I've gotten one or two PMs protesting my booting of KenyanBorn, and one or two supporting me. I'm very conflicted about how to handle these folks. We've had one birther after another join up. Some, like Lea, seem to be ex-birthers and are friendly folks. Very rare, but she has certainly been an asset to the board, and no problem whatever.

Others, like Linda Starr and Lisa Ostella, pretty much follow the rules and don't try to birf all over us, but when they post, they post about their own squabbles with each other, with Phil and with Orly. Again, there are only a few of these, but as long as they're not trolling I welcome their participation.

Then there are those like Noz, MichaelN and KenyanBorn. They're just here to stir up the pot. They ignore any facts or law. They're not here for an honest debate. They peddle one lie until it's beaten down, and then they seamlessly switch to the next lie. I honestly think they know they're full of it and that Obama is eligible, but they won't admit it. They're trolls.

Now, it IS great fun for the membership, some of them, to battle these folks. We can't debate them on their websites. And not everybody likes the bloodbath sites like GretaWire, where you can't get an honest debate but you can do some great flaming. And I'll admit, KenyanBorn was good at not insulting individual members, so you could say she was sort of following the rules. She had more than 200 posts, way more than any of us have on any birther site.

BUT ... she was getting more and more ugly. She couldn't take the fact that we had answers for every piece of crap she tried to drop on us. She probably did read some of the answers, and maybe even looked at some of the links, and knew she was defeated on the facts and the law. So she started posting ugly photos of the president, and making wild accusations, and basically it reminded me of AXJ, who declared war on Politijab and was the first one ever banned by Justin.

MichaelN just ignores the legal arguments and kept bringing up the same old false analysis over and over. Noz kept getting drunk and then abusive. KenyanBorn just about explicitly declared war on the board, even if she didn't insult anyone specifically. I gave her a lot of leeway, but when she started telling realist and kate520 that they couldn't do anything to her because she thought I was going to protect her and not back them up, that was a little over the line, too. I trust my moderators' judgment implicitly. I will ALWAYS back up realist and kate520. If I ever have a disagreement with what they did, which I doubt I ever will, I will handle it privately and you will never know about it.

I do understand Justin's (and other people's) attitude that we shouldn't censor opposing viewpoints, that we should allow honest debate, and that we should be better than the birthers who censor mercilessly. But have we ever had even ONE birther who really wanted an honest debate on the issues and was willing to re-evaluate their position when confronted with the facts or the law? I can't remember any birther anywhere that even admitted, "OK, there was no travel ban to Pakistan in 1981," one of the things that we've proven conclusively over and over again.

The bottom line is, no birther is ever going to come here to honestly and rationally debate us. And I'm not really bound by Justin's rules on this. I have considered a "no birthers" rule. But then, I keep hoping that one of them WILL give us an honest debate, in which case we might create our first ex-birther.

It's a pickle.

KenyanBorn's first post claimed we were "spewing hate" and that she couldn't wait until Obama was removed so she could rub it in our face. I thought long and hard about whether to simply ban her immediately, because I knew where she was going. In the end, I decided it would entertain the membership to deal with her for a few days, and it did. But there comes a point when it gets tiresome, and like I said, she was going to ratchet up the ugly until we were all ready to boot her butt outta here.

Another consideration: Some folks really try to educate the birthers who troll here. That's a real positive. Whatever4 found a treatise that I'd never seen before, and deserved her pat on the head. Other folks posted outstanding debunks too. Ballantine and brygenon and others used to school MichaelN and Noz and it brought out their best, for them to deal with the trolls. I can't do that, because I think it's a waste of my precious time. The trolls are not going to honestly consider that they might be wrong, no matter how clear the argument. I saw a lot of references to Chester Arthur in the past two days, but I wasn't going to bring up John Charles Frémont.

But some of you reach new heights of clarity and informativeness in the face of the trolls. So in a way, allowing KenyanBorn in for a few days WAS a positive experience, because it brought out some great new debunking.

But I didn't want to see the next series of ugly photos of the president that she was going to post, or read the next truly ugly accusation toward the president. Leo Haffey ("Free Speech") posts all about Obama's homosexual perversion several times on every thread at Citizen Wells, to the point where other birthers complain about it to Larry Wells. Leo copies and pastes this long, incredibly ugly screed that ends by wondering if blacks would still support Obama if they knew he was a violent deranged homosexual. I'm not going to allow anything close to that on Fogbow, Free Speech be damned (in both meanings of the phrase ). There's a limit to how ugly a troll can get, and then I'm all done. And KenyanBorn was already heading down that road ...

As I said, I'm very conflicted as to how to handle these people. And I trust y'all to give good and honest advice, even if you don't all agree with each other. So, what do I do? Is there an appropriate rule or set of rules I can make and apply consistently? What would you do in my place?

Maybe I should have put this in a forum that allows replies and voting ... ya think?

Try now.

Nevermind my PM a second or two ago, when for some reason I didn't have a "reply" button and it said "You can not post replies to this forum."

