What do you think about the discourage feature? - Old anti-trolling measure.

[We Are The Witches]

This is a very old feature on XenForo and other sites, but it's so curious that I want to know your opinion on it:

Immediate effects of "discouraging" a user will result in extreme delayed loading times, as well as potentially other apparent "bugs". The purpose is basically as stated, to make trolls not want to continue using the site because of the random, constant annoyance. I also love that it says "troll some other site", not my circus, not my monkey!

• If you were an admin, would you use this instead of banning the user, warning them, or doing something else? And under what circumstances?
• Do you consider this a lame/spineless action if the admin would do this to your account (without warning of course)?
• Do you believe this feature, as it is now, is very useful?
• If you could make a similar feature, what would it consist of? (potential for some funny ideas)

 

[Frick Marisa]

I’d lean toward clear communication and defined consequences for moderation. A warning gives people a chance to correct their behavior, and a ban is a straightforward way to remove people who can't listen to reason and/or break the rules too often.

But I think "discouraging" as a feature could be used in some niche cases when people constantly ban evade. I just think it can easily be abused since mods/admins are still people too, and thus they can be as retarded, if not sometime more retarded than their own userbase.

 

[herefortheactualthreads]

its good enough for the indian scammers.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Or I could just call the annoying person a faggot and move on.
I wouldn't mind messing with the absolute loser autists who scour hundreds is if not thousands worth of thread pages to negrate everything they disagree with, though. I know sticker privileges can be revoked, but sticker misdirection would be funnier.

 

[BeckhoffAX5702]

It would be a funny April fools prank site wide if I'm being honest.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

Sounds like something that null would hate

 

[We Are The Witches]

but sticker misdirection would be funnier.

That's a great idea!

I’d lean toward clear communication and defined consequences for moderation.

Yeah, I agree with this, which is why I kind of see this feature a bit as spineless, just ban the user or warn them if they are violating the rules.

After all, when they catch on that they are "discouraged", they can take it as being pretty much banned and make a sock account.

 

[neger psykolog]

It would be a funny April fools prank site wide if I'm being honest.

What are you talking about? Kiwifarms is like this a lot of the time by default with all of the DDoS attacks and other shit lol

 

[urr13 account]

The main negative about "trolls" is that they repeat themselves a lot, I think setting it up so words they use over and over again autocorrect to something else might be funny.

Maybe 'Jew' autocorrects to 'Muslim' or vice-versa, 'femoid' to 'moid', 'gay' to 'based'. etc.

I wouldn't actually institute this though, as people shouldn't have words put in their mouth or have what they ay altered to have a different or opposite meaning but I just think it would be funny as a theoretical idea.

 

[Calandrino]

If annoying/unreliable site behavior discouraged trolls from posting, none of us would even be here

 

[Grub]

Sounds like something that could probably be easily bypassed with the developer console or a plugin.

 

[neger psykolog]

Sounds like something that could probably be easily bypassed with the developer console or a plugin.

No it can't because its server side. It's like when video/picture uploading is buggy and it makes you wait 10 minutes only for it to fail.

edit: at best it might be able to detect that such a plugin is active if the behavior pattern is fairly predictable and known

 

[Kosher Dill]

I think setting it up so words they use over and over again autocorrect to something else might be funny.

Maybe 'Jew' autocorrects to 'Muslim' or vice-versa, 'femoid' to 'moid', 'gay' to 'based'. etc.

Null used to do that every time any sort of forum culture started emerging here. I don't remember exactly when the autocorrects on "milk", "ween", "Great Director Chandler" (!!), and others were removed.

 

[Dagoth AMOGUS]

Who’s to say it’s not used for some?

 

[neger psykolog]

Who’s to say it’s not used for some?

Who's to say it's not used for all........

 

[Stephanie Bustcakes]

What are you talking about? Kiwifarms is like this a lot of the time by default with all of the DDoS attacks and other shit lol

I hate that you have to find out like this, but there were never any DDoS attacks. You were just on the discourage list.

 

[Neodanthril]

For ban evading spergos I can see the utility

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Absolutely ballless.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

If they're annoying enough for the box to be checked they're going to be worse when they can't be annoying as efficiently.

 

[Meth Dick]

I prefer the old fashioned "bully them until they fuck off" routine myself. If they return under a sock, well that's just more to bully them for.
This probably would only work if it's used against people that genuinely do not give a fuck or are annoying on purpose for their own lulz/like negative attention, like people that get off on being hit so they go out of their way to get people to beat them up. Masochist shit.