Banned members

[BazBear]

As I said in my last post, his intransigence is actually good in that it brings out the best here. Although he should not be insulting, I'd recommend that all possible effort be made to keep him around (within reason, of course).

I agree with this. Even if he truly is just a troll, watching his piss poor physics get demolished and then corrected is very educational. Thanks again to all of you who share your knowledge with us.

[Donnie B.]

As usual, I am learning things from the thread.  Guys like ka9q, Bob, and Jay flat-out know more about rocket propulsion than I do, so I'm happy to absorb some of it.

If there's one thing I've learned from this and other online fora, it's that for any area of knowledge anyone cares to mention, there's always at least one person who knows more about it than I do!

[Bob B.]

I'm one of those that has gone almost completely ignored by Heiwa, but I really don't care.  Not receiving the attention of a goofball like that is certainly nothing that's going to get my blood pressure up.  I've found much of the discussion interesting and informative, and as long as we're learning from each other, I'm happy.

[pzkpfw]

My main concern is that people are going to become frustrated and angry if he continues to ignore the explanations they give him. They are putting a lot of time and effort into those explanations and he responds as if he isn't even reading them. I don't want the discussion to go in circles endlessly.

But if other people are benefiting from the explanations then the time is not wasted.

I'm going to maintain the 7 day ban for now, but I'll take the threat of a permanent ban off the table unless his behaviour worsens upon his return.

Just wanted to say: you do a very good job of moderating, and this post is a great explanation.

[Glom]

How about, LO, you instruct him to give a direct response to the simple questions on pain of suspension. I want to see what happens when he's forced to answer the point about the propellant type.

[Donnie B.]

How about, LO, you instruct him to give a direct response to the simple questions on pain of suspension. I want to see what happens when he's forced to answer the point about the propellant type.

You mean, when Logic takes him by the throat and FORCES him to answer?

[Andromeda]

My main concern is that people are going to become frustrated and angry if he continues to ignore the explanations they give him. They are putting a lot of time and effort into those explanations and he responds as if he isn't even reading them. I don't want the discussion to go in circles endlessly.

But if other people are benefiting from the explanations then the time is not wasted.

I'm going to maintain the 7 day ban for now, but I'll take the threat of a permanent ban off the table unless his behaviour worsens upon his return.

Just wanted to say: you do a very good job of moderating, and this post is a great explanation.

Agreed.

I liked that you posted in the thread when you prevented a post of his from appearing, explaining why you stopped it.  It makes things transparent and honest.

[LunarOrbit]

Thanks for the support, everyone. I'll tell you, it isn't always easy.

I want to be fair to everyone. I want to give the hoax believers a chance to make their case, and don't want to appear so strict that they are afraid to post here. I want to make sure the Apollo supporters get satisfactory responses to their questions. I want to weed out the trolls from the people with legitimate doubts. I want to make sure that the people who get frustrated by a troll's behaviour are appeased. But it's not always possible to satisfy everyone. So I'm glad to hear that you think I'm doing a good job.

[LunarOrbit]

I liked that you posted in the thread when you prevented a post of his from appearing, explaining why you stopped it.  It makes things transparent and honest.

Yeah, I did realize that by not approving his posts he could claim I was censoring him. If there is ever any question about why a post wasn't approved I am able to restore it. They are not deleted, they're just moved to a hidden section of the forum. Most of Heiwa's unapproved posts were just him complaining that something was off topic and didn't actually contribute anything to the discussion. There were a couple that I thought were insulting and intended to provoke me into banning him.

[cjameshuff]

He's amply demonstrated that he has no interest in actual discussion, so banning is certainly merited. You can individually moderate each and every post, but how much effort is it worth going through just to avoid giving him the banning he evidently (heh) desires?

This does illustrate a weakness of forums for this sort of thing. He would just ignore corrections and responses, pretending they didn't exist, and repeat issues that had long been answered. I've occasionally considered the possibility of applying something like a bug tracking system to online debate, where individual issues could be raised, addressed, closed, marked as duplicates of others, etc.

[LunarOrbit]

How about, LO, you instruct him to give a direct response to the simple questions on pain of suspension. I want to see what happens when he's forced to answer the point about the propellant type.

I agree that he needs to answer the questions he has avoided. Maybe we need to consolidate all of the unanswered questions into one post just so that he isn't flooded with questions by a dozen people.

If everyone wants to submit their questions to me privately I can merge them into one post and make sure there aren't any duplicates.

[LunarOrbit]

You can individually moderate each and every post, but how much effort is it worth going through just to avoid giving him the banning he evidently (heh) desires?

It's not much effort for me, I'd just be reading the posts I would be reading otherwise. It's more of an annoyance to the person who is being moderated because they may have to wait hours for me to approve their posts (Heiwa had the tendency to post at 2am my time). And sometimes by the time I approved his posts they would appear after the thread had grown by a dozen posts, so people would miss them. I ended up quoting them just so people would notice them.

I've occasionally considered the possibility of applying something like a bug tracking system to online debate, where individual issues could be raised, addressed, closed, marked as duplicates of others, etc.

I kind of like how stackoverflow.com works. Someone asks a question and people are free to answer. Answers can be voted up or down, so hopefully the best answer rises to the top. But it's also similar to how YouTube comments work, and we've all seen how the best answers get voted down by trolls so that they go unnoticed.

[gillianren]

As I said in my last post, his intransigence is actually good in that it brings out the best here. Although he should not be insulting, I'd recommend that all possible effort be made to keep him around (within reason, of course).

I agree with this. Even if he truly is just a troll, watching his piss poor physics get demolished and then corrected is very educational. Thanks again to all of you who share your knowledge with us.

Honestly, I disagree.  I'm one of the only people around here who wholeheartedly endorses BAUT's direct-questions rule.  While I'm learning, I'd rather it be from a real conversation.

[Bob B.]

I like the idea of having Lunar Orbit post a list of all the unanswered and applicable questions (pared-down to a concise and representative sample) with instructions that upon Heiwa's return, he must answer point-by-point every question or his ban will become permanent.  It's pointless for him to come back and parrot the same crap all over again with no movement in the discussion.

[Sus_pilot]

As I said in my last post, his intransigence is actually good in that it brings out the best here. Although he should not be insulting, I'd recommend that all possible effort be made to keep him around (within reason, of course).

I agree with this. Even if he truly is just a troll, watching his piss poor physics get demolished and then corrected is very educational. Thanks again to all of you who share your knowledge with us.

Honestly, I disagree.  I'm one of the only people around here who wholeheartedly endorses BAUT's direct-questions rule.  While I'm learning, I'd rather it be from a real conversation.

The trouble with BAUT's way of doing things, and why I don't go there anymore, is that it cuts off the real fun of having knowledgeable people explain things.  The real conversation here isn't with Heiwa, but with the people who know what they are talking about. 

My suggestion is that Heiwa be allowed only to post only answers to direct questions; once answered, he can put up other posts.