Comes back to those "Come to Jesus" group meetings most of us have attended and some held.
The non-perps get worried and the ones the meeting was intended for don't think it's about them.
But the reason those are held are the same reason Bullet's thread is here. The non-perps need to know we are aware of what is happening but are faced with the task of really being cops and not moderators. When I took this position, I understood it to be foremost trying to keep posters out of jail and was probably a little too 5th chance with some but I hoped just drawing their attention with warnings might work. And it did with some.
I look at this in the most simplest form when anyone signs up here, caveat emptor. You are entering a social media forum with all that brings and are responsible for how you conduct yourself and also how you process the actions of others. That Ignore button is to help that process with some that are here just to make waves and aggravate you to the point of distraction. You do not have to play along.
What is misleading is those actions of the few reflect on the whole. The nastiness isn't prevalent here and sometimes it is exacerbated by giving that poster what they want most of all, attention. Some are here for the derail and the only way to make them stop is to not play with them.
We used to have this poster on DC.com, a Giants fan we all believed, that would start threads just to get some riled up and they'd decide to play along and then get pissed and want him banned. I was laughing all the time at how he could get action and he'd even come back and remark about how many pages he'd gotten on that thread. Now, was that on those mods to police or on the members not to play along and get played? That poster was getting exactly what he came for and would stay as long as he did.
Moral of the story: Don't feed the trolls unless you enjoy the banter.
That's fair, but why post and have rules if they are going to be enforced arbitrarily or not at all?
If the true rule/moral is "
Don't feed the trolls unless you enjoy the banter" then 1) Mods shouldn't be trying to convince people to take people off of ignore after a short time,
yet one did that within this thread. Why? and 2) Should there even be posted rules in the first place? Should it not be a free-for-all and let the user beware if that's the true moral?
It's not even as if benching is permanent most of the time, so the reticence to use it to curb the behavior more escapes me. Many months back I unintentionally violated rules and got a 24 hour benching for it. I accepted it, felt it was deserved, and moved on.
You guys have a very difficult job and aggravating job that you willingly do here. It has to be a challenging fine line you guys have to walk. That's why I brought up my points on this even though it does violate the "don't question how this site is run" rule. If I get benched I will happily accept the timeout as I chose to do it, but I felt it would be beneficial to give some of us enlightenment on why it's handled the way it is. Thank you mods for all that you do.
