Hi! To clarify things a bit more, the issue was not spam-related, and it was
not exactly a matter of someone posting an "inappropriate" opinion, but more
like a deeply rude repeated behaviour, including but not limited to personal
threats and direct insults spread through several threads.
I know that those absent (but not deleted) posts break the continuity of
legit exchanges, and I'll look into solving that issue. I also hate as much
as any of you any "mod" interference in a conversation, which is why we often
leave some similar "issues" to just die of old age or be buried at The Troll
Hole. But sometimes things get just way out of hand to expect a reasonable
outcome from self-regulation (in which I still believe as a whole).
Those measures weren't intended to be a full solution, I just wanted to put a
stop to something which I think degrades our community and the experience of
those involved (and has done so in the past). I'll look deeper into what can
be done to minimize the side-effects of toxic behaviour in our amazing
community without disrupting its flow.
Unrelated bit: we do use captchas and other measures to fight spam, they're
just set up to be as little inconvenient as possible to "real people", which
makes them a bit less effective; but hey, thankfully we've got an amazing
"spam brigade" to keep things under control :)
