Instigating hostility and expressing hostility are two different things. I can express something in a non-hostile way to bait other users into directing hostility at me. Even though they are the ones who express the hostility, they are not the trolls, I am the troll.
Which is exactly how the most skilled DPReview trolls would work. Needle some poor sap in an apparently harmless way, when eventually the sap reacts, hit the 'complain' button and get them banned.
That is how I got my ban... (previous to the "other" ban) a guy was opening threads with pretty incendiary claims and my mistake was asking if he was "trolling". The pure mention of the T word put me on the freezer and he continue operating as usual!
I've only been banned once from DPReview, for a week. It was after the Canon 5D2 came out and I bought one; I was talking about how disappointing the fat horizontal banding noise was in the deep shadows, and how this fact contradicted Canon's claims about a new standard for DR in the camera, and one poster kept saying that it had no effect on real photography, and he seemed to pop up everywhere I mentioned the issue, making derogatory statements about my motives, and eventually I lost my patience with him and called his obsession with me "pathological", and within a couple of hours, I was temporarily banned. He was not banned, of course, and I assumed at the time that he had a bond with a mod and asked the mod to do it.
One bad apple spoils the bunch and whatnot. Do you let people in who put the n-word in their user name, or do they get a fair chance to prove what their first choice has already established? Gatekeeping in advance keeps out the exceptionally stupid people who will only contribute problems.
No idea is without flaws, exceptions, or challenges. However, trusting people to be good has continuously proven to be disastrous on scales large and small. I'll take people being pissy they can't post on an internet forum vs a mob terrorizing a grieving parent any day of the week. Don't wish that sorta terrorism on anyone except for one very specific person.
As the modern age keeps creeping forward, you're gonna find more and more connections to bad acts and bad actors, in channels with little to no moderation, over and over again, because that's human nature seemingly, unfortunately.
The world is actually a very unpleasant place and you cannot alter that fact by only frequenting sanitised sites. That leads to a sense of false security.
Get off your high horse. You seriously think that people here don't know that there is unpleasantness in the world? Did you actually think that you need to educate us all on that? Then you should already know that 4chan isn't representative of the world, and neither is this forum.
You warn us that any sort of moderation would mean no more "honest comments". All forumers will be afflicted by "group think". It will make the forum "sanitized". Everyone will have a "false sense of security". The only insecurity I see in this thread is coming from you. We don't need your superiority complex or your hysterics.
Yeah, all those murders that go on every day all over the world. May as well let the murderers roam free, and let the general population get used to the fact there's going to be blood, so best not get too complacent about things. Absolutely.
But you can visit an oasis or go on vacation from time to time. I don't pretend the world is and can be, anything but cruel and mean. A few people even wrote some great art about it. I simply enjoy places that try and keep things more civil than those who do not, a tad bit more. Like how a Mcdonald's and a 5 star restaurant have completely different atmospheres. How frequently would most of us be here if we just let everything go? Can't believe it would appeal to anyone but those who are making the most loud and obnoxious noises. I'm not looking for a sense of security here, just someplace I can talk about photo stuff without having to deal with random jerks who want nothing but to cause problems and not engage in conversation about photography. If that means risking someone taking a personal problem too far and abusing a mod power....man, I got real problems in life to worry about not some make believe internet bullcrap.
I am curious is there is any moderation active at the moment (and I have not read the whole thread). I can imagine that the site is popular enough to attract spammers.