My issue has only been about censorship and trying to find out the forums policy on it.
I strive to allow as much freedom as possible. It should be possible to express
any idea as long as the idea will not get the forum in trouble and you express the idea using proper categorization, etc.
Habitual trolls are not welcome because they disrupt real discussion. Here are the
recommendations (not policy) that I wrote for mods regarding trolls:
Trolls should be banned because they disrupt serious discussion. Identifying trolls is often difficult, however. I like to think in terms of "troll score": the higher the troll score, the more likely it is that a person is a troll. Examples of things that affect troll score:
- Having crazy positions (racism, etc.): large increase
- Posting long, well-reasoned posts: large decrease
- High posts-to-time-online ratio: small increase
- Been around for a long time: moderate decrease
- Posting many images: mild increase
- Much discussion of illegal sites: very mild increase
- Requires more moderation than is typical: moderate increase
- Using vulgarity, insults, or memes excessively: mild increase
- Posting topics with undescriptive titles: mild increase
- Seems disdainful of the Bitcoin community in general: mild increase
- Bumping old posts a lot: mild increase
- Giving people bad advice: mild increase
- Poor spelling/grammar: slight increase
- Criticizing moderation: moderate increase
- Complaining about anything: small increase
- Uses ad hominem attacks with unusual frequency: moderate increase
- Lying: moderate increase
- Inconsistent positions: moderate increase
- Posting the same arguments over and over again without bothering to respond to arguments against them: moderate increase
- Posting topics that will obviously evoke emotional responses: slight increase
- Posting replies that are themselves on-topic but which will obviously tend to bring the discussion off-topic: moderate increase
- Bumping old threads with replies that are not really worthwhile: moderate increase
None of these things alone warrant a warning, but when they occur habitually or when someone does many of them, they indicate that the poster is a troll.
Warn people who are doing many trollish things. Tell me if that doesn't help.