FSSL said:
Anonymity will be kept. I don't want my clients Googling my name and finding me discussing some of the craziness on the FFF or any other Christian forum.
A poll for banning crossed my mind. However, voting does not go well in a divided community such as ours.
A person will be banned. Some right away. Others with a bit more patience.
I see wisdom in not doing a ?ban? poll. Sometimes, polls of that nature turn out to be nothing more than popularity contests. Frankly, I have thought more than once, ?that person should be banned?, but truth be told, I?m not sure I should be able to wield that sort of power here.
My reasoning: certain posting styles ?peeve? me. For example, when I make a post (which, admittedly, isn?t all that often), I try to outline my line of reasoning in one post. I don?t care for cryptic or partial answers. Just spit it out! So if one of the posters who tend to do that were ?offered up? for banning, I can?t say for sure that my vote would
only be based on the ?bannable? offense, without any consideration of my
subjective feelings.
In a trial by jury, the lawyers try to weed out those potential jurors who might have a prior bias and will not be able to judge the defendant solely on the facts of the case at hand. What I am trying to convey is that a ?ban? poll would not offer that same sort of protection to the ?defendant?. That would not be fair and I don?t think that this forum should go in that direction.
I recognize that
not having a poll is similar to a non-jury trial, in that the judge (admin) has the sole vote. Yes, that scenario also has a great potential for abuse.
Mr. Admin, you have a grave responsibility. From what I have seen, though, you do seem to err on the side of caution, in that you have ?suspended? accounts for a time, but have not,
to my knowledge, actually permanently banned any users.
I?m not sure of how we should move forward. My personal preference is that we would each examine ourselves and self-edit our posts, whether we have a propensity to make ad hominem attacks, be excessively argumentative or provocative, or whatever?we are (mostly) all adults here. We should act like it!
Furthermore, I, personally, do not use the ?ignore? function. I can do that all by myself, by using the scroll function. If I don?t want to read drivel, I just scroll past it.