[The_Rorschach]

My opinion counts for jack shit, but I'll throw it out there anyway.

Making a pay-account basis will exclude new people from joining, yes, including possibly cool ones. -Now, for the record, I've never contributed dollar one to this site, regardless of the excuses I offer, so that might colour my argument some.

I wouldn't mind seeing a ban, but even ISP bans can be gotten around without too much trouble.

Someone mentioned an Ignore feature, and that is what I would go with if its an option. Might have to code the program yourself as I've never heard of it on a messageboard before, but if you could create an option that allows one to Ignore all posts by a specified user it would certainly clear up alot of the bullshit. Add in an default action when a quota of ignores is met on one user it results in a ban and you have a mod-friendly solution right there.

I can already think of a handful of problems with this, but this isn't an easy situation.