Kolya on 1/10/2005 at 01:06
Since I recently had to ask if someone was banned I noticed how the only reliable way to tell was checking the memberslist which isn't too convenient.
I think it was GBM who started adding oneliners under the nickname of the banned user. This seems a good start but it's in no way reliable for two reasons:
1. Only GBM does them.
2. They are completely arbitrary.
I'd like to see a simple "Banned" beneath a banned users nick.
If there is a Banned-Users-List (or another simple solution) somewhere that I missed please point it out though I believe the above solution to be superior as it's most easily accessible.
A point to consider would be how it might give more severity to bans as they would appear under every single post of the banned user.
Banned
Gingerbread Man on 1/10/2005 at 01:37
Those silly one-liners are actually part of the One-Click Ban function Dave coded up to help us shitcan the spammers faster. I think it's only been used once or twice on people who aren't the NO CREDIT CHECK spam artistes, because one of its functions is to Gulag every thread started by that poster (iirc)
Nearly all the Ban Titles are Dave's on account of the spammers tending to hit during those few hours when I am asleep and he is awake. I cry about this, because that means Dave gets all the fun.
Anyway, to answer more seriously, there are a couple of reasons why we don't publically identify the banned... One is that a large number of them are temporary (more like Enforced Time Outs or something) which only last a few days. Another set of them are reversible provided that Dave and I receive some kind of credible assurance that whatever got the person banned won't happen again.
Another reason, the one I feel most strongly about, is that nine times out of ten it's nobody else's business. It's a pretty safe bet that if someone was acting like a gigantic and insufferable retard and then suddenly disappears from posting, they got banned. I don't see a need to parade them around.
That said...
There ARE a couple of things Dave and I periodically chuck around as ideas. One of them, confusingly, is precisely the idea of identifying the Banned in that way. Mind you, if you were the one getting shitloads of PMs and emails from BiCaPiTaLiSiNg_AsShAt_666's e-homeys demanding to know howcome my bestest m8 wuz b& u fag, you might think twice about it. I'm not talking about Real World Friends, I'm talking about the jackanapes who coalesce in little puddles of Tard because no one else wants to talk to them.
The other idea is to have a viewable list of who's been banned and for what reason. There are lots of reasons not to do this, but chief among the Pro arguments is the fact that it will serve to inform not only the person who got banned, but also everyone else... thus making the banning process more transparent and hopefully less open to conspiracy theory and complaint. Plus it would act as a handy handbook for handy newbies who would handily be able to see what handy things we consider handily offside around here.
Um.
Mind you, the downside of such a thing, from the members' perspective, is that we'd be able to use that as reasonable justification for firing off way more temporary, probative bans than we do now. There are a great many situations that would have been helped by an enforced 24-hour or even 3-day Time Out.
But like I say, those are just things Dave and I often mutter about, and I'm not sure there's really much substance to the mutterings. They're really just "wouldn't it be good if..." things that we usually grumble when we're getting a bit annoyed with something.
As far as the actual question you asked goes, I'm not sure. For one thing, would it really help matters to have the word Banned underneath sailoreagle's name? Or buglunch's? That seems a bit of unnecessary stigma, to me. Banning isn't intended to humiliate someone or make them look like a twat -- banning is simply a means for us to stop someone posting.
I appreciate the argument that the label would add more severity to a ban, but Compassionate GBM sometimes thinks that's a bit petty and harsh. Though I do see the utility of it when I'm not being a bleeding heart pussy.
I dunno.
Frankly, I think the Banned members list would be a good plan. You could see why you were banned, and how long you are banned for. Other people could see what sorts of things carry what sorts of penalties. We'd feel a lot freer to make use of short-term, temporary bans. Etc.
And for what it's worth, the silly labels you may see once or twice are actually just for the amusement of Dave and I, as 99.9% of users who get the One-Click Ban treatment are all shuffled neatly away into the Gulag where nobody can visit them except us.
driver on 1/10/2005 at 01:55
At a site I help moderate, we also have an (
http://www.dearwandy.com/showthread.php?t=1706) abuse of power thread to let our members know why actions have been taken and to forestall the tide of 'why u lok my thred?' PMs. Usually if we temp ban someone we don't bother announcing it there unless there's good reason, but as we have the banned labels, people can usually guess.
D'Arcy on 1/10/2005 at 02:50
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
And for what it's worth, the silly labels you may see once or twice are actually just for the amusement of Dave and I, as 99.9% of users who get the One-Click Ban treatment are all shuffled neatly away into the Gulag where nobody can visit them except us.
By 'us' he means admins and mods. I can also go there and <s>make fun of</s> visit them :ebil:
Kolya on 1/10/2005 at 03:01
A Banned Members List would have the advantage of showing a connection between the banning and the behaviour that led to it, which a ban-notice under the nick cannot achieve.
But with the number of banned users piling up over time it might become as useful as looking up the name in the member's list. Mind you that I don't know how many members got banned in any given timeframe because of the missing information.
Kolya
Gingerbread Man on 1/10/2005 at 03:09
When it really comes down to it, though -- once you take out all the obvious spambots (you know the ones) -- we really don't use banning as an administrative tool all that much. Not unless the person being banned has repeatedly ignored moderator / administrator / general membership requests to cut it out.
Personally, one of the things I like best about the way things work here is the level of social control exercised by the general membership. ShockGen is a great example of this (as well as a great example of the negative side of it)... While I don't see the use of Backseat Moderating and outright newb-jumping, the times when someone says "Look, you really shouldn't use AOL sp34k up in here, we don't like it and it's difficult to read" are good examples of when it works well.
If people ignore well-meaning advice like that, and continue to ignore it after a moderator has warned them about doing whatever it is they're doing, then perhaps things escalate. Usually they escalate due to Mod-Sass, unfortunately.
But hey. They can always take us to the Hague for banning them.
Gray on 1/10/2005 at 03:23
Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man
For one thing, would it really help matters to have the word Banned underneath sailoreagle's name? Or buglunch's? That seems a bit of unnecessary stigma, to me.
On one hand, yes, it would. It might be unnecessarily cruel to former members to publicly point out they were banned. It would also bring some unwanted attention on the behind-the-scenes events that nobody really need to know about.
On the other, it would greatly help me as an on-and-off TTLG visitor to keep track of which of my old friends here that have been banned since I was visiting last, a handful of months ago.
Last time, it took me rather a long time to figure out why certain people weren't responding to PM:s anymore. I had to ask publicly whatever happened to so-and-so, and how to find this person.
Ultraviolet on 1/10/2005 at 04:26
Is there any way I can get "Banned!" under my username without actually being banned?
TF on 1/10/2005 at 08:37
Because we all know that's so edgy and original and is also totally going to happen.
SubJeff on 1/10/2005 at 11:53
Slightly off topic, but are buglunch and sailoreagle permanently banned? Seems a little harsh for them to get a permaban. I understand that multiple alt-nick guy getting a permaban but bug?
