am calling someone the village idiot, you might want to consider the root cause...

I will consider the cause, as well as the source. Only fair

[GreenMan]

Does the software allow for quick moderation of offending posts such as disemvowelling? That would streamline the process considerably in a number of ways.

[diana_eva]

 GreenMan, on 2013-July-31, 09:25, said:

Does the software allow for quick moderation of offending posts such as disemvowelling? That would streamline the process considerably in a number of ways.

I always liked puzzles

I had no idea this was used on forums before you posted this, I never saw a post moderated that way.

[GreenMan]

 diana_eva, on 2013-July-31, 09:27, said:

I always liked puzzles

I had no idea this was used on forums before you posted this, I never saw a post moderated that way.

I rarely see it, it's sort of a tactical-nuclear option that only a few fora use. But I love the idea.

[ArtK78]

 GreenMan, on 2013-July-31, 09:25, said:

Does the software allow for quick moderation of offending posts such as disemvowelling? That would streamline the process considerably in a number of ways.

Disemvowelling? Sounds extremely painful. But if you mean removing all of the vowels from a post, that would be an interesting form of moderation.

[GreenMan]

 ArtK78, on 2013-July-31, 09:35, said:

Disemvowelling? Sounds extremely painful. But if you mean removing all of the vowels from a post, that would be an interesting form of moderation.

That's exactly it. Teresa Nielsen-Hayden came up with it. You can see that someone broke the TOS, and who, and if you really want to know what they said you can figure it out, but most people won't bother, so the message they worked so hard to send gets snuffed without mercy. But it'd be tedious, especially with long posts, if the software won't automate it for the mods.

[barmar]

No, ther's no disemvoweling feature here that I know of. Mods can edit posts, but we just see the same editor options you do. I could, of course, copy the post to an editor or word processor, with which I could perform more complex transformations.

I'd also never heard of the word before. I know that it's often done to 4-letter words to make them acceptable on TV, I'd never heard of doing it to an entire post.

[GreenMan]

From the Wikipedia page on the topic: "Xeni Jardin, co-editor of Boing Boing, said of the practice, 'the dialogue stays, but the misanthrope looks ridiculous, and the emotional sting is neutralized.' Also, Boing Boing producers claim that disemvoweling sends a clear message to internet forums as to types of behavior that are unacceptable."

There's a Web tool here.

So if some mod decided my last post violated the TOS they could quickly run it through that tool and produce

Quote

Tht's xctly t. Trs Nlsn-Hydn cm p wth t. Y cn s tht smn brk th TS, nd wh, nd f y rlly wnt t knw wht thy sd y cn fgr t t, bt mst ppl wn't bthr, s th mssg thy wrkd s hrd t snd gts snffd wtht mrcy. Bt t'd b tds, spclly wth lng psts, f th sftwr wn't tmt t fr th mds.

[diana_eva]

dmn t's hrdr t dcphr tht thght.

[hrothgar]

 diana_eva, on 2013-July-31, 12:08, said:

dmn t's hrdr t dcphr tht thght.

u a o ioie

[gwnn]

I miss shubi btw.

[Vampyr]

 barmar, on 2013-July-31, 10:51, said:

No, ther's no disemvoweling feature here that I know of.

I think it's also known as translation into Welsh.

[Vampyr]

 32519, on 2013-July-30, 23:20, said:

On the downside we have the Puppet Stayman sequence as an example. Unless you come up with something more convincing, Puppet Stayman is a loser.

It doesn't follow that because you are not playing Puppet Stayman (or any kind of 5-card Stayman) you will not open 1NT with a 5-card major.

[the hog]

 gwnn, on 2013-July-31, 12:37, said:

I miss shubi btw.

We all miss Shubi. Even my dog.

[JLOGIC]

Ship not being involved in forum drama, feels like a first!

[Scarabin]

Whatever we think of 32519's abilities and style, we have to give him credit for transforming a fairly dry topic on bidding into a flame-war any water-cooler addict would be happy to join. I confess I would not have had the bottle.

Actually I think we are wrong. 32519 is not acting the village idiot, he is playing the court jester. He has paid back some put-downs, rattled a fair number of cages, stirred up a degree of controversy, and I suspect he has enjoyed it all immensely.

Returning to the OP, I would like to see the standard of BBO debate rise above that of an Australian state parliament but I think the mods are doing everything we can expect of them, doing a good job of balancing topic flow against propriety. I am not really sure I would like to see our more colourful posters banned - the fora would be duller for it - perhaps occasionally curbed.