Banning users from Loomio?

@goob "Don't feed the trolls" is a good rule of thumb for individuals, but it's no substitute for moderation of a community. As long as somebody is responding to them, they won't go away.

@rich1 I don't think that opening up Loomio was necessarily a mistake, but it needs to be moderated just like anything else. If you just let anybody post anything, then, well...anybody will post anything.

@rich1 I think loomio is a great tool, it is useful to expand and invigorate the community, same problems we have in loomio would be in another open way we communicate, yes, I think we need a protocol to remove users who only come to disturb, but must be truly exceptional

I find it interesting that @l4c0f just assumed I was talking about them, when I never mentioned them in this thread...

I don't think we should ban people. If anything, I think it's a good thing that our groups are open; most of the time things are civil and historically worked well.

I think the only case where banning someone would be apprpriate would be if they're continuously harassing members of the community and shitting on top of constructive conversations.

Well, difficult question... Starting to which point can we consider that's harrassing ? Or rather : What must we undergo until actions become being considered as harrassement ?

For instance : a guy that would systematycally post in three or four popular topics links to his Facebook/Twitter without expressing any constructive idea would be harrassing ?

Just an example, uh ! Any resemblance to an existing case is entirely fortuitous !

I think it's best to banish a user who only comes to disturb and not close a topic as "child safety" of course we need to talk about the safety of children in Diaspora* but precisely because it is a matter of utmost importance must be done seriously and this is impossible with trolls.

sorry about my english

I think a way to deal with some of the challenges would be to require specific, actionable proposals, and don't allow the ensuing discussion to drift from the proposal topic. I've seen people get drawn into arguments that have nothing to do with the proposal at hand, which isn't constructive.

If a particular proposal isn't specific, it can be blocked with a recommendation to the submitter to re-submit a more specific proposal. Likewise off-topic comments can be met with a recommendation to create a new, on-topic proposal for that discussion. That way we can all communicate on issues in a way that's constructive.

Loomio is a discussion forum modeled after specific changes; it's not a general-purpose forum for airing grievances or criticism. If we use it that way (and remind others to do so too) it can work quite well.

There are some guidelines for using Loomio on our wiki. If you think these can be strengthened, please edit them.