OK, gokunming, I guess that's a good reason, thanks for responding.

Next week Ishmael writes about the spiritual pitfall of ouija boarding. Careful now!

Please check the posting guidelines: www.gokunming.com/en/pages/t/guidelines/

Warnings and (temporary) bans will be given when the posting guidelines are violated, in order to keep the forum civil and useful. Thank you for your understanding and your contributions.

@GKM
Forgot Dolphin. :)

Ishmael and cloudtrapezer, you appear to be in the grip of some kind of mindless free speech absolutism. What I think you fail to see is that trolls are like invasive species: they crowd out other users/species.

I ask:

1. What happened to tigertiger and Dazzer? I can't speak for them, but the post history gives grounds for inference that they got sick of the BS from dolphin and Peter99.

2. Why do there appear to be zero women on the forums? Again, I can't speak for them, but psychological research has shown that (a) women tend to exhibit higher levels of agreeableness, one of the "Big Five" personality traits, and also (b) agreeable people tend to avoid conflict, as one would expect. Plus the situation has not been improved by Peter99’s locker room talk (www.gokunming.com/[...] ).

3. Why are there so few users on the forums overall? Depending on sources, the daily number of visitors to gokunming.com appears to be in the range of 500 to 5,000. Assuming it’s not all the same visitors every day, the total audience is somewhat larger. In that light, while it’s hard to say what a normal forum participation rate should be, the current numbers seem quite low.

The bottom line is that most people have better things to do than scraping troll BS off the bottom of their shoes. Switching metaphors, those who oppose action against Asian carp and kudzu are in effect choosing to live in a world virtually devoid of other species.

I would like to hear a wider range of voices here, so I welcome and support more active moderation of the forums.

Well you got your ban. Now we'll sit and wait for a wider range of voices. Don't hold your breath.

cloudtrapezer wrote: "your ban"

To be clear, I prefer to avoid bans when at all possible. Forum moderation can take various escalating forms, up to and including permanent bans in the most extreme cases.