I'd say that (taking any gripes I've made as minor exceptions) everyone's more or less done a decent job at the actual moderation. I'd say that MichaelN is (mostly) slightly on the side of what should be tolerated, Noz is slightly on the side of what shouldn't, and the KBOA spammer is well over the line.

With rubber gloves and a ten foot bargepole

I think you handled the Kenyatracy situation perfectly on all levels, Foggy. No complaints from me. I'm glad the print of you boot is implanted in her ass though, and you booted her at the right time

We should ask them if they are interested in buying any meat first.

Then we put them on a beam scale to see if they weigh as much as a duck. After the weighing, we burn them!

I understand the pickle - on one hand they (well, KBOA particularly) started off annoying but not out of line but just descended into posting rubbish that doesn't contribute anything useful.

On the other hand, I wouldn't like to see someone baned, just because they don't listen to the incredibly well reasoned arguments here. Being stupid and posting the same questions (in different words) and not agreeing with other posters isn't a reason to get baned, is it?

Maybe I'm more in favour of using the ignore button than baning someone, unless they post something outright racist or rude. But I'm also fine with you not wanting to provide a venue for a douche like KBOA to peddle crap.

I think I agree with Great Grey.

ODD! - just wrote a post and it's vanished .Never mind - it was a bit of a ramble.

The poll does not allow multiple options

option 3 is a subset of option 2

I agree with option 2 and option 3, but there is no way to register that.

My opinion is:

Let them post whatever they want, as long as they don't personally attack other members.

AND

Allow them a lot of leeway, but when they start spamming us, the boot.

Thanks. I thought so, too. For a few days, everybody was having fun with her. I was so proud of the way people reacted, hardly anybody even getting close to insulting her, and at the same time taking her arguments and shredding them into confetti. And the fake Jefferson quotes were a riot. That's exactly how we should handle someone like that.

And I'm pretty confident that I did the right thing by letting her in, and the right thing by kicking her out. It's just that the whole thing felt so ... arbitrary. I do agree with the PM I got that said she didn't violate the "no personal insults" rule (she insulted all of us as a group, which I can tolerate). But then suddenly I said, "Oops, no spammers!" and POOF.

I think I did the right thing at the right time, but I can't articulate a rule that explains my judgment or that I can apply consistently in the future.

It's good to be an Absolute Dick Tater, but I'd prefer to have some rhyme and reason to what I decide, TYVM.


I can fix that.


Which -- I think -- is what I did.

Well, if you run out of rhyme, I'd be happy to supply some but I think your reasoning is spot-on, Foggy.

No gripes or criticisms from me. I think this situation was handled very well.

IMO:

I hate bannings. I think they should be really hardly ever used and just for things like: making threats, suing members, posting personal info. Obnoxiousness is very annoying but tolerable in the context of what we try to do here.

KBOA made threats, which made her bannable. I think maxwhatsit makes some posts that go over the imaginary line in my head, whatever that is, but I'm very satisfied with the board leadership's handling of him at this point.

I kind of LIKE being a place online where we tolerate some of the antics of the birthers. We aren't afraid of their "facts", obviously.

A person like KBOA (sans threats) might be reasonably handled with suspensions for aggressive spamminess. There's a good chance they'd wander off, bored, at the notion of a week of suspension, which would solve the problem, and if they came back, they might be sufficiently toned down to be tolerable.

I'd welcome a birther like Apuzzo here - wrong, but wrong with citations (which invariably say the opposite when you look at them).

KBOA though, quickly became a waste of time. She had, what, four posts with citations? Even the first day, 90+% of her posts were "LOLOLOL - wrong!" That sort of argument wouldn't even work in the Monty Python skit.

The line-drawing becomes more difficult if you consider the example of yguy, who never gets too insulting, but only posts content once every 100 posts, the rest being some variant of hide-the-ball legal jujitsu.

If it were my board, I'd ban a poster like that. The rule I draw from that is ban anyone you feel is contributing only to disrupt, only to troll, or whose signal to noise ratio is unreasonably low. IOW ban them when they aren't fun anymore, and personally, I trust your judgment, Foggy (and the other mods).

Yes, sometimes our best work is done against a foil like KBOA, but banning them here won't stop the birthers from inhabiting their dark corners of the web. We can import their BS here without letting them poop on our playground.

I like actually trying to engage them in debate for a while. I liked Noz until it was clear he wasn't changeable or even consistent. When he first showed up, the level of actual debate was amazing. Maybe not so much Noz v. Herd, but certainly Herd + Herd. I learned much. Then he encouraged Jack Daniels and friends to back him up, things got weird, and now he's just pseudo-eruditely incomprehensible.

I think most of us handled Kenyan Lady perfectly. It's how we all should react to discourse in this uncivil time. (Try to engage, debunk, debate, and when that fails -- social ostracization.) Others of us had fun with the new Whack-a-birther, which is fun to watch if the whackee is thick-skinned and agile, but a bit on the carnage side if the whackee is really looking for answers. Maybe some should get a chance to come back if rules are followed (tough love with a recalcitrant teenager?).

