Shill control - ask not what your moderators can do for you...

[Ze-man]

 

Uhm, no. Teased a little maybe.

 

Teasing... Is that strike worthy?

 

Who would give out a strike to you Arch?

 

I think we need a moderator to moderate our moderators. I say the money should go towards funding a secret council that meets at Subway every other Monday.

 

Ze-

[Red Hook]

I'm coming to your house to meet your daughter in May. Get ready. Now.

[ronm3-migration]

I'm coming to your house to meet your daughter in May. Get ready. Now.

 

Wow Ze-man I would have never guessed you would have had a 50 year old daughter.

[Ze-man]

I told you before , I will tell you again. I am not painting the guest room Green. I dont care if your's is green.

 

Ze-

[Hobgoblin]

But what you can do for your moderators...

 

Ok. That was cheesey.

 

Here's what you can do. Post any known free email providers here. I'll ban them. Note that ALL of the obvious ones, yahoo, gmail, hotmail, etc. are long gone.

 

One thing I was pondering was whether to collect this list publicly, thus putting shills on notice about which emails are banned and which are not, or to ask people to PM them to me so that shills can waste time registering accounts only to find out they're banned already. What do you guys think?

 

The downside of the "secret" list is that anyone who contributes to it may spend time reporting free email providers that are already banned.

 

QUESTION:

 

I was (for nearly a year of being board member) registered using a Yahoo email address. I did so because it was my primary email address. Any other address I had forwarded to it. I went ahead and switched to my non-Yahoo address simply to avoid being booted (but was not happy about it).

 

So my question is: What's the big freakin' deal about using a free, web-based email? Why not ban AOL email addresses then? I had AOL for over two years without paying for it. I understand how easy it is sign up for a free email and rejoin a message board after you've already been booted. But it makes it hard for some people. Not all businesses provide email for their employees. My father works for a large, nationally known company ... but has to resort to using free email. The only reason I have an email account to use is only for the fact that I continue to go to college. Otherwise, Yahoo would be the only email address I had. So, my point being, the non-free email rule probably makes it hard for some true comic fans to join the boards. Just my opinion I guess.....

 

By the way ... aim.com provides free email, as did juno.com. Not sure if Juno is free anymore or not.

[Hobgoblin]

I told you before , I will tell you again. I am not painting the guest room Green. I dont care if your's is green.

 

Ze-

 

Off topic ... but I just painted a room last weekend ... so that it wasn't green.

[Red Hook]

I told you before , I will tell you again. I am not painting the guest room Green. I dont care if your's is green.

 

Ze-

 

I can show up on a Wednesday or a Saturday. I assume we'll drink more if I show up on Saturday, right?

[Ze-man]

I told you before , I will tell you again. I am not painting the guest room Green. I dont care if your's is green.

 

Ze-

 

I can show up on a Wednesday or a Saturday. I assume we'll drink more if I show up on Saturday, right?

 

Why does the day matter? I work at home

We might have some company too... working on a mini CGC Forum bash, Indy style.

[ericc123]

Does anyone else besides me realize that probably 1/4th of Arch's posts on the boards are him banning Bug and the like?

 

[Ze-man]

He should create a Strike Bot program just for Bug.

[Aces]

Does anyone else besides me realize that probably 1/4th of Arch's posts on the boards are him banning Bug and the like?

 

 

Ha!

Bug must be an Arch shill being used to boost his post count!

[Architecht]

QUESTION:

 

I was (for nearly a year of being board member) registered using a Yahoo email address. I did so because it was my primary email address. Any other address I had forwarded to it. I went ahead and switched to my non-Yahoo address simply to avoid being booted (but was not happy about it).

 

So my question is: What's the big freakin' deal about using a free, web-based email? Why not ban AOL email addresses then? I had AOL for over two years without paying for it. I understand how easy it is sign up for a free email and rejoin a message board after you've already been booted. But it makes it hard for some people. Not all businesses provide email for their employees. My father works for a large, nationally known company ... but has to resort to using free email. The only reason I have an email account to use is only for the fact that I continue to go to college. Otherwise, Yahoo would be the only email address I had. So, my point being, the non-free email rule probably makes it hard for some true comic fans to join the boards. Just my opinion I guess.....

 

By the way ... aim.com provides free email, as did juno.com. Not sure if Juno is free anymore or not.

 

The only answer to that is that there are pay email services available. Most of the time it comes with your internet access. If not, you can buy it elsewhere for fairly cheap. This may represent a true obstacle to a few people perhaps, but a minority. Not every solution will meet every need.

