Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Fairness never enters into it...
Published on July 14, 2004 By Draginol In Internet

If you go onto a website, or more specifically an Internet community and you find the admins to be evil and obnoxious or whatever, your best bet is to turn around and go away.  Believe me, I've learned this lesson the hard way over the years.

I've been on websites where the admins were just incredibly obnoxious and were in constant power trip mode. I am sure I must seem that way to some people too. Though I would describe myself more as apathetic than anything else. Which gets to my point:

There's no claims to being fair here. Joeuser is both a blog site and a community site.  If you just hang out on your own blog and write articles, you're pretty safe.  You can use the tools on JoeUser to keep people who bother you from even commenting on your articles.

But once you move off the reservation into the forums or other people's blogs, then you're fair game like everyone else (including me).  That said, we make no bones about fairness. The admins don't have to be fair. We don't claim to be fair. I've seen people seemingly go out of their way to antagonize me or Karmagirl or other admins on the site.  That's insane. We've only banned 4 people so far but we have been able to implement new features that allow us to take less drastic action.

Today's new access group is visitor.  Here's the situation: Someone has spent months building up their blog but on the forums they're obnoxious (and just so we're clear: obnoxious is defined as being obnoxious to an admin and admins do not have to justify what the term means).  Admins can set a user to have visitor access.  Visitor access isn't banning. But it confines them to their own blog. They can still write articles and comment on their own articles, but they can't comment on other people's articles (and be aware, when someone comments anonymously, on an admin screen it displays which user(s) have that IP or in that IP range with a couple more clicks).  This way, if we feel someone is a toxic user who is making the forums unpleasant we can remove them without them having to lose their blog and such. 

And of course, there is always the ability for someone to come back. A visitor can get put back to citizen and beyond. So it's not like being exiled. It's more like being confined to cool off a bit (though we anticipate most people who get put into visitor access will lose their tempers and just delete their blogs in a huff which is a fine solution as we then it's their decision not ours).

So hopefully this will help resolve some of the problems users have been complaining to us about.


Comments (Page 1)
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on Jul 14, 2004
I would like to say.... GOOD IDEA!

Thank you.
on Jul 14, 2004
I never understand those that antagonise the admins. I had no role in setting this site up, I have not (yet) put any money into this site and the time I devote to it is purely for my own enjoyment. So, as far as I am concerned, fairness is a completely irrelevant concept. You don't like the way a place is run then you leave. Now when I start paying, as I will down the track because I like it here, then I feel I should be able to voice my opinions on how the site is run. Even then, however, there is no excuse for antagonistic comments, I believe you should always be respectful to both other bloggers and the admins. I have at times strayed from this.... call it a rush of blood.... and regretted it every time. I have not much experience elsewhere but I feel the people in control seem to have no trouble keeping their role as admins completely seperate from their own personal views as bloggers.
IMHO the admins make the rules (and they are not exactly onerous) so play by them or "instant Karmas going to get you" (sorry, I have been trying to work that quote in for a while now.)
on Jul 14, 2004
The only "fair" I know of is in Dallas, Texas every October. It's your site. Do as you damn well please.
on Jul 14, 2004
Hear, hear. Nice idea.
on Jul 14, 2004
Good post, and hopefully one that will intimidate the Toxic avengers into finally giving it a flamin' rest!

JU is destined to become a nice place to be once more.... Thanks Brad, and the hardworking admins!

Wreckless.
on Jul 15, 2004
Facsit!
on Jul 15, 2004
Facsit!


That really ought to be Fascist. But apart from the spelling, I agree with the comment.
on Jul 15, 2004
From what I have seen...YOU are more than a fair administrator! Keep up the good work!
on Jul 15, 2004
I find it amusing to see someone complain about how unfairly they are treated in one sentence and then hurl insults in the next.
on Jul 15, 2004
Brad: Now that this feature is in place, can previously banned people return under Visitor status? I'm simply being curious.

Thanks for the updates, and for the free blog site...you and Karma are certainly not thanked enough!
on Jul 15, 2004
I think you guys are great! I really enjoy this site and find it somewhat addictive!
on Jul 15, 2004

Thanks guys.

Realistically, there's so much activity on here that 99% of it probably goes completely unmonitored. It's only when someone goes out of their way to really get in our faces.  There should be a term for that.  Blogger suicide.

I had a case of that today.  A certain blogger, let's call him David, was spewing personal attacks on me in threads across the site.  So I asked the IT team to put in the feature to allow me to make it so that he could only post/comment on his own blog.  I didn't want to zap him off the site but I didn't want to have someoen calling me names or just generally trying to agravate me when I'm reading other blogs.  But that wasn't enough, he then would come on anonymously onto my blogs (IP address showed who he was) and start name calling me there.  Blogger suicide.  At that point my options get much more limited.

on Jul 15, 2004

That really ought to be Fascist. But apart from the spelling, I agree with the comment.


I really wish the people would stop using that term to describe any kind of rules/regulations etc they don't agree with.  If this were a 'fascist' site, quite a few bloggers would be long gone. 


I wholeheartedly agree with the 'Visitor' status concept.  Great idea!

on Jul 15, 2004
As you say, the only way the 'visitor' status is going to work is if people allow only registered users to post. I forgot this morning to select that and had a 'visitor' visit one of mine.

Doesn't seem to be much of a hassle to register, and most sites online make you register to use messageboards. I guess it can be a good thing to have anonymous posting, but to me the overall lack of respect and ability to abuse is far more prevalent in those who don't have to come back under the same name. It isn't so much the super-abusers I am talking about, rather the harrowing little wars of attrition, posting the same trite remarks here and there without going over the line.

on Jul 15, 2004

Dharmagirl, yea, I tend to take those in stride. After all, it's easy for some user who's never had to put any work into trying to keep a community from self-destructing to want to rage against "the man". Anyone who's been involved in on-line communities knows that we're very very soft here. 

I mean look at all the work we put in so that we can avoid having to exile someone.  On other sites, I can tell you, you tick off people and you're history. There's no intermediate step at all. People Apollyon above will name-call me a fascist on my own blog thus proving their own error in that a) They're allowed to say it and They're still here.  Lot easier to delete a response than it is to respond to it.

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