I thought I'd keep clear of it all this time. When all this last cropped up - in Syisyo's 'I Am Become Death' thread - I was one of those who called, in no uncertain terms, for the banning of Anthony. I was sceptical that a temporary ban would be effective, and I was pretty disappointed that it wasn't a permanent one at the time.

Once ddz's ban had passed, though, he seemed to genuinely take on board a lot of the constructive criticisms that had been directed at him: the massive, multiple posting disappeared, as did the 'Claude-esque' single-smiley posts and suchlike; even the highly questionable syntax began to improve.

Then, slowly but inarguably, the worse aspects of his posting began to reappear. Suddenly, 'I agree', 'NO! you are wrong' and 'what's that?' became signature posts again, and a level of dogz-based inanity crept back into the major discussion forums. More worryingly, the ubiquity for which he was so roundly criticised - leading to the '7 post probation' period - started to come back, to the extent where it's difficult to find a thread that doesn't have some form of contribution - greater or lesser - from the individual who, were he a cricketer and his daily posts an average run rate, would have Glenn McGrath crapping himself.

Anthony is never going to be a White Prism, a Marquis, a Starlite or, indeed, any of the other myriad 'great' posters capable of spinning out fantastic, interesting, funny and well-written posts on a whim. Nor, for that matter, am I or the majority of other posters here. But everybody is capable of a basic level of literate and coherent discussion. Antz has shown he's capable of this from time-to-time on the board, and more regularly in PMs. Would it be so unreasonable simply to demand the sort of quality-filtering that Pablo-Picasso writes of? And, if no improvement is forthcoming, enforcing another 7-posts per day quotient? At least that way ddz would be forced to take more care over the posts he had, with the offshoot being that if no improvement were registered, there would be a limit on the amount of nonsensical-drivel filling the boards.

I don't think Antz really intends to force his own opinions on every post, and every poster on TW. But sometimes the enthusiasm to reply to everything gets a bit too much to handle. Every poster's capable of self-improvement; perhaps it's time just to really think about making a reply before hitting that 'submit post' button.

later,
Chris...

I could stay if you asked me,
So for God's sake don't ask me to stay