Replies to post #71284 on The Question and Answer Board (IHUB)

[waterwisp]

Bob, while I certainly sympathize...

...with the rigors of running a busy Message Board website (I even posted earlier this week about you guys deserving a raise for dealing with all the "SCREWBALLS" that reside here)...


http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=12722009


...this whole idea of "cops", "snitches" and "informers" among us is an experiment that has been done before and with disastrous results.

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Do a little reading about the infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment" that was conducted by Professor Phillip Zimbardo back in 1971...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment


...about the earlier "Milgram Experiment" conducted by Stanley Milgram back in 1961 when he was working toward his Phd. at Harvard.

In this study of "Obedience to Authority" Milgram found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks-up to 450 volts - to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific authority commanded them to, and in spite of the fact that the victim did not do anything to deserve such punishment...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment


...and even more recently "Abu Ghraib Prison" (granted this an extreme example and may not be as applicable as the Stanford and Milgram Studies). Nevertheless...


http://www.slate.com/id/2100419/


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Look...bottom line when you put seemingly "good people" in positions of authority...with some newly acquired POWER over their peers...AND...you give that person the blessing of "Management" to ENFORCE THE RULES...you have a potential recipe for disaster and abuse !

Circumstances can distort individual personalities -- and ANYONE...I repeat ANYONE...when given complete control over others, can act like a monster.

You are embarking on a VERY "slippery slope" here in my opinion !

[sublime]

bob...when will we have a healthy search function back? :( i lost my momo!

[Dadd]

You give them no warning at all, if they abuse the power at all, then history. Don't see why that wouldn't help, as power as such can literally change a person. omo
Dadd

[IH Geek [Dave]]

There are several deputy admins on SI, but only "SI Spam Patrol (Cheeky Kid)" is public. The deputies have limited ability to terminate new accounts and their posts when the account is spamming, advertising, or engaging in some other obvious violation of the TOU. All roastings are logged and reviewed by me. There have been hundreds of roastings and every one was warranted.

The deputies have access to a screen of new accounts that helps to identify potential spammers. They do not have access to any personal or other identifiable information such as logins or, IP addresses, or emails.

We have coverage pretty much around the clock. Spammers are usually roasted before they can even make their 5 posts. It has worked extremely well, both in elimination of spam before most users are ever distracted by it, and by eliminating the inevitable "noise" posts to the spammers.

We have not expanded their role as spammers were by far the #1 problem on SI. Deletions are not a problem there since moderators cannot remove posts, but they can ban users from posting withing various limits depending on what type of board it is.