jj2007 wrote:
We all know that Albert has serious problems. So the question here is whether the FreeBasic forum is the right place to address these problems.
It is not. This is a programming forum, not a therapy forum. If someone has psychiatric issues (and Albert claimed several times he has), this is not the place to address them.
His posts about compression are his attempt to deal with his obsession.
It is not an obsession, it is a delusion: from wikipedia "A delusion is a fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence"
We have provided him evidences for years, with no result. This is all we can do on this forum, and it has already been proven to be a total waste of time.
Of course, his posts are a nuisance.
Of course, the FreeBasic forum is not meant as a therapeutic institution.
Exactly: hence, he doesn't belong here. He has to go somewhere else.
Were his posts ever harmful enough to justify such a drastic step?
Yes, they were. Because we are not talking about one or two posts. We are talking about THOUSANDS posts, most of them were unrelated to FreeBasic, or promoted non working ideas. And sometimes even dangerous ideas, that required immediate deletion, like in this case:
viewtopic.php?p=271598#p271598
Where will Albert end up without his daily one or two posts, which, I suspect, were his only social activity?
Could there be a compromise? For example, he being allowed to post only in this thread? Then everybody who feels like could chime in and say hello, or pull a little bit his leg like I've done yesterday ("Albert, don't work on compression - read a book on compression instead").
If you are so worried about him, why don't you set up another forum, or a discord server (it can be done in minutes, with no need to install anything), and invite him and Dodicat?
Or why don't you go on his Twitter page?
Albert has the right to express his ideas: just, not here, because his ideas don't belong here. He has no right to produce noise that disturbs other conversations, to spread misinformation to people who were trying to use this forum for the reason it has been created (finding answers to technical stuff related to FreeBasic), and to force moderators to do extra work to keep him under control.
For discussion, with apologies to the moderator who banned him. Decisions of moderators should not be discussed, I know, but this is a very special case. He doesn't want to be a troll, he is not aggressive, and he does no harm beyond polluting one thread.
Actually, this is why a permanent ban is necessary: he would keep being a troll, there is no hope for him to fix his behavior, the ban is the only way to stop him
Imagine a car crossing a red traffic light: if it is intentional, the driver saw the red light, but he was in haste and decided to ignore it, he can be punished with a fine. But what if it was not intentional? What if the driver had eyesight issues, and didn't see the red light? Does that justify them? Of course not, on the contrary, it will lead to his driving license to be permanently revoked, because he is a danger to himself and to others.
I agree that Albert's behavior was not intentional, but often non intentional behaviors require more drastic measures than intentional ones.