You may have noticed a distinct lack of return2ozma. This is due to their admitting, in a public comment, that their engagement here is in bad faith:
I'm sure there will be questions, let me see if I can address the most obvious ones:
- Can I still post negative stuff about Biden?
Absolutely! We have zero interest in running an echo chamber. However, if ALL you're posting is negative, you may want to re-think your priorities. You get out of the world what you put into it and all that.
- Why now?
Presumption of innocence. It may be my own fault, but I do try to think the best of people, and even though they were posting negative articles, they weren't necessarily WRONG. Biden's poll numbers, particularly in minority demographics ARE in the shitter. They are starting to get better, but he still has a hell of a hill to climb.
- Why a 30 day temp ban and not a permanent ban?
The articles return2ozma shared weren't bad, faked, or from some wing-nut bias site like "beforeitsnews.com", they were legitimate articles from established and respected news agencies, pointing out the valid problems Biden faces.
The problem was ONLY posting the negatives, over and over and then openly admitting that dishonest enagement is their purpose.
Had they all been bullshit articles? It would not have taken anywhere near this much time to lay the ban and it would have been permanent.
30 days seems enough time for them to re-think their strategery and come back to engage honestly.
Do you think this ban is fairly nonpartisan?
Would you also ban a user that only posts negative Trump stories and admits to that?
I agree r2o was getting to be a bit much, and the temp ban seems appropriate, but I'd want to see a policy like this applied fairly and evenly.
If someone pumped the gas and was posting dozens and dozens of pro or anti Trump stuff? Yeah, I think I'd do the same.
We did have quite a few pro-Trump posts as he was winning primaries, which made logical sense. I'm also planning on megathreads in July and August for both conventions.
You should make spamming too many articles within a certain X time a rule then. I think it needs to be more objective. This is getting into partisan territory.
We did end up doing that in World News when one user dominated the front page by posting 19 articles at once(!)
I don't think Ozma quite hit that level, and it wasn't really the volume that was the issue, it was the desire to be continually, relentlessly, negative.