Thank you very much for your attention to this, especially as I know you'd rather avoid this ongoing discussion, which is rather old. It's like we all have alzheimer's and have to address the same damn POD abuses on a regular basis.

I think every mod and admin is more than happy to nuke a low effort insult and not even say anything so it isn't a big fight. Everyone wins a minor victory. This may seem counterintuitive, but it works.

The main point is that everyone does not win - because as I've argued - Saidit can't keep users on the site when they're constantly abused with personal insults. Mod abuse is of course the harrassment and banning of people who are much higher in the POD (insulting a comment) than the abusers who are at the rock bottom of the POD (ad hominim and name calling). It's not so complicated to understand, and when this abuse happens, there is no reason for the user to waste his/her time in the sub or site. Saidit loses another user. Saidit remains inactive, with few users. Everyone does not win.

The problem comes when those insults are sprinkled in a long comment tree. You can't remove those without making swiss cheese of the conversation.

Let's be explicit about which kinds of insults. Ad hominim and name calling ENTIRELY by one user throughout a thread, whereas there is NONE of this from the user who is being attacked, whereas the user being attacked is told that he is about to be banned. The insults by the user being attacked are only against comments. And EVERYONE everywhere argues in this manner against comments. When a MOD wants to reduce that discussion - this kills the discussion, kills the sub, and kills Saidit. How much of this abuse have we discussed on s/watchredditdie....

Beyond that, there are limited options. As you well know, bans are ineffective. Mostly all anyone does is ask nicely. Which still pisses a lot of people off.

I think bans are effective, as they do indeed reduce the activity of the user. And yes, asking nicely would be nice.

It has been proposed perm bans would have the effect of banning the name if not the person and might still be effective. Of course this introduces the problem of being able to tell users apart. It creates a learning curve to using the forum. Like with Ed switching names constantly.

Yes - though only if the person wants to return, and they won't return in the same way. Saidit is better off with temp bans for those who have long histories of contributng to Saidit. For those who are mainly abusive - with ad hominims and name calling - perm bans should help, because that kind of user can return with another name and do the same low POD personal attacks and get perma banned again, and eventually they might give up - as we've seen in the past.

I'm open to ideas.

Idea for bans noted above.

Also, important to point out, this isn't so much a forum wide issue as a Socks & Jason don't get along issue. Y'all have lots of problems where you request intervention much more so than anyone else.

I think - if you look at all of the responses in some of the comment sections - you'll see how common it is for users to post personal attacks against others. I of course get these quite often. The only difference with the user who shall not be named is the way in which he depends on Saidit for self-affirmations about how right he is and how wrong others who don't agree with him are, and he will turn the conversation into this serious of personal attacks in most cases. As for me, he likes to continue the personal attacks because he knows he's permitted to do so, and because he wants a response in the form of a personal attack. He's seen in the past that this gets strikes against me or another user when this happens. He's admitted to this kind of attempt to try to get people banned various times. TAM banned him a while back because he admitted it to her. And since then he's happily admitted it. And I am one of several targets. I can psot the names if you don't remember the others, who are no longer very active on Saidit. He's also dedicated posts to requests to ban people and other users have told him at that time how wrong that is. You must remember this because you were one of those users correcting him.

Finally, as my own suggestion, we could follow the example of US jurisprudence and look for a black woman to be the final judge of this matter between you two.

Nice - a black woman on Saitit - users couldn't handle her sick burns against their racism. But here's why this kind of thing is a good suggestion: ANY user on Saidit who does not agree with the majority of users should be welcome to remain and engage. But Saiditors push them away. Mod abuse pushes them away. Let's say the black woman tells a uer that his comment is a racist, dumbass, snowflake comment. She's right to say this. Did she insult the user personally? No. Should she thus remain at Saidit without mods trying to figure out sho is or what her comments mean? Of course. Only if she were to insult the user personally would there be a problem. This is my main point in response to: how can Saidit grow and develop.