How successful would he have been with his multiple accounts if he'd had to make 20 non-spurious posts to validate each new identity before he could use the chatroom? This was one of the advantages I wanted to raise in my original post but forgot to include that paragraph- it would also provide a solution to your abovementioned 'blanket ban' problem.
In the early days such was not much of an issue for him. He happily posted on the forum at the same time that he hit up the chat room (Most of his posts were in video and images, complimenting posts he enjoyed). All of his first 2 or 3 dozen accounts had 10-30 posts on them at the time of killing. He knew how to post, and would have had no issues jumping a 20 post hurdle.
In fact, eventually once he knew he was gonna burn an account by trolling the chat room, he'd burn it on the forum by trolling threads too. So it was double the work to clean up. I wager a lot of folks would troll out 20 posts hit the room to be rude and then repeat with a new account, causing in fact MORE work in that forum staff would need to back up and clean up the troll posts on forum, which we'd encouraged with the posting bar.
In twelve years of running the place I've found that people that want to be annoying are excellent at getting past automated walls. You can only strain them out by hand. And that is a strait up manpower issue. Manpower is limited. As all my staff is unpaid, anytime I task them with some new project I'm asking for a chunk of life. A chunk that will get spent on some task that is mind numbing and unending is not one that goes down well, it demotivates them, and then they go away. Then I have less manpower to use on the real problems that I need staff for.
Sadly adding a pile of new staff is not an answer either. Moderating is more art then science, and getting folks to a point where they don't over or under mod is difficult and takes time. Ask Crystalight who is a professional Mod for a large internet company how much training and time goes into each hire to ensure quality... and where she works people get PAID and well.
At the base of this is a desire for a civil and friendly forum. A goal that I want, and have worked toward since I came on in '00. I'm aware of how clods chase women off. I'm aware how atmosphere causes more or less interaction. And if folks remember the tickling community circa 1999 or so, most will agree it was a sausage fest. Women who interacted and spoke were few and far between.
It was my first priority to make women feel welcome and secure on the TMF, and a LOT of time and energy was spent on that goal. And it paid off. That work, along with the demographical changes in the new generations that have come of age since ~2000 have made women a very visible and active part of our community. In fact, to such a point that people from other fetish groups have asked me how we did it.
I give our female members more credit then most for knowing how to deal with clods and creepers. They handle them quite well.
The Room today in my eyes is little different then any internet chat client that I have used going back to one at my collage in 1983. There are idiots that make it less fun. Every technology gets abused. e-mail was a wonder, until the flood of unwanted spam came with it. Cellphones are amazing, but seeing every couple at a nice dinner out looking at their phones or talking on them is a bummer. Hell I have a customer at my business that I have not spoken to since 2005 every time he is in he's on the phone, and we complete his transaction via hand signals. Technology gets abused.
Chat rooms will have idiots. Trolls get stomped. But being socially inept is not a crime. A lot of users who hit the room are making their first attempt at connecting with anyone who has the same fetish they do. Sadly a lot of them are not very apt in interaction, and unfortunate things happen. I've always held that these folks need education from the more skilled in the community to become functioning members of it. And often members step up and do help them.
Many of the most active posters on the forum today were people who in days gone by has 'issues' with the forum rules, and could well have been banned if I'd chosen to lean that way. But given time and some effort they have grown and become very productive members of the community who add a lot to discussion and the forum.
A posting bar in my eyes is very much like a 'ban' would have been to such folks. A removal of a chance to get in touch with people and learn and grow. I always land on open over exclusion. It often creates situations that make me unpopular. But it's not about me. It's about the community that I was asked to care for and grow here on the forum. And I see that as including all the folks, not just the better spoken, or full matured ones.
Would I like the sort of room the OP outlined in his post? Yes. A civil, polite, mature room would be wonderful. But such a room reflects only one segment of the community, and the communities skill level. And since the room has tools that allow that segment to tune out the segment that bothers them, I have chosen to land on the more inclusive group size.
A lot of folks think running places like this is a giggle. I thought it would be back in '00. It turned out to be a metric fuck-ton more complicated and time eating then I ever expected.
Myriads
