Well, the IMDb system for handling offenders isn't to put them on ignore as punishment, it seems to be nothing more tha na feature to keep users from repeatedly reporting on a user. Now, you can uncheck it so that user isn't automatically ignored when you report them, or remove them from your ignore list after the fact.
Plus, unless I missed something, I've yet to actually see an IMDb staff member moderate anything. They seems to solely rely on the Report Abuse submissions.
IMDb does das boot users for undisclosed numbers of infractions of certain infractions, but it's a little weak. Users can get away repeatedly with offensives like threats and disgusting sexual inuendos and still have active accounts. But it can be hard to deal with them. They litterally have tens of thousands of users, some who post rarely, others who post frequently, and if you ban a person, then come back and register under a new name, even if you ban them by IP. It's a little much for the staff to handle.
The best things to do are to report the abuse every time -- don't assume somebody else did. Do NOT reply to the topic (feeding the troll; likewise don't click on it if it's obviously bullsit). And make the appropriate suggestions on the help forum in regards to banning offenders.
Mad Max and the piss-poor examples of humanity is certainly nothing new. Everybody can site their examples; I have seen terrible behavior on the forums to any Joss Whedon project, and duchebags on the M. Night Shyamalan projects (what ever you think of his body of work).
I'll use myself as an example. Over at anotehr forum I posted at, we had this user with nutty behavior: constantly having arguments with users, lying and said he didn't say something when all he did was go back and edit his post after the fact and pretend the edit never occured, send harrassing e-mails, etc. This all stemed from one thing: he's obassessed in a deeply unhealthy way for an animated cartoon called "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". He kept talking and talking about, trying to get people to appreciate it. It looked like diabetes for the brain to me, but I figured what the heck -- I'll check it out and make a judgement. So I made it through a few minutes and my verdict was not kind: childish eye cancer. Now, we've all seen somebody berate our favorite something or other at one point, but we (mature individules) don't start being nasty little e-bitches about it, no matter the wording or tact they've used. No so with this user.
This just made him flip his easily-flipped lid. The way he interacted and treated members got worse and worse and finally he posted a nasty sexual thread and got banned, after being given ridiculous amounts of chances to behave.
But it didn't end there. Anytime we brought his name up or made some kind of joke about his unhinged obssession with the cartoon, he would re-register and bitch, send threatening e-mails to the staff and users if he could find an e-mail. He wasn't content unless he got his harangues from his e-rostrum spewed all over the internet. I got my threatening e-mails to, but after the first one, I simply deleted and didn't read the others (well, maybe the first few words, as a batshit crazy person like him would use deceptive subject lines). I also got registered by him to various websites where he and other members meet (I assume he's banned from most of them, unless they're all like that), so I had to block and pre-emtively block e-mails.
I seriously beleive this person will one day hurt somebody, like a threater full of people -- that crazy.
What lessons are to be learned from that? There's only so much IMDb can do. Even if a person gets banned faster for offenses, it doesn't stop them from taking the behavior to other places their target goes to or send them e-mails that make the Unibombers manifesto look like a work by Mark Twain. All you can do is report the offenses to the e-mail providers. Eventually he'll be tracked down and his service yanked by his internet provider (if possible, he may be ussing other people's), but short of hunting him down and hiring hackers to find out who he really is so you can show up and knock his lights out like in "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", you have to tolerate it.
Also, you have to pick your "battles" sometimes. If something looks like brain and eye cancer, you have to decide whether the person hyping it is worth replying to. Will he or she cause a shit storm a 12 year-old hitler woudl have done on the internet? Or can you speak freely?
Is it any bit ironic that I'm posting a thread about banning/ignoring that shows at least one user on my ignore?
