A few days ago, I wrote a post about the Swing State Project’s mission. I was heartened by the comments, which were very supportive. Nonetheless, certain users have persisted in derailing discussions on this site in exactly the ways I made clear were unacceptable.
To preserve the way virtually all of us want the site to function, we are temporarily suspending the posting privileges of several users who were the worst abusers in the recent NY-Sen-B and UT-Gov posts. If you find yourself unable to comment or post diaries on the site, you are one of the affected users.
If you participated in these derailments but can still post, that does not mean you have our approval. We could have suspended far more people than we chose to. All participants should consider themselves on notice and take care to avoid abusing the site in the future.
If your privileges were suspended, you can request reinstatement after Memorial Day by sending me an email. Reinstatement will not be automatic, and contrition is advised. Note: We will remain exceptionally vigilant should anyone attempt to create a sock-puppet account. Doing so will be grounds for permanent banning.
It gives me no pleasure to do this. We’ve never had to do anything like this before, and I hope we never do again. And to be clear, the vast majority of site users have remained true to the spirit of the site. For this we are very grateful. Yet often the actions of a few can disrupt things for the many, and so we feel compelled to take action. Thank you all for your understanding.
I didn’t really remember getting off topic, of course I didnt read through the UT-GOV post. Was it flaming or just off topic?
and haven’t been checking out every single comment.
I tried skimming over both of those threads, but found that I had no idea what was going on anyway.
The only thing I have to add is I agree with whoever said that “pro-life” and “pro-choice” are not mutually exclusive, and many people have yet to realize that. (Though “pro-choice” might be mutually exclusive to the candidate named Pro-Life. :P)
Other than that, I’ll likely be commenting less in the following weeks, due to being really busy with real life (which, sadly, still hasnt’ involved anything political). If anyone wants to beg me to spend more time here, feel free. 😛
I’m already missing some of the people who have been suspended.
In general, I oppose permanent banning except for the worst of the worst trolls. People who are here in good faith but got caught up in some heated arguments deserve a second chance. Suspending someone for a couple of weeks seems like a reasonable response.
to introduce community rating/moderation like most of the other blogs that have grown to this size? Not to the level of autoban ability like on dailykos, but just an easy way for us to notify normally well-behaved members that they may be stepping out of line.
Overall I’m very happy to read comments and contribute my own comments as I see fit. I fully support your decision…I’m sure it wasn’t easy.