It’s a sad life that he has.

Too bad. He had just started to shift into still obnoxious but at least not just throwing mud mode.

But, his contribution never rose to the level that he will be missed.

none of the cowards would have the balls to say it to me if I was within arms reach of them

And what makes you think we are cowards? How do you know this? Would you attempt physical harm on the individual? If so, how certain are you that it would go your way?

Well, thatâ??s not how I operate. If I am moderated (i.e. my link doesnâ??t show up in my post) I wonâ??t post here, simple as that.

I suppose this is farewell, then.

I have pretty an incredibly thick skin skull

Fixed it for ya. 😀

I’d guess he is either incredibly stupid, and thinks that his behavior is always constructive (at least in the sense of providing entertainment) or incredibly evil (and thinks that the occasional politeness lends him credibility with some that he can then capitalize on to tear others down all the more effectively).

I just figured narcissism and lulz.

But open source projects tend towards meritocracy: If you have the technical background, people listen to you. If you are a trolling asshat, people ignore you. So it was easy for me to “let free speech rule” on the mailing lists, because the stupid behavior policed itself pretty well.

I’ve broken that rule only once. We had a person on the list who became very disruptive. Our mailing lists have mostly avoided flame wars, but this person was like a match to every argument. It reached a point where I had to make a decision: would kicking this person from the list do more damage to the community than leaving him there?

In the end, I warned the person (off-list) that his behavior was being very disruptive and abusive, and if he continued I would kick him from the list. Sort of a warning shot. He acknowledged my email, then continued being abusive. I kicked him.

I eventually let him back on the list, after he very politely contacted me off-list to apologize. Still, it was 6 months later before I re-added him to the list. He’s still there, and he mostly keeps his behavior in check. The list community does the rest.

So I’d give this advice to Greg: decide if banning this guy will do more damage to your blog community, rather than just leaving him there. I think lots of other people here have already given their opinion to which they would prefer, so I’ll leave it at that.

First, I would like to say thanks to all my fans and appreciate the overwhelming support I have received on this forum. That and the civility/relevance on the topic that the commenters have shown here is a fine gage of the caliber of people who frequent this site and Mr Ladenâ??s blog in particular.

Greg doesnâ??t like my politics, and thatâ??s whatâ??s driving this debate, not that I called some obese black woman â??queen hippoâ?. Allegations of racism have become rather meaningless because of people like Mr Ladenâ??s overuse and misuse of them. Soon it will join â??fascistâ? in the lexicon of other ways of saying â??things and people we donâ??t likeâ?. While I have certainly mocked some of the other commenters here, the kind of vile directed at me is an order of magnitude more severe. Not that I care, I have pretty thick skin and to be honest none of the cowards would have the balls to say it to me if I was within arms reach of them, but for Mr Ladenâ??s crocodile tears about me being over the top and overly offensive is just more of his brand of hose phooey.

Although Greg hates my politics and probably despises me as well, he knows I am good for traffic (as evident by the 100+ replies to this thread). Maybe he makes some kind of income from this blog, maybe he doesnâ??t, but since he is currently a jobless loser, he needs something and since I marginally (and not so marginally today) contribute to that he looks to be willing to let me stick around just so long as I kiss the ring.

Well, thatâ??s not how I operate. If I am moderated (i.e. my link doesnâ??t show up in my post) I wonâ??t post here, simple as that.

I wont lose any sleep if a second rate, unemployed loser like Mr Laden bans me, but it will say volumes for kind of person he is.

Smell you later losers.