[14 of spades]

I don't think everyone else thinks of it as a small nuisance. I also think that the "loss" of new members who might be hypersensitive to a CC check by CGC needs to be counterbalanced against the potential loss of long-time members who are no longer interested in participating because the board is full of juvenile shill attacks.

 

i don't think someone who has an aversion to putting their CC online can be construed as "hypersensitive".

 

i'd say the motivation for a lot of long-time members leaving is likely to do with their being annoyed with many other long-time members, not shills. look how long hammer was on here for, and his constant pestering. there was also krazy kat, bugaboo when he was posting as bugaboo, black hearted dwarf (yes, he was a still, but he wasn't here short-term). you could even make a case for JC if u wanted. all of these folks have 4 or 5-digit posting histories and consistently gotten into flame wars etc. go back and look at how often KK irritated people - in case u have forgotten.

 

the same-day here-and-gone shills are a nuissance, yes. but i don't think ANY same-day shill has caused ANY long-time-boardie to leave. i would also argue that the SUM of ALL same-day shills has not caused ANY long-time-boardie to live.

 

if u disagree, name a long-time boardie who's left because of annoyance with same-day "juvenile shill attacks". in terms of preventing them, by wanting a CC check, u seem the MOST annoyed with them - why are u still here?

[Hobgoblin]

I don't think everyone else thinks of it as a small nuisance. I also think that the "loss" of new members who might be hypersensitive to a CC check by CGC needs to be counterbalanced against the potential loss of long-time members who are no longer interested in participating because the board is full of juvenile shill attacks.

 

i don't think someone who has an aversion to putting their CC online can be construed as "hypersensitive".

 

i'd say the motivation for a lot of long-time members leaving is likely to do with their being annoyed with many other long-time members, not shills. look how long hammer was on here for, and his constant pestering. there was also krazy kat, bugaboo when he was posting as bugaboo, black hearted dwarf (yes, he was a still, but he wasn't here short-term). you could even make a case for JC if u wanted. all of these folks have 4 or 5-digit posting histories and consistently gotten into flame wars etc. go back and look at how often KK irritated people - in case u have forgotten.

 

the same-day here-and-gone shills are a nuissance, yes. but i don't think ANY same-day shill has caused ANY long-time-boardie to leave. i would also argue that the SUM of ALL same-day shills has not caused ANY long-time-boardie to live.

 

if u disagree, name a long-time boardie who's left because of annoyance with same-day "juvenile shill attacks". in terms of preventing them, by wanting a CC check, u seem the MOST annoyed with them - why are u still here?

 

Agreed; on all points.

[Illiterati-migration]

I don't think everyone else thinks of it as a small nuisance. I also think that the "loss" of new members who might be hypersensitive to a CC check by CGC needs to be counterbalanced against the potential loss of long-time members who are no longer interested in participating because the board is full of juvenile shill attacks.

 

i don't think someone who has an aversion to putting their CC online can be construed as "hypersensitive".

 

i'd say the motivation for a lot of long-time members leaving is likely to do with their being annoyed with many other long-time members, not shills. look how long hammer was on here for, and his constant pestering. there was also krazy kat, bugaboo when he was posting as bugaboo, black hearted dwarf (yes, he was a still, but he wasn't here short-term). you could even make a case for JC if u wanted. all of these folks have 4 or 5-digit posting histories and consistently gotten into flame wars etc. go back and look at how often KK irritated people - in case u have forgotten.

 

the same-day here-and-gone shills are a nuissance, yes. but i don't think ANY same-day shill has caused ANY long-time-boardie to leave. i would also argue that the SUM of ALL same-day shills has not caused ANY long-time-boardie to live.

 

if u disagree, name a long-time boardie who's left because of annoyance with same-day "juvenile shill attacks". in terms of preventing them, by wanting a CC check, u seem the MOST annoyed with them - why are u still here?

 

First of all, Bugaboo and Black_Hearted_Dwarf were the same person.

 

Second, they were banned for a reason. It's not that they are so-called "same-day shills", it's that they didn't even PRETEND to be civilized human beings. They were given the same three-strike policy as the rest of us, they didn't adhere, and they struck out.

 

You'd better do your research before you go defending people like those two pathological a-holes.

[14 of spades]

First of all, Bugaboo and Black_Hearted_Dwarf were the same person.

