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

[Paul Riismandel]

We have banned people before without using any IP-based techniques,
such as the infamous Bobby Meade. What it takes is human intervention
-- in the case of Meade, he was put on notice that he would be
permanently hidden, and then someone did it.

What's tiring about Jack Ryan is that every post he makes has to be
evaluated -- meaning it's a constant game of running up to the line of
acceptability and then seeing how far he can push it. It's a game that
he enjoys much more than we do.

So, I think we can decide that Jack Ryan's posts just get
automatically hidden, regardless of content and context. What's
problematic is his behavior and the disrespect with which he treats
U-C IMC and the other's who use our website, not the content of any
one of his posts, per se.

I do some of the editing duties on the website, though Mike does most
of it. But I would be glad to make a daily watch of the site and hide
anything by Jack. It's easy to do with dada's editor interface. I
don't think it will take long to discourage him once everything he
posts gets hidden and ignored. He does it to get a rise out of people
and get attention -- once we deprive him of that, I think it'll slow
him down, and certainly make him less of a nuisance.

With specific regard to the ability to choose a new screen name -- if
that were his tactic, then he'd have already done it. Whoever Jack
Ryan is, he enjoys being Jack Ryan and takes some pride in whatever
effect his posts have on people. If he just wanted to be pure
provocateur, it wouldn't matter what name he used. But the fact that
he sticks to Jack Ryan shows that he doesn't want to be truly
anonymous -- he wants the perks of having an identity.

If he hide all of Jack Ryan, he may turn up as another name, but the
behavior should be easy to identify, because I don't think he will
change tactics.

On last note: I do think that we should post to the newswire that we
intend to take it up at Steering. This way, we show all users of the
site that we are truly open, and that if Jack weren't a coward, he
could come and defend himself to our faces.

--Paul

On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 12:13:57 -0600 (CST), Zachary C. Miller
<zach at chambana.net> wrote:
> > 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
> 
> 
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