Well said, neshura. If a /ban function is implemented, how can it be enforced? By IP? Proxies make that really hard to do - I would hate to find myself banned because somebody else at my VLC was being an ass. By userid? All the person needs to do is to create another ID and continue in their fashion.

While the /ignore faces similar problems, I think a person is less likely to lash out to people ignoring them than they are to being banned.

In reference to ZZamboni's later comment, I do not much like the idea of an automated system deciding when I am banned. That starts begging for a weird popularity contest.

If a /ban function becomes necessary, maybe we could have it autoexpire in, say, 24 hours or something? It kind of enforces a cool-off period and makes whoever wields such power have to manually enforce a ban of a longer period.

Out of curiousity, if I /ignore somebody, do they stay ignored until I /unignore them? Does this ignore work only in the chatterbox or is it more like the ( infamous ) Jon Katz filters on /. and ignore *everything* from that user?

mikfire