Hello,
I deleted the thread in which this message was so 
I will answer here...

> Just out of curiosity, would it be possible for 
> you to edit this forum software to give the 
> moderator and users a bit more contol of 
> what's going on?

1) Restrict posts to registered users :
   I asked a few time on the forum if people
   wanted that and the large majority said no.

   Anyway, that won't prevent someone of posting
   as you can quite easly create new login
   whenever your old one get baned.

2) Let people edit their own messages :
   That's the _absolute worse_ things I ever saw.
   It open the way to a whole kind of new flaming
   and messing around.
   People simply write insulting message about
   someone and when that person answer them, they
   go back and edit their first mail to look make
   it sound like if they hadn't done anything...

   I saw flame wars between people using this
   feature on a couple of boards and that was
   pretty hugly...

3) and lock out accounts of users who've proven
   themselves to be pests?

   I can lock out account or try to ban people
   fully from the forum and/or website. But as
   I said, locking out account is useless when you
   can create a new one in a couple of minutes.

> That's fine and good, but the trouble is, Yann's 
> policy as it stands just encourages the likes of 
> shura-chan to return

I don't think so. This is a very popular board 
with a lot of visitors and many messages. Compared 
to the number of users/posts, there isn't many 
problem.

> I run a forum with over 100 active users;

There is much more than 100 active users here.
I saw many boards with much less people who were
much worse than this one.

> This is a beautiful system; registering 
> to say something requires the effort of signing 
> in.

This is totaly useless : you can register new 
account in a few minutes so it doesn't matter at 
all if you get one account baned once in a while.

> accounts, because they don't have the patience
> to register a new hotmail account every time
> they get banned.

You don't need much patience to create yourself a
new email account.

And don't forget that we are providing free email 
here so the person wouldn't even have to go 
elsewhere...

> There's no way to "killfile" shura-chan or her
> bogus pseudonyms, and she posts so frequently
> that even ignoring her is difficult.  

That's because you don't know me or this forum
it seems... When I decide to ban someone from the
forum, I do it in a way that will prevent them to 
access it at all. (and the rest of Animanga if I 
want to).

But such measures should be used only in 
really special cases and when other methods 
failed.

If you don't like the attitude of someone, that's 
your problem, not the one of the moderator...
For all the whining about shura mail, the question 
she first asked (the one about custom taxes)is 
appropriate enough for this forum.
Yes, the style of her mail and her attitude is 
getting on my nerve, she seems to have as much 
moral as a pair of old socks and she would benefit 
to be slaped one or two time by her "momy" but 
that's not a reason enough to be ban.
And anyway, I blieve in giving people at least one 
warning. Either they listen to it or they don't...

> Allowing anonymous posting simply encourages 

If you can create as many account as you want,
it's exactly the same as allowing anonymous posts.

Cheers,
Yann Stettler