Yeah, it's different. The mods were always instructed to first help people do what they wanted (e.g. move a thread to the OT forum, fix thread title, etc.). And they were instructed to only edit personal attacks. If a certain poster is polluting (in your opinion) your threads, have a mod delete the offending post and followups to it. Then you don't have to stop reading the thread because of those posts. And 14 votes is hardly representative of several hundred posters' opinions. It's early yet.
And if someone starts an intentionally inflammatory thread or a thread starter makes an inflammatory post and gets called on it? I'd be thoroughly against this kind of limiting discussions as it could give 1 person to much influence over a topic
Seriously, though, I guess my point was that there might be some other way to determine a banning other than outright democracy. Say, for example, a cabal was formed between me, you and HCP's wife. (We'd have to take out your ball gag at that point.) That secret group (let's call it "The Rough Riders") get to spontaneously decide what's in the best interest of the board. We might give a poster who displeases us "The Rusty Gimp," which might incur a week's punishment ("The 19 Incher") or if we're particularly fed up a permanent home in "The Damp Bag."
As a regular reader of your forum but a non-Blazer fan, I've got to say that I enjoy reading things from the poster (I assume) that this thread is about. Without him or others like him, you guys would spend an awful lot of time taking about how good Freeland, Koponen, or Cunningham could be. I think he injects a bit of reality, or at the very least balances out the homerism. i don't blame you for thinking Blazers are better than I think they are, that's what fans do (I'm sure I'm a bigger Monta Ellis fan than all of you). I like to read this stuff to find out what is going on with other teams, good and bad. I just think that having someone point out that LA is soft (he is) or that Roy seems to be lacking something in the preseason is a positive contribution to the board.
I agree opposite opinions are welcome. That's not really the case as I see it. Saying I think LA is soft is one thing. Saying we need to move Blake and Outlaw for a big man repeatedly, and then after it is done, lamenting the loss of them on the team is just bullshit. Saying bayless is crap, and a non rotation player, and then being concerned about the rotation when he is gone. Crap. Saying Webster is the only worthwhile option at SF, and Batum is overrated, until Webster starts doing good for a brief moment, and everyone talks him up, and then saying how he is trash. That's not just having a different opinion. That's just trolling to be a douche.
I wish we as mods could clean things up more. Rather than go to the extreme and ban a suspected troll, I think it would be more beneficial if we simply cleaned up the thread. Remove posts that derail the topic, and keep things on track. If the thread is an obvious attempt at trolling, delete it. I think we have some good mods, let's give them the chance to make things right.
You just gave yourself away as a closet Blazer fan. Only Blazer fans have any clue who Freeland and Koponen are, let alone that the Blazers hold their rights.
Is this really about a poster on the basketball forum, or is this an effort to silence certain political opinions in the OT forum? The latter will be the effect, whether it is intended that way or not.
The proposal is to ban/suspend posters who annoy other posters. Where does it say that political threads in the OT would be exempt?
I don't think annoyance is owned by a political party or person who believes in one particular political ideology.
It's a free message board. I'm not sure what people's expectations are, but I guess I don't see the problem, considering that all I have to give to this board is my time.