the problem is with the moderating system. at the moment, its basically "dont post x and we wont ban you" and you get banned either once the mods are bored of you or you post x. then when you do get banned, they're always long durations that just breeds contempt; it doesn't actually adjust behavior.
what we should do is look at a good forum and copy what they do right. i think we can all agree that SA is a good forum. now if you look at the moderating system on SA, theyre much less lenient than GAF and for that you get banned more often, but if you do get banned, you only get banned/probated for a couple of days. this just gives you a break and makes it so people actually remember that a certain behavior will result in a ban.
obviously the moderation vary slightly from board to board on sa, but generally the golden rule is 'don't post unless you actually think you're adding something'. its a good rule because it lets people express their emotions/opinions, but it gets rid of general shit posting (memes, single post emoticons, puns, i agree with this post, shit like that). thats the problem with gaf, at the moment they're treating the symptoms instead of actually addressing the cause. moderators on gaf need to come out and say 'if you make shit posts with little or no content we're going to ban you for a couple of days'.
well, i hope you enjoyed my post about the internet.
