Banning of Members

[WG Admin]

Banning of Members

We want Wildlife Gardeners to be an enjoyable experience for as many members as possible. It was a high priority goal at our inception, and it remains a high priority goal. In order to accomplish our goal it is sometimes necessary to limit, or prohibit, certain activities at our website.

While the vast majority of Wildlife Gardener’s members are respectful and courteous people who use our service responsibly, we do occasionally encounter bad apples that enjoy disrupting the forums and harassing fellow forum members. We have forum guidelines and rules to address this:
Forum Rules - Wildlife Gardeners - North American Wildlife Gardening

But we realize that our guidelines and rules cannot be all-inclusive. That leaves us in a position where we are not able to spell out rules in legalese to cover every possible interpretation or situation. What does this mean? Situations may arise that are not covered by our guidelines and fine print. Although we would prefer to act only on situations covered in writing, site management reserves the right to act as needed to deal with members that we determine are intent on being a disruptive presence.

In addition to being committed to providing an enjoyable friendly place for member discussions, we are committed to our mission statement. We’ve placed it on our home page. It’s who we are; it’s why we’re here:
http://www.wildlifegardeners.org

[WG Admin]

Administrative summary

Banning is at the discretion of site management. Suspension is also at the discretion of site management.

No online community is perfect. We are not going to be able to get through to every bad apple. This places us in the position of sometimes making it necessary to exercise our right to ban someone from membership at this website.

When banning a member we take into consideration the nature, severity, and the number and frequency of complaints submitted by other members in addition to our own findings. Members are most likely to be banned for posts that are intended to disrupt the productive discourse, stimulating conversation, and the sharing of ideas and resources by our members.

[WG Admin]

Banned Members

In the interests of transparency and accountability, we will be listing banned members. We will not be listing suspended members as suspension is temporary and is intended to provide a member with a break from a situation to calm down and gain perspective.

The list of our banned members may be viewed.

http://www.wildlifegardeners.org/for...g-members.html

[Equilibrium]

This is good. I was at another site and members went **poof** and then when people tried to talk about it whole threads disappeared and then the members talking about it started going **poof** so people would just shut up or get banned. I'll be brave... what's an astroturfer? I remember that guy... he was... er uh... major league something.

[milkweed]

Yes please explain the terms. I've heard of spammers before but have no idea what that means. Much less trolls,astroturfer etc.

[erictjohnson]

I will venture a definition of "troll," but I have no idea what an "astroturfer" is. There are people who spend too much time online, which leads to boredom. They seem to get relief by joining a forum, and provoking an argument. It is as if they want to get a reaction, but they never seem to have a cohesive point of view.

[Equilibrium]

Here’s what a spammer supposedly is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_spam. milkweed> I dunno if you were here when they got all the insurance quote offers but.... that guy was a spammer. Then there was the one that was talking about the native plants she was planting and when you'd click on her links you'd end up at a porn site. Niiiiiiiiiiice. Spammers are pigs IMO. They trick you into going to sites you'd never go to in a million years. Here’s what a troll is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll. Trolls are waaaaay worse than spammers. erictjohnson> I think you nailed it. I "religiously" read political forums at two atheist sites... none of them are radical or extreme and they tend to get into good environmental talks. I'm a lurker not a member since I'm not an atheist but... they constantly get some newer people weaseling their way in posting quasi rational like one of the “gang” for ohhhh... 50 posts or so acting normal and then all the sudden bam... they're attacked from within when “real innocent like” questions start getting asked like, “aren’t you afraid of getting shut out of heaven for not believing” or “what if there really is a hell” and they ask people to check another site with an opposing view that's supposed to be "food for thought" and.... you get to this other site and it’s basically the antithesis of the site you were just at. My take on trolls is that they’re ugly people who like to stir pots. Why join a site you’re not even remotely interested unless you’re into the twisted sport of pitting people up against people??? Whatever. I don’t know what an astroturfer is either. I saw that one guy listed as an astroturfer and I would have thought he would have been a spammer for trying to get people to go to an inimical site or maybe a troll.

[Fearless Weeder]

Astroturfing

Astroturfing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[TheLorax]

Astroturfing generally involves a hidden agenda. These two definitions may provide more insight into how astroturfers operate-

What is astroturfing? - Definition from Whatis.com

Astroturfing is the artificial creation of a grassroots buzz for a product, service or political viewpoint. Commercially-motivated astroturfing is called "astroturf marketing."

Astroturf marketers typically use blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, vlogs, chat rooms and social media Web sites like MySpace when building an artificial buzz.

What is Astroturfing?

When a major corporation routes funds that push an agenda through an organization that appears to be a grassroots group, it is referred to as astroturfing, in a reference to a brand of fake grass which is used all over the United States. Examples of astroturfing vary: a company might, for example, use a shill to plant messages on web bulletin boards. In other cases, a major corporation might fund a group which appears to be independent of the parent company, and therefore supposedly providing clear and unbiased information.

[havalotta]

Well I sure didn't know what any of the terms meant until now. Thanks
Can you tell us what a trojan or cookies are or are they something entirely different like a virus or something of the sort?