When unfair replies to ANY thread are permitted to fester ... is the situation unfortunate?

[Boojatta]

The following gave me an idea ...

But in the past we learned that some people have a tendency to post in the Ask the Administrators forum when they are very angry, and as a result do not always choose their words carefully. The DU Administrators are not online all the time, and we believe it is better if particularly unfair or hurtful accusations posted in this forum are not permitted to fester out in the open without a response.

I have noticed that there is a small group of DU members who often post, in threads created by me, replies that are irrelevant or sarcastic, contain little or no content, and almost always make some specific reference to me or to my previous threads. Often, such replies are explicit complaints that my threads are a waste of time, which is basically absurd because it takes very little time for a DU member to put me on ignore. Furthermore, I noticed that the first reply to a new thread created by me is often posted by a member of that small group of DU members. However, that first reply might not be posted until long after I started the thread.

My concern is that their replies might distract lurkers and DU members in general from the substance of threads created by me.

Now, I recognize that it's possible that in many specific cases the Moderators might judge that such distracting replies don't violate the DU rules. However, there could be at least one perk associated with sticking one's neck out and creating a new thread. After Moderators delete a reply to the Original Message, the creator of the thread could have the option of adding the author of the deleted reply to a personal "Replied in violation" or "Potential fester reply" list, in some respects analogous to an "Ignore" list.

The idea is that when a DU member creates a thread and someone in that DU member's "Replied in violation" or "Potential fester reply" list posts a reply, the reply will be visible to the thread creator, to the person who posted the reply, to the DU Moderators, and to the DU Admins, but won't be visible to any other DU members until after either the DU member who created the thread has had an opportunity to post a substantive answer/rebuttal or the DU member who created the thread has had an opportunity to alert on the reply and the Moderators have made a decision about whether or not the alert was justified.

Of course, "one strike and you're out" would be a problem, especially if there's controversy about whether or not the umpire made a good decision. Having an opportunity to post a substantive answer/rebuttal is not the same as "don't call us, we'll call you, but we never will call you." Thus, the software shouldn't permit me to have any DU member on both my "Replied in violation" (or "Potential fester reply") list and my "Ignore Replies" list, unless that DU member has been banned.

[Skinner]

1. I certainly understand your frustration.

We are going to completely change the way we moderate the site when we move into our new software, hopefully later this year. We don't expect to do what you are describing, but we do hope to give members more control over their DU experience.