Community Moderators

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I know you will not respond, but that does not matter to me as it's not response I seek but clarity for others.

For everyone else reading, I just wanted to point out this is a masterful example of how words hold power over others - an aspect of power which I was noting in another response as a way that trolls and flamers exert power over other people through words, not censorship, and in a way that's simply not censorable by any rules you can devise.

This technique, of withholding response but stating you are doing so beforehand, is showing a dominance over me by by implying he is above me.  It's a way that you can easily anger people in a forum if they are thin-skinned and a discussion is already heated.  Someone who really simply doesn't want to talk about something any further will simply stop responding.  Stating explicitly you are taking an action that is in fact counter to what you are saying, often has a deeper meaning and effect.

How could you possibly write a rule for that?  You cannot.  In this case obviously it should not result in a ban, as he just wants to be done with the conversation for now and probably was not aware of the technique he was using.  But what if a poster in a forum was using that and other techniques low-level aggression constantly in a forum?  There always should be the possibility of a user being banned if they show a long-term pattern of abuse of others, no matter how elegantly or sweetly worded that abuse is.  Only forum moderators that are regular readers can know when abuse of others that subtle is occurring, and they need to have the latitude to act in such cases.

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---> Kendall
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