Spam Rule Discussion

[Barefoot Bree]

Seven, I'm glad you didn't wait to post that; I think it was perfectly clear, and said exactly what I've been wanting to say but couldn't find the words.

Latin DID chase me off this board for a while (I know, no great loss), even though he never went after me directly. I detested reading his crap; it made my skin crawl. Even having him on ignore was no better; as others have said, I still had to deal with both the banners left and other user's replies.

So it was him or me. I made it me. If that makes me weak in some people's eyes, that I wasn't able to shake it off, well, that's me in a nutshell. I was very happy to peek in and see him gone.

liv, vm, as Seven said, you didn't compromise your principles, you examined them and made the hard decision. I applaud you for that. Principles that are never tested, never dinged up, have no value in the long run; they are only decoration, pretty but useless. Give me ugly, banged-up, battle-tested armor any day.

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by Seven of Nine

You're welcome, liv.
I'm finding just logging on a challenge right now, so I was worried that I hadn't presented my argument well.
I ordinarily would have made more posts on that thread, but I stopped because he was flooding the thread, and had planned to drop out of, or never post in, any thread on which he lavished his attentions, yet I'm sometimes the only member of other boards willing to post seriously with folks who are obviously mentally unbalanced, or have weird bees in their bonnets, because they truly want and need someone to converse with, because I find what they have to say of interest, and feel I can learn something of value by assuming their mindset.
However, people like latin are predators who use your own socialization, your ideals, and your kindness as weapons they can turn against you in order to undermine, and even destroy the internet community you and vm have worked with such love and care to build here: every post such people make is spam, and the more rope they're given only results in more such posts until they're flooding contentless posts and abusive posts like crazy.
I feel that this thread is a also a good example because Beth can be observed in it appealing to latin's better nature with no result, and, IMO, anyone who didn't have a heart of stone would have been affected by her pleas. No form of behavior modification we can bring to bear seems to me to be in the least effective, and I feel certain that you and vm closely examined his history at other boards hoping to find a way to reach him so you could retain him as a member, but found the opposite was true, and to such a degree that you saw that warning him that he would be banned had proved counter-productive at other boards.
Anyone reading vm's and your posts on the subject can see how painful this experience has been for you, and I couldn't be more sorry that latin chose us, especially since you both appear to mistakenly feel that you've compromised your strongly held principles. People like latin are out to achieve just that goal, and they can do it, too, precisely because they're unprincipled themselves.
He hurt you both, and I there's little I can say to console you, except possibly to point out that the very fact that you've been so deeply wounded proves that you didn't compromise your ideals at all.
Personally speaking, I have more faith in both of you than ever, even though my faith in you was considerable before, and because I depend on internet message boards to meet real-life needs, my faith in the folks who run them isn't that easily won or kept because there's so much at stake for me.
Latin had begun flooding, and would have escalated that practice if you'd allowed him the opportunity so that every member here was aware of his flagrant violation of this rule and the resulting disruption of every section of the board, but I don't see how it would have benefited us members if you had waited until it was clear to all that he was breaking the letter of FF's rules, when he'd been breaking the spirit of the ideals on which FF is founded all along, and doing us far more harm thereby.

arrr...perhaps I should have waited to make this post until I was feeling better? I'm not certain I've expressed myself at all clearly, just when I wanted most to do so.