Ok, I'll Be the Bad Guy

Dayton "threatened" to have the board hacked. Yes, I know, he claimed it was a bluff, which, let's face it, is all it could have ever been. (Even if he'd posted a realistic scenario for taking down the board, there's no way he could have ever pulled it off.) He's pretty clearly acting out because he wants attention. I'm thinking that he should have gotten a short "vacation" for doing that. Bullshit or not, one shouldn't be able to make such threats against the board without having to face consequences. If I had to guess, I'd say that for most of his life, Dayton's never had to be accountable for his actions. I realize that we're not his parents, and he's unlikely to learn anything from the vacation, but on the off-chance that he might, it ought to be done. (And no, I won't fuss if it isn't. I'm just putting my $0.02 out there.)

@gul and I have discussed this.

I wouldn't be opposed to giving him some time off at all.

This was a stupid idea the first go around, and I'm even less convinced that Dayton would ever be a thread to the board, since he can't attack it with his fists.

That said, I won't lose sleep behind his WF Ban cherry being popped, either.

I'm not in favor of the idea, because it really is all hot air. Dayton could no more hack the board than I could.

Wait, scratch that.

What I mean is that it's all relatively harmless. If it were someone who had access to such resources, and the wherewithal to make it happen, I might be concerned. Some people really are that far off their nut to do something that shortsighted and stupid, but Dayton? Shit, he'd probably end up ordering Chinese food by mistake. Still, if you want to get the point across, how about a warning? Not that I want to be at odds with anyone, but banning, even temporarily, over someone being a gaseous ass has never really been the way we've done things here. I realize things change, and this may be one of those things, and if so I accept it, but those are just my two bits on the matter.

Oh, I agree that it's hot air, and it being Dayton, that's all it could ever be, but he seems to be adopting the John Castle style of posting, where he can be reasonable for a while, then he starts upping the crazy to get attention. I don't know that a smack down would stop him from doing that, but it couldn't hurt to try. Castle provides enough frothy spittle for half a dozen angry posters, we don't need another, IMHO.

How do we define a threat to the board? Nobody believes Dayton capable of anything carrying it out. I personally didn't think Castle was going to carry out his direct threat, either. But at the same time, I consider Castle a threat to the board. He drives people away, he poisons threads, and he ought to be banned every single time he gives us a reason. Is this also true of Dayton?

Those same arguments could absolutely be made of Dayton, and by extension every single poster that continues to acknowledge his stupidity.

Ignore trolls, and they will either go away like Tasvir, contribute correctly or at least find a new way to entertain us with their idiocy, like the Flashlight does.

Do you really think Dayton could come up with new ideas, though? Unlike Flashy, Dayton hasn't exhibited the ability to change. We know for a fact that he has had a dogmatic (in every sense of the word) view of Trek for decades now.

You banned Castle for less, so if you want to be consistent then Dayton needs a vacation.

I agree.

I don't know how to do it, though.

Okay, let's ban his ass. @shootER, if you want to do the honors, just go to his profile page, you should see a link for doing so.

I took care of it, since my train is broken down and I had nothing better to do. I set it to expire after one week.

Fair enough.

I maintain that he gets off on the attention that most of us, myself included, give to his stupidity...and in that way, we're all responsible.

Might oughten there be a public announcement about this?

Do we usually make such announcements? I say usually, as if bannings are commonplace (aside from spam bots), but really, there is nothing usual. People will notice, as there is a slash through Dayton's name now, I don't see a need to make an announcement.

I'm not seeing the slash. If it weren't for this thread, I wouldn't know anything at all about it.

Really? That's interesting, but let's make sure. When I see a post of his in a thread, there is a line through his name:



Is that not how it looks to other people?

Nope. Don't see it. I'm using my phone, so that might be why. (I see it on your image, but not in the thread.)

Why is this horse I'm on so high?

And it doesn't show up on my desktop PC at home.

I'm seeing it both on my work desktop and this phone.

It might be an "Admin Only" kind of thing. This is what I see on my PC.

It's showing up on my desktop (Windows 7/Firefox), but isn't showing up on my phone (Windows 8.1/IE), or my tablet (Android/Silk Browser).

I think that's got to be it. I logged out and looked at the thread, and nothing showed to indicate Dayton wasn't a regular poster. I'm still not inclined to make an announcement. People will find out when this thread is released or when Dayton returns and complains about it. Aside from that, I don't see it as anything that isn't between board administration and Dayton.

Well, what with this being Wordforge, once Dayton comes back and starts bitching, I can see other posters getting all worked up because it wasn't announced, thus denying them the chance to dance on his temporary grave.

Precisely the kind of attention he would want. Let's deny him that pleasure during his punishment.

You're assuming that they could actually be bothered to dance were they to know about it. Remember, its Wordforge, we'll bitch about anything and everything!

This.

I find it telling that no one has noticed or cared that he hasn't posted all day.

ETA: to @gul

Eh, there's been a few times where he's slipped away unnoticed. Usually right around the time his contract's up for renewal.

And he thinks that no one can run a Google search on him at any point before or after? It's pretty much SOP in most professions to do so, and folks have lost job offers for far less than the type of things Dayton's posted online.