Hi Mark,

I can totally sympathise with this one. There's at least one of these pretenders on every forum board. I've had a few too, take comfort in knowing you're not alone! Batten down your hatches and weather out the storm because like most gales, it will blow out to an empty nothing.

My advice - your forum, your rules. You pay for your forum, you own it - you invite people to join and use it (they join with their own free will), subject to your guidelines. Using your forum isn't a right, it's a conditional privilege.

Ignore him, definitely ban and I personally wouldn't engage in any more conversation or justification that is likely to be circular in discussion which will just waste your valuable time and energy (e.g. you'll just go round and round and round and round...) and it's very unlikely they'll even attempt to see your point of view, much less understand it.....

People like this are often so full of their own self-importance they are unfortunately blinkered to anything else which doesn't uphold their narcissistic point of view; they feel they have something to 'prove' by rebelling against what they see as any form of 'authority'. They have a choice to freely join your forum and you have a choice who you invite to stay, full stop.

As others have said, it's worth revising your forum guidelines/TOS, etc in light of what you've learnt as this issue is bound to unfortunately repeat itself in future.

Good luck.

__________________
NFHiB Forum (5 Years Live, now in 6th year!)
Free vB Skin: Vanilla Cola (for vB 3.6.8)

Great advice everyone (and some funny responses too). I'll keep all these in mind should this person, or anyone else in the future, decide to run their mouth.

__________________
Mark Blair
NowParenting - "Parenting Discussion Community"
HostHideout - "Where Professionals Discuss Web Hosting"

It's not a government site... it's not censorship. It's your own site, you have the right to restrict whatever the hell you want. Just ignore him.

__________________



TheBiggestBoards - See where your forum ranks - Size Matters!

Do members agree to abide by the forum rules when they sign up? Do these rules include reference to no hate-mongering overly offensive speech? If so, and since he's registered, he would have no ground whatsoever to stand on. He may as well say "The police violate my civil rights by not allowing me to throw glass at these church windows." Some people get a little drunk on "freedom" and think it applies to every action no matter what the circumstance.

Ban, ban, ban, and ban some more.

__________________
Ed Womack
Get Milked

It doesn't matter if they do or not. It's his site, he can allow what he wants when he wants.

__________________



TheBiggestBoards - See where your forum ranks - Size Matters!

Guys, this is simple.
It is a private forum.
You do not have to give anyone entrance, but you do as long as they follow your posted rules.
You post rules.
If they break them and will not follow the rules - you remove or ban them.
That simple.

While it might be frustrating and take some of your time and of course none of us ever want to lose members, it is what it is.

__________________
The Biggest Boards | Political Disgust | JAMOOZA

You could almost hit him with ADL(Anti-Defamation Legislation) Infractions. This would actually be fun if he wants to start this war. ADL has been adopted by as many as 43 states.

__________________
Do not post your PF private key in public.

Did I help you with this post? If so, pls click the rep button or send money.

There is no such thing as freedom of speech on the internet, and esp not a private forum. I do not know when people will learn that free speech does not apply to forums.

__________________
Political Fever Forums

Dont bother with replying to people like this especially once they are banned.

__________________
Pron Proxy | Webmaster Forums | Hacker Forum

Yep! Yes to this one also.

I just left his ban a permanent one. Initially it was meant to be a 7-day ban to allow him time to cool off. However, we gave him some homework to do before we would allow him back in. At the time, we told him that he had to apologize for posting such garbage and also promise to never post something that violates our rules. Normally I wouldn't even give the rule violator this opportunity but he was a sponsor. Well, as simple as the above task is, he failed to do any of it so he FAILED!!! No removal of the ban, it's now permanent! Oooh!!! This could come in handy. Thanks! I'll hang on to this one.

__________________
Mark Blair
NowParenting - "Parenting Discussion Community"
HostHideout - "Where Professionals Discuss Web Hosting"