Banning Members...

[DBZgirl88]

[color="004a6f"]I'm just wondering, what does it really take to get banned? I was browsing the boards today and came across a really bad thread: [url]http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37217[/url], but the person didn't even swear or anything, they were just saying they were really bored and wanted somebody to talk to them. I told them that they should've made a better quality post, and warned them that it will probably be closed by a moderator. I came back to the thread and like I expected it was closed, but the user was also banned. [i]"Already?..."[/i] I thought. I saw that they had made no other posts. So, I'm just wondering why didn't they get a second chance or even a warning from a moderator. It says in the rules you at least get a first warning. No offence, but I think whoever banned them was tad bit harsh, no matter how crappy that post was. Did they make an offensive PM to a moderator or something?[/color]

[G/S/B Master]

Usually, the psot that got them banned is deleted. As I've been looking through posts (Zeh's, Taylor Hewitt ect.).

And Chibichou, don't act like a mod. Report the post and leave it alone.

[DBZgirl88]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by G/S/B Master [/i]
[B]And Chibichou, don't act like a mod. Report the post and leave it alone. [/B][/QUOTE][color="004a6f"]Heh heh heh.... ok I won't;), but I'm not they only non-mod who reminds members of the rules, infact this was only my time...[/color]

[Dagger]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by G/S/B Master [/i]
[b]Usually, the psot that got them banned is deleted. As I've been looking through posts (Zeh's, Taylor Hewitt ect.).

And Chibichou, don't act like a mod. Report the post and leave it alone. [/B][/QUOTE]

Oh, the irony.

But in any event, I think you're right. I can't remember ever seeing a member become banned after his or her very first post--I would be quite surprised to discover that this person had not been given another chance. In the past few months alone, several incredibly obnoxious (and now banned) members received multiple opportunities to redeem themselves......

....and unfortunately didn't.

~Dagger~

[James]

[color=#707875]Well, there are a few points to make about this.

Firstly, various staff have the power to ban members. All of our Category Moderators, as well as Charles, Adam and myself have this ability. Though only Charles, Adam and myself can perform an IP ban.

So, depending on who is doing the banning, there are variations on how "harshly" a situation might be judged. Category Moderators have my permission to ban members at their own discretion, although 99% of the time, CMs will discuss a ban in the staff forum [i]before[/i] enacting it.

On many occasions, we'll give someone a warning. And mostly, it'll be done in the thread itself. On some occasions -- especially if the staff member in question feels that the member doesn't have a lot of potential for improvement -- a ban [i]might[/i] be immediately enacted.

It's important to note two elements to all of this.

Firstly, we require that members read our rules before they begin posting. We make this abundantly clear at every step of the way.

Members who do not read -- or adhere to -- the rules, are putting themselves at greater risk of being banned by default. So that's the first thing.

Secondly, we're talking about a community of more than 8,000 people, where a Moderator may have to deal with a handful of spammers in a day. A Category Moderator may potentially be dealing with several dozen of them and so on, depending on the circumstances.

It is increasingly difficult for us to PM someone with an elaborate ban warning as our membership numbers increase. It's not realistic.

But moreover (and particularly with the upcoming launch of V7), we are trying to encourage quality. As a result, the weight is shifted to the members' shoulders a little bit more. We will continue to expect more from the members themselves. If you didn't read the rules and if you've made no acknowledgement of a rule violation...then there's really not much point in you being here. You know?

Some of this is an unavoidable reality, based on forum size. And some of it is a deliberately designed reality, based on our site's own unique needs and requirements.

Of course, there are occasions where someone is banned by accident or too quickly. But these instances are incredibly rare. I have only ever unbanned maybe a handful of people, in the site's history.

So, generally, I stand by all of our banning policies. They are generally pretty realistic, considering the day-to-day operations of the site.[/color]

[Semjaza]

I just wanted to add my perspective on many of these things. When there's a member I feel is worthy of being banned, I often purge their more useless and rule-breaking posts from the forum entirely. There's no reason to keep them around and thus, in many cases, you won't even see what the person did wrong unless you were there right when it happened.

I don't know anything about this character or why he was banned. However, there's various possibilites. One could be that he was banned recently and tried to return. Some people are given another chance, some of the more annoying ones sometimes aren't. There have been people who have returned and have become good members since then. There are others who come back with derrogatory user names and who knows what else. You just go with the flow.

There's also the fact that when you've been doing this long enough, you can simply tell who will improve and who will not. There's very, very few exceptions to this... and if you wait, these people often bury themselves into the wordwork and post so often that it's much, much harder to remove them in the future when you finally realize your mistake.

That obviously isn't the most common reason, but it is one of them for the newer problematic members. I'd say 99% percent of people who wind up being banned are warned in some form. Some people are warned several times more than they probably should be. For the more complicated ones, the mods discuss it. It's not usually just a run and gun motion.

So there's a lot to it in general.

[Guest xbloodfightx]

Well it's not that hard. What I did to get banned is just annoy the crap out of everyone and tell James off even though he didn't seem to care.

If you haven't realized it, this is Forte. I came back! Cause I have no life...:( And I do nothing except music. Thats my goal! To educate this forums on music. Heh, I'm doing a bad job at it.