[Radu094]

Trolling is not something to be taken lightly anymore. The number of retards with nothing to do on their hands is ever rising in this day and age.

I've seen all this happening before. Last year we had the same problem with a forum that I admin. User number was pretty low, and we were quite a polite/nice community. Never had to enter admin mode once. Then more & more users started showing up (now it's about 3000) and it all went downhill from there. I was used with a hands-off approach and pretty much didn't do anything when the first signs of trolling begun. Users were getting furious, topics were getting out of control, and (legit) users started walking away. I was very reluctant to do anything because I really opposed the ideea of having a dictatorial forum where users were being admonested for bad-behaviour,etc. It took a few months before we realized we were having more trolls posting than normal users.

Nowadays we have 12 moderators for all the forums. A forum just for moderators. A moderator for the moderators. User baning. IP baning. E-mail registration for new users. Ignore lists. Report to moderator links and whatnot...

If I had the chance to do it allover again, I'd impose all these rules when the first troll appeared. It would have the same end result, plus some users wich wouldn't have walked away.

[Mnesymone]

The Debate Club kind of works - it's just that a lot of the people who start arguments don't go there - or they start arguments in other places.
If you split the star wars forum into a named original, prequel and battlefield forums, people will cross over. Or straddle. Or just flame.
It'd be like India and Pakistan all over again.
Except over Star Wars, and in cyberspace.