When I said that the software tries to calculate an expected number of ignores for each user, we took into account several factors: how old the account is, how many posts they made, and the fact that 80% of members almost never ignore anybody. The people who are widely ignored already are well identified, without anybody changing their behavior at all.

If an unintended consequence is that more people use the ignore feature now, that 80% figure will have to modified in the software. I don't think more people using the ignore feature would be a bad thing. (Incidentally, the new limits are 200 for non-premium and 1000 for premium; subject to change.)

Good point.

<<It is particularly galling to see Carlsen Fanboys venting here, after you watched Hans break the rules over and over and over for years. You know exactly what I mean and don't pretend otherwise.>>

Absolutely ridiculous! You're talking about a man you personally drove away from the site, a nice bloke who's only crime was supporting a chess player... Or as you might say.. "Waving his bra!". Frogbert was the only person who's gone from this site to another, played a game of chess with me, then come back here and analyze it. He was in no sense of the word a troll and you know it, it's your personal dislike of anyone from the Carlsen page.

<<Unfortunately, this would also provide a simple means of silencing someone on the <Kenneth Rogoff> page who hasn't done anything wrong, but whose posts annoy his adversaries simply by being there.>>

I am also an active member on some pro-wresling forums ...>

OMG this is even funnier than <Sokrates> mechanical watch website! Hey Bubba, some troll is talking <college> wrasslin in the discussion forum! Well, Skeeter, lets us just put that rascal on da iggy list!

< Sokrates: <thegoodanarchist: <Sokrates: ...

<What about mechanical watches with solar backup? OK, Buddy, but tread lightly because we're "watching" you.> Sorry, don't exist, but I'd love to have one. - Oh, I feel important, now that you intend to "watch" me. Whether I am your "buddy", well, usually that requires some time and a personal meeting >>>

I was trying to imagine the interaction between the moderator at your mechanical watch website, and a new poster who wanted to talk about something that wasn't strictly a mechanical watch.

Where would the line be drawn? How would the interaction go between the moderator and the new poster? How scandalizing and outrageous would it be to talk about a non-mechanical watch? Oh, this has been the highlight of my day.

There's a ruckus down at the mechanical watch website discussion forum! Some troll is trying to discuss battery powered watches! The nerve of that troll!

<perhaps in a pub, where you can flash your solar driven gadget while I wave my old-fashioned hand-wound bisquet, and we'd enjoy a Carlsberg or two. Come to Copenhagen and let's see!>

And thank you for understanding I meant everything in fun, no malice intended.

Good point. LMAJ put me on ignore a while back during a world team game, basically for speaking to him the same way he was speaking to me. Seemed to have an exceedingly low threshold for ignoring. Although to his credit we have since buried the hatchet and I don't think I am on his list any longer.

ignore function is a perfectly fine policy. It's like defining an outcast in society and preventing his entry to the party. mind you an outcast is not a criminal- he is a perfectly fine guy- he is free to roam the country away from the penitentiary.

kibitzing brake on the other hand is an affront to civil society. It diminishes the inalienable right of free speech. It's denial has lead to most horrific atrocity- 2 world wars. The united nations has sought to prevent this from recurring - issued a universal declaration of basic human rights for strict observance by everyone.

Now here comes CG allowing its members to gag a mouth of anyone they dislike without due process; no opportunity for rebuttal; no offer of resistance and defense; no fair and independent determination of who's right and wrong by a competent judge and jury of his peers- a scenario for grave abuse of discretion by many...a complete destruction of the minority by the majority.

I brought out the truth...which you have no clue whatsoever. Irada brought it up upon himself telling you all half truths. How dare you say I insulted him without bringing your baggage claim? Don't show your ignorance on the subject you have no knowledge about.>

This returns us to a central problem: what to do about someone who makes up lies about you simply because he knows you can't prove they're lies without revealing your real identity?

(And I for one have no intention of announcing my real name so trolls can use the information against me and *really* start a broad cyberstalking campaign.)

<bulibug> will cite regulations, as *he* understands them (or pretends to understand them) to "prove" that I couldn't have served as a journalist in the Navy.

But real life seldom accords with naive expectations. If the public affairs officer wants someone assigned to his team, there are ways to make it happen, and it did. (Ironically, I have LTJG Virgil S. Elkinton III to thank for this: Just imagine a 300-pound, balding <LMAJ> with tobacco juice smeared around his pockets; that was my first PAO.)

All of this would be the work of a few minutes to prove — *if* I wanted to announce my real name.

But I didn't choose to use a pseudonym by accident. I've had too much experience of demon-trolls who have emailed or even called me after learning my real name; I am simply not going through that again.

So: how to deal with this campaign of lies? I'd really like to know.

Surely, by now, he has violated not only every posting guideline but every standard of acceptable conduct a hundred times over. If ever there was an "unrepentant rulebreaker" on this site, it is <tolengoy>, Man of a Thousand Sockpuppets.

Can we, once and for all, be *rid* of this ambulatory pestilence?

You first file a complaint sufficient in form. Please refer to the list of requirements I cited a few pages back.

Then the submission of counter affidavit by the accused.

Next the pleadings will be investigated by an officer to determine probable cause for filing in court for trial.

"WE" don't need to, who the heck died, and made you admin? And we need to fill out <YOUR> form? Show me that you are in charge, first, and be rightfully in charge.

Second, why don't you stick to one name, and post like the rest of us?

< lainulo: there's no escaping this route we call due process. in itself an inalienable right...the kind sought to be supplanted by the policy on kibitzing break when vindictive kibitzers will pound on an unsuspecting victim without affording him the chance to fight back. >