IMDB moderators aren't doing their job

The key thing is: There are no moderators.

The system also doesn't simply ban people - when complaints come in the posts are scrubbed and their quota increased. This keeps going for a while until their authentication is removed. So it is a slow process but it gets increasingly difficult for them to post.

It is clear from looking at it that at least one of the has had their posts scrubbed recently, so the machinery is slowly grinding:

http://www.imdb.com/user/ur43515760/b...

If you look back beyond the first couple of pages then it seems to all be working OK:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182576/b...

The main advice is: report and ignore.

Hello,

Sorry you are having problems. The best way to report it is to locate a post of those users and report it using the "none of the above" option, which lets you explain, briefly, what the user is doing. Reporting one post saying "he's a troll" probably won't cause the post to be flagged for action by staff, but will probably just be tallied up by the system. You should then place the user on ignore. To keep reporting the same person will probably get your account blocked from providing reports of abuse. The system works better if you report once, then move along. Then someone else reports the same person, then moves along. One person continually reporting the same user will probably make it look like a flame war, and staff doesn't get into the middle of that type of thing. If their making a mess of the boards by starting a thread, then deleting it, and you have them on ignore, you'd never know it. If everyone puts them on ignore and they no longer get a rise out of anyone, they'll move along.

The site has too many boards to be able to have moderators monitoring them. Further, the boards are extremely low on the the priority list and are far from the sites main purpose and mission of being a complete database of film information. So, staff works toward the main purpose and doesn't spend much time babysitting on the boards.

Staff does not comment on matters of moderation of the boards. They only send form letters because it's already written and writing the same response over and over is time consuming. I'd suggest let the system work it's way out and instead of keeping track of trolls, ignore them completely.

Good luck.

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately, even ignoring these users does no good, as they infiltrate every single topic and other users respond to them. It's pretty hard to have an actual discussion on those boards anymore.

I will try reporting them one more time using the "none of the above" option. Thanks for the advice.

My pet peeve on IMDb boards is that posters can delete their own posts. It should not be allowed after responses are made to those posts out of respect for those who took the time to respond. For the same reason, edits should not be allowed after a response. If Edit/Delete are restricted, posters will be more careful with their postings. If they really screw up, let them report their own abuse!

Another measure to discourage response to an abusive post would be to delete the entire subthread below the abusive post. Unfortunately, at least half of the posters on IMDb boards don't seem to understand threading.