Banning ankorwatt

[Pi]

I was quite puzzled to read that ankorwatt was banned for life for "bringing out the worst in everyone here". He was not banned because he was "bad", he was banned because he made everyone else behave badly. Why wasn't everyone else banned then?

He is/was one of the least emotional people here. He was called an old fool, somebody asked for a psychiatrist, and then he was punished for that. He did make the "I will strip you naked" comment, which, of course, was not a physical threat (even though some pretended not to understand it) but he was not banned for that. He was banned because a few other treated him badly, so he must have done something to deserve it. Like insisting on ... whatever, technical.

I find this disturbing. You can see a lot of childish behavior here, some rudeness, too. I have not even seen a warning - but ankorwatt - he must go.

[magic koala]

I mostly read the updates on the latest cameras, lenses and firmware but I've often wondered if people find another person annoying then why respond to them in the first place? The back and forth attacks between ankorwatt and others seemed to go on forever, why not just ignore the other poster and move on? Clearly it is obvious that people are expecting reactions so they wait and wait until they receive a response thus thinking they are validated. It is all pretty immature, really.

[neuroanatomist]

Pi, I think you're a relatively recent member here (earlier this year, I believe?).  If so, you may not be aware of ankorwatt's original user name, Mikael Risedal, and you won't find any of his posts under that name, because he was previously banned and had his account deleted, along with all his posts.  It seems the mods allowed him to return/remain some time later (it became evident that ankorwatt was just a new account for Mikael; although at first he referred to himself in the third person, the posting style was so obviously him, and at some point he started openly acknowledging his identity, IIRC not long after he started reposting the same examples of a QPcard sitting next to a shed that he'd posted with the Mikael account).

[bvukich]

Trust me, it was his behavior alone (the worst of which has been removed and/or edited by mods as it happened) that got him banned.  He has been warned too many times to count, had temporary bans several times, and had his previous account permanently banned.  We gave him more chances than most users would get because we hoped he could tone it down and become a good member of this community.

Anything mentioning the behavior of others was purely editorializing by myself.

He is a professional photographer with many years of experience, and we paid undue respect to the knowledge that we hoped he could bring to this forum, but at the end of the day the endless bickering and fighting just wasn't worth it.  I know for a fact we've lost other forum members because of his bad behavior, and dozens of others complain constantly about him.  But that's not to say he was "voted off the island"...  The mods have had discussions going back to at least February about what to do with him, and this wasn't an easy decision to make.

[bvukich]

I mostly read the updates on the latest cameras, lenses and firmware but I've often wondered if people find another person annoying then why respond to them in the first place? The back and forth attacks between ankorwatt and others seemed to go on forever, why not just ignore the other poster and move on? Clearly it is obvious that people are expecting reactions so they wait and wait until they receive a response thus thinking they are validated. It is all pretty immature, really.

I agree completely.  You feed a troll and it only becomes more persistent.  That is why I mentioned the behavior of other members; they also crossed the line, but I'm hoping by removing the prime instigator, that all the users that are normally good members of this community will return to "normal" and no further warnings or bans will need to be issued.

[Apop]

Well I didn't read any of his foul language or heavy insults.

I am not sure if this is good thing or not, I think i said earlier the best thing to do is just ignore those kind of people , they won't get their fun if no one responds...

The forum ''community'' should be able to take of such a problem themselves by simply ignoring , there wouldn't be any need for admins to ban him.

If ankorwatt has a cellphone , or dynamic IP adres he will be back within a few hours anyway.
It is quite hard to ban people ( especially since ankorwatt is a self-claimed genious)

I would vote on some how to avoid-and-ignore troll(s) lessons!

[eml58]

I am not sure if this is good thing or not, I think i said earlier the best thing to do is just ignore those kind of people , they won't get their fun if no one responds...

The forum ''community'' should be able to take of such a problem themselves by simply ignoring , there wouldn't be any need for admins to ban him.

There is a currently running Post re "Canon Sensors" that is both informative and interesting, the fact that it is currently at Page 2 and moving forward in a Positive & Informative manner is due entirely to the fact that this particular chap has been removed from CR.

I applaud the decision, unfortunately your likely right, just like the Terminator I'm sure he's sitting in a dark room under a Bridge somewhere, saying "I'll be Baaaack".

[alexanderferdinand]

This thread reminds me on the phrase on a movie: we are talking about the people, we are not talking about.
I noticed sometimes his "comments", he is banned and has now his own thread.
Cool!

[rpt]

There is a currently running Post re "Canon Sensors" that is both informative and interesting, the fact that it is currently at Page 2 and moving forward in a Positive & Informative manner is due entirely to the fact that this particular chap has been removed from CR.

I wondered about that. Now it makes sense why the thread is still alive and informative.

[verysimplejason]

I'll miss him...   I had fun eating popcorn while watching him and others talk with the "less" important parts of photography (technical) while not posting something that will really help others in the forum.  Well, I guess that's the primary mission of canonrumors?    RIP Ankorwatt, Mikael.  I'm hoping that instead of a lot of gear talk, members will talk of helping each other on how to take better pictures using of course our beloved camera gears be it old or new.  I find reading Dustin's posts and by some new posters (yeah, they're more inclined to show good pictures than some so-called old timers here) a lot more entertaining than pure tech talk.

[pwp]

You feed a troll and it only becomes more persistent...

That's it in a nutshell; never ever feed a troll.
I doubt I've read, let alone responded to an ankorwatt post in a long, long time.

Nice work mods.

-PW

[Sporgon]

I suspect that latteraly there were posts that the mods had intercepted and we didn't see, but caused the abrupt fall of the axe

Ultimately I think the mods did Mikael a favour as much as anyone else. A building level of 'forum fever' or 'forum fury' can't be good for body, mind or soul.

[docsmith]

I wouldn't call Ankorwatt a troll.  He was more of a zeolot.       

[verysimplejason]

Tried searching in google his name Mikael Risedal and I've found the same type of posts from him.  Funny that the arguments are the same here in CR. 

[Don Haines]

Unfortunatly, many of us have problems dealing with difficult people.

The person in question has some very strong beliefs and will take whatever measures are necessary to defend them. The fact that those beliefs are rooted in truth makes it difficult to shake them. The problem comes from him seeing those beliefs as the most important thing in the world, and others seing those beliefs as one factor out of many.

You can argue all you want with him, you can use all the math, science, and logic you want, but in the end you will not change those beliefs. This is an argument that can not be won as both sides know that they are right and therefore can not compromise... in the meantime bad feelings and acrimony build up.

In the future, if you run into someone like that (and there will be more) just let it drop... don't waste your time, those who agree will agree, those who disagree will disagree, and tens of thousands of posts will just dig the trenches deeper.

And to the moderators:
Sometimes, for the good of the tree, you have to prune off a limb. You can't let things descend into chaos. Many years ago, in the time of text message boards, there was a group called rec.boats.paddle. There was one particular member, who claimed to be the inventor of a safety device, (it was in common use before he was born), who was convinced that there was a government conspiracy to prevent sales of his device and how this conspiracy was killing thousands of childern through unnecessary drownings... every thread on every topic was hijacked by the diatribe and it ended up destroying the group. CanonRumors can follow the same trajectory without moderation.... Thank you for finally stepping in.