[Imc-web] Re: Jack Ryan: Time for Him to Go? Re: [Imc] steering meeting Nov. 18

[Zachary C. Miller]

> So I'm putting this question on the table: Is it time for Jack to go
> given his demonstrated refusal to abide by our website use policies?

I know you said that you don't want to spend a lot of time here
discussing how Jack would be banned but I think understanding the
process is important to informing the discussion of whether we should
do it or not.

I want to point out that while it is a lot of work to keep hiding his
posts, it will also be a lot of (possibly fruitless) work to ban him. 

The only way we'll be able to ban him is by IP address. This will only
work if Jack happens to be always using the same computer. If he is
using AOL, university dialup, a public lab, etc then we will not be
able to ban his IP address. In order to figure out his IP address
we'll have to turn on IP address logging for ALL posts and then cross
reference his posts to the logs and try to deduce what his posting
patterns are. We need to make sure that if we ban a certain IP address
that other legitimate users aren't also posting from that address. 

This will be a slight incursion into the privacy of our legitimate
posters. It will be some effort for our techies. And it may not work.

If steering thinks that these tradeoffs are worth exploring in order
to address the strain that Jack is putting on our moderators then I am
willing to help implement it. I'm not recommending for or against
banning Jack. I just want Steering to understand what they will be
asking, what they will be getting, and the liklihood of success. It is
definitely a can of worms.

-- 
Zachary C. Miller - @= - http://wolfgang.groogroo.com/
IMSA 1995 - UIUC 2000 - Just Another Leftist Muppet - Ya Basta!
 Social Justice, Community, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Feminism,
 Sustainability, Responsibility, Diversity, Democracy, Ecology