Many of us suggested modetrators as a solution, but I was trying to move away from exactly that. Moderation requires a group of people to share the same goal and constantly watch the board for every activity. In my opinion, that puts too much power and responsibility on to few people's hands. It could be too easily abused/neglected. Next best idea IMO is letting everyone to moderate, which is what SlashCode does. Again, I like this alot but it's a bit too complicated for new users.
Will, I like your idea of respecting new users instead of bashing them. However IMO, that kind of relationship is only possible on professional communities like IxDA. If you go to howardforums.com which is a cellphone hacking forum, you will notice that half of the messages are n00bs asking the same questions over and over and over again. This is beyond an issue of annoyance, rather this kind of behaviour renders the website useless and it must be suppressed in order to keep the website useful. I like Cindy's idea of doing the searching for them before allowing them to post. This will expose them to the available threads, and this might present them a solution more quicly than to post and wait. Hopefully this will deter them from dupe-posting. What do you guys think about my idea of "delaying the post"? It's a scheme where any post must be reconfirmed in a few hours before it is publicized. I thought this wasn't too cruel since they should come back to check the responses anyway. This is effective for both troll type 1 and type 3. By making them wait for a few hours, the possibility of quickly getting a solution via dupe-posting is eliminated. If they really want a solution fast, they will search. If they searched and couldn't find it, then the question will be posted. In any case, I appreciate the great discussion. ps, Jeff, I agree that not all of the behaviours I mentioned are "trolling", but I just used it to simplify the terminology. By trolling, I'm talking about inappropriate behaviours in forums. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