And the Jefferson thing was an absolute RIOT.

I agree with Res Ipsa about wanting to vote for both 2 and 3.

Coming up with a comprehensive set of rules or algorithyms to deal with birfers is like coming up with a perfect set of laws to handle criminals. Nice if you can get it, but out in the real world you're still going to have to rely on the judgement of your enforcers. I think you handled her just fine, and absent any sort of hard and fast guidelines that might come from it, you've set an example to be referenced in the future.

I'm a big fan of the Ignore function, which I had Noz on since he flipped a gasket at my "I like pie" statement way back when on PJ. It's effective when the birfers stop being fun and start being annoying.

Corny-copiuos was still a little amusing to me, but she'd likely have been on ignore before this day was out, precisely because she had stopped being amusing and was taking up a lot of space. Mostly I was enjoying the total pwning she was getting at the hands of the Fogbow tag team; the corn-dangler really had stopped even pretending to present her POV and was descending into taunts and spamming.

I think that she was handled gently and appropriately. Given her time here it was, IMHO, obvious that she was going to keep ramping up the bad behaviour until she got the boot. Plus, she's nuts. Not the good kind, the Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction kind.

Well said, Somerset. The fact is, that just as mandatory, "one size fits all" sentences don't fit every criminal, neither is any one set of rules necessarily going to work with every birther.

I trust your judgment, Foggy, and I want you to exercise it. That's how I feel about situations out in the real world too - I think a judge should exercise judgment, not simply rubber stamp things because of some arbitrary policy.

BTW, although it mostly preceded my arrival at PJ, isn't Patricia someone who came here willing to debate honestly and rationally and thereby became an "ex-birther"?

I'll note Wikipedia, which is fairly even-handed, immediately bans for lawsuit threats. I think we should have zero tolerance for that kind of behavior, whether it is presented as a threat by a member against another member, or as a threat by a troll purporting to represent random other people. If there is anything that will shut down a forum soon enough, the idea that your membership just opens you up to legal action by nutjobs is that thing. I am sure at least one of the greenies can provide backup on this point.

While obviously the litigious loons can maintain their own sock puppets and make their own crazed threats on their own demented fora, there is absolutely no reason to give a forum to their snarling tentacles (yes it is a mixed metaphor but I kind of like it).

Oh, she's gone?

She got too boring - just repetitive stupidity so I quit going to her threads. I DO like that she didn't pollute multiple threads, though. Otherwise, the ignore function would have been employed...

Actually, she did insult one of our members - twice.

I think you handled it just fine, Foggy. I don't think we should ban birthers but spamming, attacking or insulting members definitely earn it. Offensive graphics or comments such as that nasty Michelle Obama thread at Plains Radio also should be grounds for banning.

I voted 2 and 3 but you have to be careful using a broad term like spamming as a reason for banning. I will repeat what I sent our fearless leaders in a PM earlier since this is now a topic:



I like telling birthers on other blogs who all moderate ruthlessly that we do not. That is why I want to err on the annoying side of the line. We all have our own personal way to ban. It is called "ignore".

The fact that you even asked the question demonstrates that this site welcomes an open exchange of viewpoints. I don't understand why some prefer a monolithic forum where dissenting opinions are not only unwelcome but banned outright. How boring!! Sitting around with a bunch of folks that think just like me.

To answer your question, it depends on the circumstances. Sorta like, "I know pornography when I see it." On other fora I participate on, the moderators will first delete the offensive post(s) with a PM reminding the offending member to stay within the rules. If repeated reminders go unheeded, they get a "timeout". I'm not trying to advocate that your ban of KBOA be temporary. The decision is yours to make.

Best Regards,
Mr. Gneiss

Rock solid advice, Mr. Gneiss. (OK, that was my last mineralogy reference, I promise.)

Just wanted to toss out here that there are, on RARE (I mean really really rare) occasions where a birther can be saved... we actually did convert Patricia. Haven't seen her around these parts in a long while, but she DID come around on the birther issue. She is our first (and probably ONLY) success story, but only because she had enough intelligence to actually accept some facts here and there.

Mind you, this isn't to support any previous set of rules, mine or otherwise... just didn't want Patricia to be forgotten entirely. Especially when probably her biggest supporter was none other than Foggy.

I think it was right to boot her. I don't mind birthers being here, but I think what we just witnessed with KenyaBaby was what happens and will happen every time a birther comes here - it starts with the whole standard list, then the birther is unable to argue using facts, gets frustrated, gets nasty, starts name-calling and either stomps off or gets baned. I would suggest never, ever giving a birther his very own thread ever again. Kenya should have been forced to either stay on topic in a thread, post in the correct thread, and when she failed to follow direction, a 3-day time out, followed by baning after a second chance. If birthers are allowed to join here, they should be required to be able to back up what they post. If they repeatedly post false information, they should be booted. They're going to be brunt toast eventually.