# A Forum for the Banned **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [July 23, 2005, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792 "2005-07-23T12:53:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/1 "2005-07-23T12:53:56Z")
What if a forum for banned posters was made available? It could be restricted to banned posters only. Lets call this forum Hades. Just like citizens exercising their right to free speech by protesting behind barricades adjacent to venues attended by establishment entities like the WTO or political party conventions these banned posters could express their agony and frustration in a restricted manner. It could be quite amusing for the rest of us. Not sure about this, but it just might be a tool as well to uncover socks. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/2 "2005-07-23T13:01:12Z")
If they can’t play by the rules, why should we still give them an outlet? There are plenty of other sounding boards online. I don’t think I’d have any qualms about the extra income, but it doesn’t seem worth it for the trouble. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/3 "2005-07-23T13:21:35Z")
Amusing? Perhaps at first, for the novelty of it. It would get boring pretty fast,though, for outside observers, especially if the bannees were allowed to wallow in as much mire as they desire. On a practical note, I daresay there’d be technical difficulties in setting it up so that only bannees could post. Seems to me (a nongeek) that you’d essentially have to set up a separate board. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/4 "2005-07-23T13:24:13Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > On a practical note, I daresay there’d be technical difficulties in setting it up so that only bannees could post. Seems to me (a nongeek) that you’d essentially have to set up a separate board. I think vBulletin lets you restrict posting access based on member status. Thus, even if we could ACCESS the moderator forums, we might still not be able to post there, since we don’t have that status. Could be wrong, it’s happened before. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/5 "2005-07-23T13:27:52Z")
Letting them post anywhere on this site would negate the whole ‘banned’ thing, wouldn’t it? I mean, I’m only an unfrozen caveman lawyer who is strange to your modern ways, but… Though I would be interested in a forum devoted exclusively to locked threads wherein some poster(s) got banned. We could call it ‘Train Wreck’. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/6 "2005-07-23T13:36:48Z")
It would be fairly easy to set up. However, we aren’t interested in doing so. At least that’s MY impression. If we ban someone, that means we don’t WANT them around. That’s the whole point of banning. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/7 "2005-07-23T13:42:55Z")
The short answer: this has been suggested before, and turned down unanimously by the moderators. Your analogy of protestors at G8 and similar is faulty: we are not government. Government (at least, the US government) can only infringe on free speech in certain fairly well defined circumstances. A private individual or private corporation is under no such restrictions. We are not required to allow “free speech” in violation of our rules. The same is true of a movie theatre, say: if someone jumps up in the middle of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY to scream obscenities, and persists after management has asked them to please shush, they will be firmly escorted off the premesis. They will not be given a little roped off area in the theater. If some walks into K-Mart and makes lewd suggestions to the clerical help, they will be invited to leave, they will not be told to restrict their activities to the toy department. Imagine you have a party in your house, and one of the guests yells racist comments, breaks the furniture, and takes a shit on your living room floor. So, for your next party, you restrict them to the tv-room? Say a company has fired several employees: one for fighting, one for stealing from the company, one for making obscene suggestions to customers, all after several warnings. You’re suggesting that the company should provide a special area for these folks to do whatever they want, so the others can watch in amusement? Look, in the first place, there aren’t that many bannings. In the second place, we now have the tool of suspension in place, to give people a time out and see if they can come 'round. There are two types of bannings that occur: = One-time drive-by spammers, porn-peddlers, and the like. I presume you’re not suggesting that we reply to invite them back to a special forum for spamming? = Members and guests who can’t play by the rules. Sometimes (rarely) the offense is egregious (like threatening bodily harm to another member, for example.) More commonly, the offense is a consistent, repeated pattern for which they have received ample warning (such as personal insults in inappropriate places.) Why on earth would we want to provide such people with a forum to rant against us? There are plenty of other forums out there, some of them having no purpose other than hatred of the Straight Dope. Let them go where they will, but not here. ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/8 "2005-07-23T14:15:59Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > Imagine you have a party in your house, and one of the guests yells racist comments, breaks the furniture, and takes a shit on your living room floor. So, for your next party, you restrict them to the tv-room? Sounds like my dog. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/9 "2005-07-23T18:27:01Z")
> [@dogbutler](#): > > Sounds like my dog. Man, your dog yells racist comments? That _bitch_. No one likes my ‘museum of banned posters forum’ idea, eh? I suppose I could always just do a search on the word **banned**. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/10 "2005-07-23T21:00:05Z")
> [@](#): > > Imagine you have a party in your house, and one of the guests yells racist comments, breaks the furniture, and takes a shit on your living room floor. So, for your next party, you restrict them to the tv-room? Have you and my mom been discussing my Uncle Jay? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2005, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/11 "2005-07-24T01:43:16Z")
Those wishing to view an unmoderated SD forum might try usenet. It isn’t pretty. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2005, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/12 "2005-07-25T14:04:01Z")
> [@Measure for Measure](#): > > Those wishing to view an unmoderated SD forum might try usenet. > > It isn’t pretty. You know, the [SDMB Community’s Journal](http://www.livejournal.com/community/sdmb/) is not a full-scale forum, or what the OP is looking for (Too pleasant.), but it does occasionally get posts from banned users. Also, there is a site like the one the OP is looking for. Now way in hell will I link to it, however. Rather then actually talk about anything productive, they just bitch about people they don’t like. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2005, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/13 "2005-07-25T14:23:10Z")
Some message boards have “brigs” or “jails” where banned and suspended users can post. Seeing them in action, though, they’re much like a lawless frontier; think of a combination of Pit, MPSIMS, and Something Awful’s FYAD, with little or no supervision. It would be a mess for the mods, a weak deterrent for those who might be prone to breaking board rules, and contrary to the spirit of the site. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-forum-for-the-banned/313792/14 "2005-07-25T16:54:10Z")
I suspect any appeal this idea might have is based more on the desire to point and laugh at the inmates of The Village Of The Banned, than in any charitable motivation to still allow them a voice. Worse, unless the nonbanned members could be _prevented_ from posting in that forum, then there would surely be those still willing to call out the bannees.