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Alexander Turcic · 11-13-2007, 04:33 AM

Hi bingle,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. MobileRead is all about communication, and we want everyone to feel welcome, comfortable and respected here. Unfortunately, in a large community of users with many different viewpoints, there will always be a few people who will not be happy with the way our community works.

We don't arbitrarily ban people we don't like, or ban people whose comments are even bitterly critical. Criticism isn't a problem. A problem it becomes when someone lives for stirring up trouble in the forums, someone who

feuds with other members and has the compulsive need to type things that will provoke a reaction;
continues to post the same material over and over again without changing his position or developing the discussion;
derails the conversation and community and has everyone focus solely on him.

Experience has shown that this behavior results in inhibiting productive discussion. Some readers are discouraged from contributing to the original topic, anticipating that they may also become the target of insults. Others may feel obliged to take a side and jump into the fray, adding kerosene to the fire. Once this happens, it becomes very difficult to return to the original topic of the thread. The exchange of thoughts, ideas, and experience comes to a grinding halt, and the topic of the thread no longer indicates what is contained in that thread. Once a thread has decayed to the extent that it becomes irrelevant to the vast majority of readers, it becomes a signpost to everyone that we are collectively incapable of intelligent discussion. That is not the way we want the rest of the world to perceive MobileRead.

When someone gets banned (as Nat mentioned, it happens only very *rarely* here), it's not to punished this person, but rather to remove a cause of constant friction from the community.

Regarding negative karma - I agree with you. We thought about it again and decided it's not helping anyone (whether someone "deserves" it or not).

Therefore, we have now completely disabled negative karma.

11-13-2007, 04:33 AM	#6
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,163 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	Hi bingle, Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. MobileRead is all about communication, and we want everyone to feel welcome, comfortable and respected here. Unfortunately, in a large community of users with many different viewpoints, there will always be a few people who will not be happy with the way our community works. We don't arbitrarily ban people we don't like, or ban people whose comments are even bitterly critical. Criticism isn't a problem. A problem it becomes when someone lives for stirring up trouble in the forums, someone who feuds with other members and has the compulsive need to type things that will provoke a reaction; continues to post the same material over and over again without changing his position or developing the discussion; derails the conversation and community and has everyone focus solely on him. Experience has shown that this behavior results in inhibiting productive discussion. Some readers are discouraged from contributing to the original topic, anticipating that they may also become the target of insults. Others may feel obliged to take a side and jump into the fray, adding kerosene to the fire. Once this happens, it becomes very difficult to return to the original topic of the thread. The exchange of thoughts, ideas, and experience comes to a grinding halt, and the topic of the thread no longer indicates what is contained in that thread. Once a thread has decayed to the extent that it becomes irrelevant to the vast majority of readers, it becomes a signpost to everyone that we are collectively incapable of intelligent discussion. That is not the way we want the rest of the world to perceive MobileRead. When someone gets banned (as Nat mentioned, it happens only very rarely here), it's not to punished this person, but rather to remove a cause of constant friction from the community. Regarding negative karma - I agree with you. We thought about it again and decided it's not helping anyone (whether someone "deserves" it or not). Therefore, we have now completely disabled negative karma.