Isaac wrote:BUT YOU TEMP BANNED ME FOR DOING EXACTLY THAT
No, I did not temp ban you for disagreeing with me.
I temp banned you for trolling the people you were in a conversation with, and not complying with my directive to respond to them reasonably. You made a series of statements, got a series of thoughtful responses, and then continually responded to them with things like "blah blah blah" and "tl;dr".
I in fact did empower you to solve your own problem. I gave you the option, and the expectation, of giving a serious response to the people you were in a discussion with. You chose to again respond with something akin to "I skipped the wall of text". So I gave you some time off. You responded with a similar non-response, so Krom also gave you some time off.
Obviously you learned nothing from that ban -- not even the reason you were banned. Since it was explained, I have to conclude it's willful ignorance. Since you believe everyone is capable of verbal control, tell me, what should I say to you in order to stop you from behaving inappropriately on this board? What should I say to you in order to get you to stop posting non-responses to other people?
Convincing a user has nothing to do with your mod tools
Some users can be convinced with words. Others need to be convinced that the words are backed up with enforcement.
Lothar wrote:
Avoid gratuitous negativity."
How about, "don't panic at the sign of confrontation."
There's actually a
fuller description of the meaning of this guideline. It comes from a place that allows a great deal of confrontation and disagreement, but has chosen to enforce the expectation that when you are negative or confrontational, you're still adding value to a discussion. (It's only rarely moderator-enforced; the community typically enforces via heavy downvoting.)
Everyone is capable of verbal control. It doesn't work for you
It works for me with the vast majority of posters, on the vast majority of forums. But some people choose not to respond to verbal control.
There was actually a multi-year period on this board where I didn't have mod/admin powers of any sort. Nobody knew I was just an ordinary user, because the majority of my modding style has always been to convince people to stop being jerks. The present reality, though, is that the people on the other end of some of my current modding actions have chosen not to respond to verbal comments about appropriate behavior. I asked you to change your behavior in the prior thread and you chose not to, and I asked vision to change his behavior in the thread that spawned this one and he chose not to. Do you believe I could have simply asked more nicely and affected change? I don't -- both you and vision have indicated that you'll behave how you want to behave, that you won't be controlled verbally or otherwise. Which is fine -- if you want to act that way,
"there are other places you can go to do that." You don't need to be on this board; I could choose to spend hours of my time arguing and pleading with you to follow our guidelines, and I'm certainly willing to do it if you show signs that you're interested in doing so, but if you show signs that you're going to obstinately and flagrantly violate the guidelines, I'm more than happy to show you the door.