Imagine for a moment that you were at a party and someone began shouting some of the words Jim wrote. What should the host do?
It seems to me that the appropriate response would be to ask Jim to calm down, and if he refused, to escort him from the party.
The above is not a perfect analogy, I know. And I empathize with Jim's frustration with some of aD's decisions and future plans. However, were I the admin of the aD bboards, I would've given Jim a warning, and if he continued, then banned him. (Perhaps they did this.)
I want to participate in a community where people treat each other with courtesy, even if they disagree with each other. What does it mean to treat someone with courtesy? To me, it implies that when you wish to criticize someone, a) that you identify specific, objective actions they have taken that you believe to be in error b) you offer logical, evidence-supported reasons for your criticism c) you offer an alternative course of action that corrects the error(s) d) you avoid inflammatory language (swearing, shouting).
Jim's posts, in which he claimed that aD "...treats their partners and users like shit..", or that Brea and Shaheen's posts were "...crafted bullshit..." don't adequately meet the criteria above in my opinion.
web/db and the openacs.org forums have a high signal to noise ratio relative to many of the other lists/bboards in which I post. In part, I think that's because posters know that they will be banned if they become too obnoxious.
To be sure, banning someone is a judgement call, and an admin may abuse his/her power. I also think that admins should take into account the poster's other contributions to the community. In Jim's case, he had made no positive contributions under the "Zamboob" name--only flames. Someone who has made many contributions to the community, in my opinion, deserves more leeway to flame a bit than someone who has contributed nothing.
So I support aD's ban, in this case. That said, it would be nice if the policy were explicitly defined, with examples. It would also be nice if there was a way that a wayward poster could offer "penance" for bad behavior--maybe a $50.00 donation to http://www.eff.org--and get their posting privileges back. (Although, of course, the errant poster could just sign up under another pseudonym.)
