I have a slightly related problem. When somebody responds to an Ignored poster, I don't see any indication of that, so sometimes I just have to guess there is a quote there. Maybe there should be a note of "ignored post" or something, so this would be more obvious...
I agree with Gambit that nobody can argue with that principle ... But the reality is that having people/content all over the site in the manner of the recent development that's being discussed in this thread is a huge disincentive for others to contribute much, in terms of time, effort and "sharing": in practice, with or without "ignore facilities", it takes only a small handful of very noisy, intrusive, insulting people of this kind to disillusion and alienate a very large number of "normal, contributing members" (and perhaps even to dissuade others from joining, though of course there's less direct evidence available of that). One trading forum was nearly destroyed over basically this issue: over the course of a year or so, a high proportion of the contributing members gradually deserted, and the overall traffic to the site also declined very steadily, over the same period. That's just the way it is - and in a forum with something of a member-retention issue to start with, that's a pretty big problem, in my opinion.
I think ignoring posts by certain members is a great idea as his posts are making ET a random spammy forum and that can cause other sponsors to pull out. Previously threads have been closed for very little and now this guy has been given a lot of leeway. So either allow everyone to post more freely or make sure Charles here follows the rules that are applied for everyone else.
Or make ET member (non-soliciting) sponsored only, but most of the punters here won't cough up the dough.
Well...can't argue with as well. It's a tricky balancing act for Baron but I think he'll make the right call in this case.
Ironic Department of Irony Department: every other time I click on this thread, it's sponsored by "Pretentious Turtleneck-sporting Ironic-look-seeking Snake-Oil-inna-Black-Box Guy, LLC" Cracks me up... (I hope it cracks you up, too!) !
What made you the impression that ET was a democracy? There are clearly 3 groups: owner/moderators, sponsors, average posters I don't blame a sponsor for wanting special treatment for their money but they shouldn't blame us either when we don't buy into their shit without criticism.