 

Second, they were banned for a reason. It's not that they are so-called "same-day shills", it's that they didn't even PRETEND to be civilized human beings. They were given the same three-strike policy as the rest of us, they didn't adhere, and they struck out.

 

You'd better do your research before you go defending people like those two pathological a-holes.

 

i find it ironic that u criticize my post because bugaboo and BHD are the same person, then u go on to say that i'm defending those "two pathological a-holes". i never explicitly stated they were different people - ur the first to in this dialogue. i even alluded to bugaboo posting under different aliases.

 

if u notice - u just proved my point. people who stay on here for a while and are long-time posters, are far the greater nuissance, than those really quick sign-ups who are here, and then are gone.

[14 of spades]

anyways illiterati

 

u seem to be missing the point of my post.

 

FFB contends that the benefit we would gain by implement a CC requirement would offset the loss we would have by having reduced sign-ups.

 

i'm arguing the opposite.

 

rather than suggest that i'm "defending" bugaboo (aka BHD - which is common knowledge to all) which if u read my post again u'll see that i'm not, which side of the fence are u on? CC or not?

[shadroch]

Require new folks to registar with a snail-mail address and send them their starting password via USPS. For a week,they can observe only.

[Architecht]

I generally agree with the basic concept that the relatively quickly banned shills aren't the main issue. A sour tone on the boards tends to come more from legitimate, but very negative, long time members. Krazy Kat is an example. He was certainly a two-dimensional cut out personality, probably somewhat invented just to pull people's chains, but he wasn't strictly much of an identified shill. After we had enough of his bashing he was banned, and THEN we banned a few of his shills.

 

If you look around this place, you could probably tick off on one hand the few users who consistently stir up contentious threads. They're not banned because although they have unpleasant online personalities in some respects, they have real opinions, real information, a true interest in comics, and just as often contribute positively.

 

THOSE members, to me, are the real problem. I have on occasion thought of tightening the standards on "playing nice". We would certainly lose some strong and intelligent contributors of information as a result of this. But we would also lose the pretty consistent negativity that these members can't seem to stop themselves from raising.

 

Of course, if I pointed them out, those members would probably scream that it wasn't their fault, they were provoked, etc. etc. etc.. They'd want to examine every conflict in minute detail to identify whose fault it was, and what person stepped over what line (their own, or a true board guideline) to "prove their point".

 

Frankly, I'm ultimately not interested in dissecting individual situations where patterns can be established. To me, it's more of a simple statistical issue. If a great percentage of the conflicts on the board always seem to involve X, Y and Z people, then it becomes very tempting to simply manage by those statistics, ban those people (without regard to other content contributed, etc.) and see how the board feels afterwards.

 

It would certainly force people to consider their posting tone a bit more by the objective standard of how often they end up in conflict rather than by their own sliding standard of "when the other guy deserved it".

[awe4one]

I generally agree with the basic concept that the relatively quickly banned shills aren't the main issue. A sour tone on the boards tends to come more from legitimate, but very negative, long time members. Krazy Kat is an example. He was certainly a two-dimensional cut out personality, probably somewhat invented just to pull people's chains, but he wasn't strictly much of an identified shill. After we had enough of his bashing he was banned, and THEN we banned a few of his shills.

 

If you look around this place, you could probably tick off on one hand the few users who consistently stir up contentious threads. They're not banned because although they have unpleasant online personalities in some respects, they have real opinions, real information, a true interest in comics, and just as often contribute positively.

 

THOSE members, to me, are the real problem. I have on occasion thought of tightening the standards on "playing nice". We would certainly lose some strong and intelligent contributors of information as a result of this. But we would also lose the pretty consistent negativity that these members can't seem to stop themselves from raising.

 

Of course, if I pointed them out, those members would probably scream that it wasn't their fault, they were provoked, etc. etc. etc.. They'd want to examine every conflict in minute detail to identify whose fault it was, and what person stepped over what line (their own, or a true board guideline) to "prove their point".

 

Frankly, I'm ultimately not interested in dissecting individual situations where patterns can be established. To me, it's more of a simple statistical issue. If a great percentage of the conflicts on the board always seem to involve X, Y and Z people, then it becomes very tempting to simply manage by those statistics, ban those people (without regard to other content contributed, etc.) and see how the board feels afterwards.

 

It would certainly force people to consider their posting tone a bit more by the objective standard of how often they end up in conflict rather than by their own sliding standard of "when the other guy deserved it".

 

Maybe you should post a warning notice of posters who are "on the fence" to make them aware that their actions are being watched?

 

Jim