The user wasn’t banned because he was a bot. He was banned because snarking at users doesn’t contribute to the conversational tone Boing Boing wishes to have for the BBS.
You are more than welcome to invite that snark to your own community if you so choose.
… and these snarky comments were deleted, which is why I don’t get the whole picture?
Indeed. As is the case with most moderated comments.
Ok thanks for clearing that up. It looks weird when you don’t know that.
What about attack hugs? Are those allowed?
oh dear God I hope not
I wasn’t saying they were a bot. I was saying using likes as a metric to decide who is banned will lead to gaming the like system. Bots were just an example of how totals could be inflated.
There are several former posters, many named upthread, whose humor and posts I generally liked and miss. I think they contributed in a positive manner to the forum. However, my understanding is that in almost all of the cases the ban was from willfully refusing to adhere to posting standards even after being reminded of them. Certainly the people who operate a forum like this, especially one that is free for us to use, have the right to do that. Moreover, pushing against the rules even after being asked not to is graduating from being snarky to being an ass.
Account unshaved_weirdo anonymized at user request.
User teodoroberto anonymized at user request.
User anansi133 put on timeout for offering valued criticism in a manner unbecoming a user of our BBS.
User rp1588 asked not to return after confusing moderation because of an idea and moderation for being a dick, then doubling down and demanding their right to continued asshat-ery.
I mean, at this point that topic’s like 2/3 wander 
You say that like it’s a bad thing!
It’s quite the opposite!
User NickyG given a timeout for making statements of false equivalence, discussed to death a long time ago. We hope they enjoy their vacation in a galaxy far, far away, and ask that they not be unnecessarily rude and derailing should they choose to return.
User DeclanMcManus has been given a timeout for derailing topics after being previously warned against such activity.
To be clear: online forums are difficult to follow if a specific post’s topic spreads out into many tangents. Discourse allows anyone to start a new topic based on a response - that means if a new shiny thing comes out, and you want to discuss shiny things in general, you are welcome (and encouraged!) to start a shiny things topic of your own.
Discussing topic A in a topic about A is, of course, fine. Discussing how Topic B relates to Topic A is probably also fine. Telling people they should not be talking about Topic A because Topic B is more important is very much not fine. People choose what they want to discuss within our guidelines, and we will not support others telling them that they are wrong to do so, or worse, attempt to bully them to do otherwise.
Thank you.
Is it wrong to bully people to pour more bourbon into empty glasses? Asking for a friend.
