Hello,
Well I think a lot of things have been said in this topic already 
But I guess I should reply, as I was personally mentioned as taking the time to reply to cb88 and a few others.
Here are the main reasons I noticed against the ban in this topic, that I want to comment on:
- What would it achieve?
- He didn’t break any rules, so a ban isn’t appropriate
- People can ignore him, either just don’t read his post, or somehow set up the forum to not show his posts
Well, first of all, being a forum moderator, I can’t ignore anyone. Otherwise, they could just wait until they are ignored by most people, and then post things that no one but newcomers would see. So, I do read everything, if only because of my role as a moderator, of keeping this place nice and seeing if action needs to be taken.
More generally, I imagine a forum where people just ignore each other would not work at all. Someone will say something utterly wrong, none of the people who could correct them will reply because they will have ignored the message, and so, the wrong thing will remain. Maybe someone will reply something else, and the discussion will be split ionto two threqds from two groups of people who can’t see each other. If we don’t want to talk to each other, what is even the point of having a forum?
Now about the rules: as was already mentioned, some people (intentionaly or not) will always be at the limits of what’s allowed by the rules. When you do that in a game (wether it’s a boardgame, or sports, or whatever), it can sometimes be fun and interesting (and lead to updates and clarifications of the rules), it is, in a way, a form of ‘hacking’, and who doesn’t like that? But in an online community, it doesn’t work this way. One person or a small group starts pushing the limits of the rules. What was once fringe becomes normal and acceptable. After a while, the limit gets pushed further and further, and then the rules completely stop being enforced, or they are changed because otherwise you’d have to ban 90% of people in the forum.
In any case, I think “this person is annoying, but technically they didn’t break any rule so we have to keep them” is not a great way of working. It is focusing on the rules, rather than focusing on what the rules are trying to achieve: keeping this a nice place to talk about Haiku and grow the project. So, let’s not focus on the rules, but ask instead the question: does this person contribution make the forum a better place?
And, if the current rules don’t allow to achieve that, they can be changed as well.
And finally this brings us to the first question, “what would this achieve”?
The goal here is to keep the community nice and welcoming, both for users (who should get useful replies to their questions, as well as a nice place to hang out) and developers of Haiku and apps (who should be able to use this forum for advanced technical discussions). I think in both cases, there are currently problems with that (and not just only because of one forum user).
On the technical discussion side, in my discussions with cb88, I am trying to keep things based on technical arguments, not opinions, feelings and the like. But this is a bit the “level 0” of technical discussions. In the current situation it is important to do it, keep the discussion based on facts and reality. I wish this could be taken for granted, but if I don’t take this time, who will do it? And, of course, my energy is spent there and not in more interesting discussions. Just stating the facts and not making any progress.
Likewise for the community as a whole: when I send someone to the forum for help, I am a bit worried. Will they get an useful reply, or will they get a rant from one user that isn’t helpful at all? Sure, if you’ve been on the forum for a while, you know the people around and you can ignore them or at least know that they’re just that way. But if you’re a newcomer, it can give a bad first impression of the community here, and cause people to not stay. So, that’s why asking other people like me to “just ignore useless replies from cb88” is not acceptable.
To conclude, is a ban necessary? I don’t know. Let’s wait and see what cb88 wants to reply here. Personally, I think the community would be better off, I would spend less time in “level 0” discussions and could use my time for something else. Maybe this topic will be enough for cb88 to reflect on their behavior and things will change for the best. Let’s see what they have to say first.
We could do these discussions with just the moderators, but then we will get complaints of censorship and lack of transparency. I think it’s nice to have the discussion out in the open and with precise case and not vague accusations of “some users, you know who you are”. This is how these things have been handled historically in Haiku (the few times we had to ban people from the community). It is not an enjoyable thing to do for anyone, but it has to be done and ultimately the community is more welcoming and more interesting to participate in, and then one banned person is replaced by 10 or more other people who find this a nice place and don’t make me spend my days on pointless arguments