[Imc-uk-features] more on the cross crossrail poster

[Ben]

A couple of weeks ago I posted on the list to say that I had emailed  
the poster of the crossrail articles to point out that people who  
repeatedly spam inappropriate topics and regions may find their posts  
hidden. This particular poster has generated lots of complaints about  
promoting the Respect party (although personally I don't think this  
is a reasonable complaint as Galloway is the MP for the effected  
area), and also complaints about the posts being unintelligible  
repetitive nonsense (which is true). A google search reveals 540 hits  
for posts and comments by this poster on IMC UK during the last few  
months.

Anyway, I had no reply to the email I sent to the poster and no  
comments on the list about what I proposed to do. The frequent  
crossrail posts continued with both world and indymedia topics ticked  
on every occasion. I sent two more warning emails and started to hide  
all of the offending posts and comments.

Now the poster is complaining about being hidden and insists that no  
email was ever received. Of course I didn't believe that and went to  
the webmail account I had used so that I could post copies of the  
sent mail. Unfortunately the sent mail folder is not on by default so  
I couldn't, however, while I was there I decided to confirm it was  
all working correctly and so sent myself an email. What I discovered  
is that the account doesn't send emails and receives no bounces. How  
crap is that!? I hate to think who else I might have written to using  
that account (although I generally I only use it for signing up to  
things online so I don't get spammed to fuck on my personal account).

So, it boils down to this. I have been wrong to hide this persons  
posts having mistaken their lack of response as deliberate and  
malicious intent. Having wrongly hidden the person as being a  
disruptive poster I'll will now have to apologise and unhide the ones  
I hide. I don't know whether to do this with a personal email or do  
it on the newswire somewhere. Either way, I will make clear what the  
poster must do to avoid future posts being hidden if the spamming of  
world and indymedia topics continues.

Finally, I'd like to suggest we have an email address we could use to  
write to repeat offenders to let them know what they are doing wrong  
and let them know what they can do to resolve problems. I don't think  
it appropriate to use personal accounts for this and to maintain  
transparency it would be good if messages sent using the account were  
cc'd to this list. I don't want to see a local campaign like the  
crossrail one hidden just because they haven't read or understood the  
editorial guidelines but I don't want to see the topic newswires full  
of irrelevant crap for admins to sort out. Being able to write to  
people and let them know about the problem seems to make some sense  
to me.

ben