Elim Garak

I'm deep-sixing him for circumventing a ban with yet another craptastic Cardassian dual.

I've set his general IP address to "discourage," so if he tries it again, he should have significant trouble posting, which should be funny for all involved.

That is the sort of sneaky shit that makes communities pissed off at BBS staff.

Ban him clean or let him back clean. Fucking around with him just makes you trolls with unfair weapons...and ones that troll him all over the board and not just the Red Room.

He's a troll. His purpose is to troll, and his ability to troll exists solely at the pleasure of the staff, remember? If he's going to start shit, and cause trouble, then I'm going to make it so he has trouble doing so. If he were a legitimate poster here to actually contribute instead of shove more shit onto the board, that would be one thing, but that's not what he's here to do. It's not unfair to make it harder on a troll to fuck around on the board. Trolls cause people to leave. Trolls take up bandwidth to cause problems. They congest genuine avenues of assistance in order to create chaos. Fuck trolls who offer nothing but bullshit. So no, I have absolutely no problems making it hard for him to fuck around with people and cause trouble. It's not sneaky, either, because this thread will end up in the Shelter release. I'm not saying anything here that I wouldn't say to anyone else outside this room.

And if he was someone who got banned because their politics disagreed with the board owners or they had run afoul of some minor technicality of the rules and gotten banned for it, but that's not the case here. Sooner or later he'd just do something stupid like fill the forums up with gay porn posts or something because people weren't paying him enough attention.

I was going to let him slide for now, if for no other reason than he had found a clean IP address. That shows some initiative!

As for the IP discouragement, using it should be infrequent, but it's not something that prevents him completely if he's determined. But we don't particularly want him here, so why make it easy?

By the way, nice to see you Tamar, hope all is well, and that you have time for a few more posts.

Going to have to disagree here. Skrain got himself banned a few weeks back for pulling his usual MO. He circumvented the ban with a dual, so I showed him the door, documented it and John merely locked the door.

If he's figured out that changing IPs is the smarter way to dual that just makes the "discourage" crap even more pointless.

Playing with people is the kind of thing Wongs or Lisas do.

He likes to be fucked with, which is why he always announces who he is.

He's also a porn spammer so feel free to fuck with away.

If he makes a dual that just wants to post and contribute, then we'll look at lifting his discouragement. But as long as its the same old same old boring shit followed by porn spamming, I'm cool with using the tools available to let him know we don't approve, while at the same time leaving the door open for him to improve (by not IP banning).

Lift the ban then?

Is he IP banned? If so then yeah, change it to discourage across the board for him.

Now it's unban him in order to fuck with him?

Dispicable. You are now no better than he is.

I believe the user himself was banned, but I agree, let's lift it and go with discouragement only (probably better to discourage the user than the IP address.)

The discouragement feature somewhat randomly creates errors, so it doesn't really prevent posting, just makes it not worth the time for something like being a fuck tard. If he manages to be just a garden variety prick rather than an unusually inept troll, then we lift the discouragement.

Exactly. I would never use Discourage on a regular member. This person is not a regular member, this is a person who has been banned repeatedly, and keeps making troll duals.

It also means they have to wait a longer time between posts, which will help when he inevitably gets porn spam my again.

Doesn't one member (name withheld because I'm pretty sure it was in the Blue Room) already think this is being used on them?

This probably won't help.

You can discuss Blue Room info in here, just has to be redacted before release. I have not seen the entry in question, but I'm not aware of this having been used on anybody. I wouldn't use it with somebody who is an active participant in the community (ie somebody who uses the Blue Room). It is a tool for lame trolls who phone it in, an alternative to banning.

This is Wordforge: Evidence, lack of evidence, doesn't matter. I'm sure there are a hundred theories on what the staff does, and how they're trying to subvert truth, justice, and the American way. All I can say is that I am only using it on this particular troll dual. That is what this feature is designed to do; discourage those whose sole intent is to spam duals, and troll the board.

Found it.

<BLUE ROOM INFORMATION REMOVED>


Yes, I know it didn't actually happen, but once you're on record saying you've done it to one person, people will be more likely to suspect it in other cases too.

We've got enough admin that if someone thinks they are on discourage they can ask one to check on it.

We also opening talk about it in here and push out these threads a day or two after they are finished.

Huh, turns out it is one of the threads I follow, just didn't remember that post. Just looked at his account, and it's not discouraged. And he's a perfect demonstration of who I wouldn't use it on. He may troll and deal in completely crafted personas, but he also spends a lot of time here, contributes meaningfully outside the Red Room, and is generally welcome, despite being a complete dipshit.

Are Tamar and I the only ones who can see the approaching?

No, I'm sure there will be one. Markb needs something to work with, right?

But all honesty, I'm not bothered by such things. We have two tools for dealing with a guy like lesbian shoes. Outright permaban, or discouragement. The community has demonstrated pretty thoroughly that he isn't welcome here. But I'm not willing to permaban. That doesn't mean we just ignore him and allow the disruptions he creates.

You mean that its Wordforge, and people are only happy when they have something to bitch about? I thought that was pretty much a given

That's true, but all I can do is give my word.

This. I hate, HATE, permabans. Using Discourage lets the situation handle itself without the need for constant babysitting. As far as I'm concerned, it's never to be used on any legitimate member. If you're wondering what I mean by legitimate, I mean any member who doesn't porn spam the board, create multiple troll duals to get around bans, etc. In short, anyone who isn't trying to actively damage the board itself, or the community, is a legitimate member. I mean, John Castle trolls all of the time, but he also contributes when he's not trolling, and I've never seen him try to do anything to cause actual trouble outside of his trolling in the Red Room. As he is right now, he would never have anything put on his account to hamper him from posting.

The Discourage option is a tool. Stronger than an admonishment, less than a ban. It fits the situation in which it is being used, and I intend to use it very sparingly.

Discourage is basically dishonest -- a way to make somebody less likely to post, while hiding behind a tool that makes it look like a technical problem. (Although, in this case, it'll be known soon enough.)

If you want to limit somebody's ability to flood the board with big black cocks, the better approach would be to limit the frequency of their posts to, say, one every five minutes -- which (a) doesn't slow their browsing of the board, and (b) is transparent because the user gets a flood control message and knows exactly what's going on.

Flood control is a part of the discourage system, and no, it's not dishonest. See, a troll dual who wants to spam the board with giant dicks doesn't give a damn about bans, because they got to get their shots in, and disrupted the board. I'm not going to see Moderators and Admins constantly running around, scrambling to clean up a mess caused by such a troll dual. If you're a troll dual, you're automatically on my shit list, because you've been banned, and have decided to sidestep that ban. Well, when you do that, you will get sidestepped by the board software.

Tafkats, is your objection to the tool, or to the supposed secretness of use? Because it's pretty clear that this only instance will be known about.

Exactly. I take user accounts very seriously, and don't mess with them unless I'm asked to do so by the account owner, or if something absolutely requires it. IP discouraging a user who has repeatedly created troll duals to circumvent bans and post prohibited material, or to otherwise interfere with the operation of the board, is the most efficient method of handling that issue. I can't help it if someone wants to accuse me, or anyone, of hampering their account, as I would not do so. I don't play with accounts. I do what is absolutely necessary to curtail the problem, and no more. The discourage tool helps me in that task. It is a part of the board software, and has been a part of the software.