Ignoring them doesn't help much when they're being disruptive, especially if they bring friends. I've seen it chase away active, contributing members of old communities because they don't want to deal with the mess. I think what the admins did was appropriate and necessary. We have to be able to trust the people wielding the ban hammer to use it both appropriately and sparingly, and if we can't then we don't have a lot of options.
While I'm chief of my tribes I don't intend to use the power to remove anything or ban anyone so long as people aren't being disruptive. But if they decide to test the boundaries I intend to disavow them of the notion that they can get away with much. I'll rely heavily on community feedback to let me know if my actions are justified.
I consider spam and unrelated to be disruptive. ;) Like I said, if people try to test me I'll discourage them. At least until I can find someone better to take my place.
The more people paid attention to them the more destructive they became. After a while they stopped because they we're drawing any attention.
Yeah, we tried that in /r/atheism on reddit, and also in /r/atheismrebooted. It didn't work very well. The communities were too large and too attractive a target. For the moment snapzu is a smaller community and not that attractive to trolls. If we get big enough, that will change.
[This comment was removed]