Suspicion

[#1]

Recently there was a thread in the Rants and Raves section from a disagreeable customer who was complaining about his broadband connection. Happily, this does not happen with any great frequency but in the spirit of free speech, people should be allowed to air their views.
Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent in the above example that this person was never going to be capable of conducting a reasoned, normal discussion and I believe that to allow threads like this to continue is fruitless.
In fact, my suspicious mind and his imbalanced argument makes me wonder if this particular 'customer' had a hidden agenda, particularly as by his own confession he had access to three ISPs.
The whole saga left a bad taste - people who tried to help were unnecessarily disparaged. In cases like this, could the moderators (and yes, I know you are independent) and Plusnet not get together to sort problems out in private?
This particular correspondent, fueled by the fact that he was airing his 'opinions' in public view, was clearly taking great delight in abusing all and sundry.  In my opinion he should have been banned early in the thread as he had clearly breached the rules on behaviour.
jim:green post modified to reflect move to new location mod:end

[#2]

poppy,
While your sentiments are appreciated we always try to avoid a ban except in extreme circumstances.
I could point to a number of other threads where the OP started off in a similarly antagonistic mode and after a number of posts from moderators and other users calmed down and the actual problem addressed.
We do as moderators tend to err on the side of moderation  as handing out bans after a few stroppy posts would definitely be counter-productive and lead to accusations of dictatorship etc.

[#3]

A difficult decision and a very fine line you have to walk Jim.  In the main I think the mods do a good job on the forums

[#4]

My thoughts were why do anyone need 4 connections presumely unlimited and not traffic managed. Is it for illegal file sharing and how do we users report our suspicions?

[#5]

Thank you for your comments Oldjim. I do agree with all you say - in many cases what has started as a stroppy post has eventually been helpful to the OP in that the issue is resolved.
However, in this particular case the OP became abusive and spiteful to individual members quite early on.
I appreciate that it is a hard decision for you to make and I am not criticizing the moderators or Plusnet but I still feel that there was something odd about this particular thread. At least a warning might have served to restrain things a little.
I realise that I may look at things rather differently from the majority of members but I still believe that the openness of Plusnet and this forum should not be taken as an excuse for bad manners.  

[#6]

Could be the OP was running a server farm in his/her shed and the 4 connections were to facilitate multi-homing so that the traffic could take the best route?

I do agree that ranting and raving doesn't really help.
Yes the mods do a sterling job, esp. chief minion mod oldjim.

[#7]

Please correct your post otherwise I will be in deep doo doo - "minion mod Jim"

[#8]

There you go, keep up the good work.

[#9]

Its a fine line for the moderators, as you said did this customer have a hidden agenda. And why would anyone need 4 broadband connections!!!
If there was a mistake it was the community trying to be too helpful, in cases like this it is best not to feed the trolls. And by moderating any of his post would have just given him more ammo. I would have considered removing some of the more critical post aimed at him. But then the last a moderator came to the defense of another forum user and did that the user took offence.
So overall think it was handled well.

[#10]

I have some sympathy with the content of Poppy's post.  There was obviously some agenda there - and it was not at all about getting the problem (if there ever was one ?) resolved.
Sadly being a public Forum this mischievous thread will now be picked up by google.
Could the mods have done better?   
I don't believe so!   This was a classic "Damned if you do, Damned if you don't" scenario and given that, I believe it was handled well.  Most of the Community responses were attempting to be helpful, but this guy just did not want to provide enough info to be helped. 
If its a 'one off' we have learned from it.  If it occurs again, we will be better prepared.   

[#11]

Well, I am glad that we have reached some form of agreement on the matter and as Maurice has said, in many ways it was a no-win situation.
If we are better prepared in the event of any re-occurrence then it (and this discussion) has been of some benefit.
Thank you for all your responses.

[#12]

as one of those kicked, it was not until very late on that the offender said he had three other ISp's from his residential address

[#13]

well  pierre - you can have three phone lines into a house if you like - maybe it's a student house and they do ?.

[#14]

or an Internet start up?
I suppose though you'd have business grade as opposed to consumer grade ADSL wouldn't you but yes could be a student residence.