Hey trolls, tone it down.

[Nym90]

I've even thought of leaving a time or two, though I doubt I actually would.

[Nym90]

Hi,
I'm concerned about this.  I added the forum to the site with the desire to have a mechanism for intelligent, thoughtful debate on elections, as well as a means for visitors to help one-another learn more about elections.  I have no desire to see it bogged down with posters only interested in emotional flames unwilling to listen to another point-of-view.  A while back I had mentioned the possibility for a member-only forum, but had enough negative feedback to drop the idea.  Another possibility, however, is to provide a forum by invitation only.  There are enough regular members that I could set it up such that one has to apply for membership or be referred by someone already established.  Thoughts?
Thanks,
Dave

I would oppose this. However Dave, is it possible to set up a "killfile" in which one could automatically ignore all posts from a particular poster? Thus, that person's posts would not show up at all when you view the forum.

I'm not sure if that's possible, but some sort of an ignore feature would be a much better solution IMO.

[Nym90]

Hi,
I'm concerned about this.  I added the forum to the site with the desire to have a mechanism for intelligent, thoughtful debate on elections, as well as a means for visitors to help one-another learn more about elections.  I have no desire to see it bogged down with posters only interested in emotional flames unwilling to listen to another point-of-view.  A while back I had mentioned the possibility for a member-only forum, but had enough negative feedback to drop the idea.  Another possibility, however, is to provide a forum by invitation only.  There are enough regular members that I could set it up such that one has to apply for membership or be referred by someone already established.  Thoughts?
Thanks,
Dave

I would oppose this. However Dave, is it possible to set up a "killfile" in which one could automatically ignore all posts from a particular poster? Thus, that person's posts would not show up at all when you view the forum.

I'm not sure if that's possible, but some sort of an ignore feature would be a much better solution IMO.

The only problem with this is that if someone responds to the ignored post, you would only see the response, and that could get quite confusing if the ignored person posts multiple times.

Well yeah, it's not perfect. But it would still be an improvement over what we've got.

If the Forum could be set up to also ignore all replies to those on your "ignore" list, that would be even better. I'm not sure if that's possible, though.

[Nym90]

Wow. Thanks for entrusting me with this power, Dave. I will do my best to use it wisely.

I think this is a good idea. Hopefully you would review each person on a case by case basis before you would ban them....I tend to lean toward free speech, though obviously insults of a personal nature would fall outside the bounds of acceptable content.

Perhaps if you are considering banning someone, you could put up a public poll first on whether the person should be banned or not? That would help guage public opinion if you are considering doing it.

[Nym90]

You can find out who has Karma powers assigned by going to the Members List and sorting by Membergroup, if you are really interested.

[Nym90]

Wow... If I read this right, somebody has already assigned me a bit of "negative" karma.

Who ever it is I have annoyed... sorry

If YOU of all people are getting negative feedback then that tells me this system won't work. You are easily the most reasonable poster on this forum. I am sorry that someone would have assigned a negative value to you.

I think my policy will be to assign a lot of + karma and reserve the - for very very rare posters.

Me too.

[Nym90]

You can find out who has Karma powers assigned by going to the Members List and sorting by Membergroup, if you are really interested.

Why do only a select few have it?

I've been here since May 23rd 2003, dammit!  I want karma powers.

Ask Dave. I would agree that you should get it, but it's not up to me.

[Nym90]

I just noticed the karma ratings also.  From what I can tell, I have the most polarized karma so far, with +2/-2.  Does that mean that two people gave me a positive and two people gave me a negative?

I don't really consider myself a heavy poster, and I usually only participate in a limited range of topics, so I find it interesting that I would have what appears to be the most polarized karma so far.  There are people who go out of their way to be inflammatory who don't have a -2 karma rating.  Very interesting.  It leads me to believe that the negative ratings may be based on disagreement with my opinions.

I gave you a positive point, in case you were wondering.