Oni, Wassupfrombustamove, and Cofftea, the NG of ITD?

[Chip]

OK, odds are pretty high they are one in the same. IPs and ISPs and locations appear to be a match. The provider is pretty obscure. The locations are 11 miles apart.

Not to mention the similarity in posting habits. If they are not the same, I will eat my tea.

[Pentox]

I'm pretty much sold on this notion too. In another thread cofftea's listing habit is exactly the same as mocha wheels' previous post. Both are enumerated using asterisks for the bullet points.

[Chip]

Not to mention resurrecting very old topics, including some of her old faves.

[chamekke]

Well, at least we newer ITD'ers finally know what the name "Mocha Wheels" refers to

[Mary R]

Yeah...sorry about that. After we finally banned her, I went back and deleted about 200 of her more recent posts. You can still find a lot of the stuff from when she first signed on (including several "white peppermint oolong" posts...we tried to delete those as they happened, but yeah), but the best of Mocha's passive aggressive BS has been erased from the internet.

Finals week is over for me, so I'm going to try to get caught up on this new member situation and see what can be done.

[ABx]

Why on earth would someone go out of their way to go to a place where nobody likes them?

Wtf? <sobs>

[Mary R]

I've done some internet snoopage and am pretty convinced our Mocha and Cofftea are one and the same. I'm going to figure out a bait and see if there's something I can construe to merit a warning in order to set it.

Chip, have you gotten any specific complaints about Cofftea?

[Chip]

Taking it to the Mod Squad forum for official business.

[Victoria]

I'm officially complaining, for the record.

[Mary R]

You know, I don't think we've ever said how we treat incoming complaints. I'm actually not sure what Chip does with them when he gets 'em.

I view incoming complaints in two categories: whining and valid. Valid complaints are things I can act on, usually an infringement or near infringement of the TeaChat rules. Everything else I ignore because, well, there's nothing I can do about it and I consider my time too important to referee personality clashes.

The sticky bit about this is that I really can't see that Cofftea has broken any rules. I did use thread resurrection as an excuse to send an unofficial 'warning' (not a technical rule breakage, so not a strike...just a note to watch thineself)...but beyond that...

So, ITD, the second you notice someone breaking a rule, Copy/Paste the evidence to a PM addressed to me or Chip. We can actually do something then.

[ABx]

I think you guys fret too much about the letter of the law I seem to remember you guys torturing yourselves a bit over Karia, who even admitted to the behavior that defines trolling.

I really think that you guys should just add a rule against "disturbing the peace." Even IRL you can get busted just for causing enough trouble to warrant complaints. That way you could ban people that deserve it - after all, trolls "survive" precisely because they ride that line of causing problems without officially breaking any rules.

[Chip]

Agreed, ABx. It is hard to find the correct balance, tbh. Fairness and not being taken advantage of, where do we draw the line? I think both Mary and I want to give everyone the chance to redeem themselves.

We generally want to have an open forum, as uncensored as possible within reason (which gets very subjective, right Mary?), yet there are obviously those who will play the system quite well. Mocha was successful at playing the system and wholesale wasting the Mods' time to the MAX. Ultimately, she lacked self control to know when to stop or back off.

There is part of me who feels badly for someone like Mochawheels, obviously she has problems. Unfortunately, TeaChat cannot really help her overcome her problems and sometimes hard decisions had to be made, I never felt good about banning her. But it does not help her "condition" to allow her to run amuck at the expence of everyone else either. There needs to be an accountability even on an internet tea forum.

[ABx]

Well, like I say, I think that a "disturbing the peace" rule would be fair and probably make these things easier for you. That way if you get a lot of complaints and/or have to spend a lot of time babysitting someone then you ban them without having to torture yourself about it or spend a lot of time justifying it. It would also probably make it easier to send effective warnings. If you want to give them a chance to redeem themselves then you could always start with a short-term ban.

People like MW are people that really belong in another online community, but just don't have the awareness to realize it. There's plenty of Yahoo/AOL/ISP groups and chats that she could find people just like her (the stuff of nightmares), if she would just look for them. Banning someone like that can be a way of saving them from themselves, and they will probably be happier in the end.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to convince you to take action either way or start banning people just because a few people don't get along with them, just don't feel bad about keeping the peace just because a person's actions don't fall under clearly defined rules. After all, it's not like you're revoking their internet access altogether. It would be one thing if it was someone that regularly makes a positive difference, but it's another when people waltz in and do nothing but suck the enjoyment out of being here or force you to be full-time babysitters.

So yeah - just make a general rule that will let people know that fair judgment will trump technicalities and loopholes if they try to walk the line. It's the same reason that stores are granted the right to refuse service to anyone.

[Victoria]

Well said.

[Chip]

... "I'm listening" ... Your points have a lot of merit, ABx.

A disturbing the peace rule is something that has not been overly needed, but it is an interesting concept whose time may have come.