I suggest we institute a weekly random banning. One person gets banned for no other reason than their name came up in a lottery.
This way, we can satiate the mob’s desire for blood.
Satiated in this way, it may quell the mob’s demands for banning people, or snitching on them because they got offensive.
And the open forum can retain its “edge.”
What a cool idea!!!
I think the open forum should just be that, open. When a thread in the open forum gets off topic and mud slinging goes down, it doesn’t bother me. Maybe there needs to be two “open” forums. I think there needs to be one for topics that don’t have a better place, but need good modding. And one where guests can log in and people can get loose.
What say you?
I wanna rumble.
Great idea, Imyourbiggest fan. Keep people on their toes. Actually, reminds me of a practice I had when I was in college. Many of my teachers, to my disgust, tried to force me to read books that I did not like. Often they contained ideas that I found stupid or vulgar. So rather than read them, I would pile them up on my patio, douse them with lighter fluid, and set fire to them. Later I realized that much of the music I used to listen to was equally distasteful, promoting sex, drugs and other deviate practices. So I began tossing CDs onto the bonfires. While I may not have passed many classes, and I certainly haven’t accepted any strange new viewpoints, I know that I am pure. God bless us all.
Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second.
Reminds me of the Shirley Jackson short story entitled “The Lottery”.
“The Lottery”
I believe this is exactly the kind of thing we need.
Good spot Tigerman. I seem to remember this story or a similar one was made into (part of a) TV Movie.
Maybe we could combine the Random Banning and Karma Lottery concepts. In each lottery two names are drawn. One is awarded the karma, and the other is banned and their karma is contributed to the pool for the next drawing.
Or (as in that bizarre story Tigerman referred to) we could stone the unlucky member to death.
Let’s have a “Stoning” button like the karma button.
You can sacrifice some of your Karma to stone another, then we could just give each other stones instead.
This idea is a stroke of genius, Fox, I am all for it.
I can see it leading to bitter recriminations, virtual “mob violence” and the mentality of the pack. What better way for the community to express its discontent at members?
Bring in stoning? Judging from some of the things you write, I thought half you guys were already stoned out of your minds.
Why stop at stoning as ritual execution? Nothing better than a good burning at the stake, or how about the guillotine (apart from trying to spell it)? Death by electrocution, poison gas or dismemberment? Mainland-style bullet in the back of the head anyone?
God, does no-one have any imagination around here? 
We could do some stick-death type animations to carry out the punishment for everyone to enjoy! Instant gratifaction.
Of course the forum could get very quiet very quickly…
A vote was taken among moderators whether or not to ban Repo Man. One of the moderators voted to ban him/her. Thing is, Repo Man had never posted.
Shows you that there is a total wanker lurking in the moderating background.
Is this really what we want?
Well, the forums haven’t been the same since they banned Craig.
I have been running a campain to get him back.
Who’s Craig ?
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]A vote was taken among moderators whether or not to ban Repo Man. One of the moderators voted to ban him/her. Thing is, Repo Man had never posted.
Shows you that there is a total wanker lurking in the moderating background.
Is this really what we want?[/quote]
Wolf, you’ve been misinformed. Repoman’s account was never activated, so he was never banned. One moderator did say that he/she was in favour of a “once banned always banned policy”, but this was a general comment, not something that applied specifically to the Repoman case. I’m sending you the details in a private message.
I myself run a large discussion list and modding it is occasionally not fun. Maoman is only human, and if he made a somewhat emotional response to being insulted, how can you blame him for that? It’s very easy to sit back and spout about fine ideas like free speech and all, when you aren’t the one being insulted for simply trying to do the job that was given you, in line with stated policy.
If the upshot of all this is a shift in modding policy in one forum or another to reflect public opinion, then fine, but let’s not get too misty-eyed about 90-whatever when most of his posts were thinly-veiled hate mail.
Who watches the Watchmen?
Here is some interesting news (buy the comic anthology! It’s fantastic.):
corona.bc.ca/films/details/watchmen.html
Here is a review of the Watchmen script. http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=13607
If you liked watchmen, you should definitely read Moore’s From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Also, check out The Preacher