I’m just wondering if people sentenced to be banned will be notified before the fact to allow them to say goodbye etc.?
I think Kyber disappeared within minutes, Danielinthewolvesden and inor also. They have made complaints to that effect.
A few come back with a sock to make a last word, pointing out that their banning was without warning, so I’d assume that’s the norm. Of course, there is also some conjecture that many return again, after that first sock is banned, and just lay low for a bit. Who can say for sure?
Nope. Generally, we don’t ban people without warning them at least once or twice. There are some automatic bans, that we don’t warn, just ban. For instance, if the person is ONLY posting commercial ads and links, or if the person is attempting to mess with the server, or if the person has a spoofed IP. There’s more reasons for a no-warning ban, but most of it is common sense, just as those three examples are.
Warnings don’t “wear off” over time, either. There’s no set number of warnings a person will get before being banned, but generally if a person has been warned for something fairly serious, the warning mod will write to the rest of the message board staff, letting us know what’s going on. This way, if someone gets warned in GD, the folks in MPSIMS know about it too. I must admit that I don’t read the whole sprawling message board, it’s just too BIG, and there’s only 24 hours in a day.
Warnings might be by email OR by a post in the thread. It depends on which method the mod thinks will be most effective.
Tubadiva and I try to at least discuss banning before we actually do it, unless it’s an obvious case. Though any administrator can ban, in practice, it’s generally only TubaDiva and I who actually do most of the banning. I’m not sure that Ed and Dex even know how to ban. And Cecil, of course, is above such things.
Lynn
Administrator, SDMB
Ah, I got a warning once. But let me tell ya, that it appears that only one person on the board was offended by what I wrote; but I got a warning anyway.
You’d think you would have to offend a lot of people in order for a warning to count against you in the long run? I guess not. Just one itty-bitty single person is enough.
In fairness I did change it. Im really not sure what the message said anyway because I wrote something in another language 
You don’t give someone a “last post” for the same reason you give a fired employee only 15 minutes to get packed and out the door. Once you remove someone from the community, they have no reason to respect it. And they may even act with malicious intent. What’s the point?
Are you saying that of all the bannings in the last two weeks ANY of the people had warning email? Are you saying Kyberneticist did? And Danielinthewolvesden? And inor?
I don’t believe any of them got warning emails. And a warning on a thread is only real, and not just for show, if they guy has read it.
You have this vision of what you “generally” do that doesn’t seem to correspond to what you generally do. IMHO.
Kyberneticist got a warning email on an earlier offense when he wrote a program that messed with the server (it pumped up thread views), I was blind copied on it. Usually we just ban people who mess with the server, but we decided that since he’d been a generally good poster beforehand that he’d get a warning. The others got warnings in the thread, and they later replied to the threads. Inor, specifically, said that he did not intend to heed the warnings, that he’d post as he pleased.
Believe what you want. I know what happened.
However, in the past couple of weeks I HAVE banned a couple of people without any warning. Or rather, I’ve banned new usernames from people that we’ve previously banned. There was a new MarkSerlin name, a new Concrete name, and, of course, Boo Boo’s Little Tigress making her play for sympathy yet again.
These people know that they’re not allowed to post, yet they re-register and post anyway. So they don’t get warnings, they already KNOW that they are not welcome. This is yet another “automatic ban” in addition to the three I listed in a previous post.
Banning is not a whimsical punishment imposed for frivilous reasons. Banning is (generally speaking) our last resort when people fail to respond to requests (“warnings”) that they should alter their behaviours. Banning is generally intended to protect the Boards from behaviours that could lead to copyright lawsuits, for instance, or hacker programs, either of which could shut us down.
There are usually repeated warnings, ultimatums, or stern reprimands with a cease-and-desist request. When those are ignored, the actual banning does not involve any time alert – we don’t say, “OK, Miscreant, you will be banned in one hour.” Like the analogy to firing: after repeated warnings and with no changed behaviour, the blade drops.
Partly, this is (as Smack said) because if the person did not respect the Rules while they were active, why would they respect the Rules when they know they are to be banned in an hour? Such a situation can produce no good effect.
Partly, this is because we believe in confidentiality – we do not want to make public all the details of someone’s misbehaviours. It’s usually no one else’s business. We would be placing ourselves even more in the awkward situation that the Members only hear the one-sided story from the poor, all-unaware, innocent true and trustworthy person who was banned. (Amazing how, after four or five stern emails and ultimatums, the banned person still says that he/she “had no warning.” But I digress, as usual.)
All Moderators and Administrators are alerted when a potential banning arises, and we are usually 100% agreed on the need based on the circumstances. We don’t do it lightly. We may do it very quickly (like the time we had someone posting child pornography) and we may move slowly (like when a valued poster repeated crosses the line.)
Hope that helps.
I think the idea was that more people would have been offended if they’d been given the skinny on the text’s meaning.
“I think the idea was that more people would have been offended if they’d been given the skinny on
the text’s meaning.”
Oh, my sig message wasn’t anything special. I think, or rather hope, that it translated from Swedish to English, as ‘Swedish women are great lovers.’
From what I’ve heard, the substance of that translation was correct, but the actual Swedish used was a bit more, shall we say, vulgar. Might I add that’s it’s usually a bad idea to go around saying things in a language one doesn’t personally understand? There’s a great potential for embarassment, there.
I concur with Dex and Lynn… I could NOT imagine trying to ride herd over this board with its’ variety and complexity of cliques.
My board owner stated all along that he would never turn off html tags, which on a UBB based board means that posters can include pictures, sound files and just about anything else you can do with html.
I had to deal with a “hacker” (Script Kiddie, actually) who continuously posted garbage, incited riots, etc. etc.
He embedded a trojan program within a post, that caused a pop-up to appear. If you clicked on ANY button, it would install a remote control program on your local PC. He then would take control of your machine and wipe all files. This happened to several of my members who are not quite as technically adept as others.
This person warranted not only a banning from the board, but due to the fact that he had a series of open proxy sites in his country of origin, that even an IP block of those ranges was ineffective. I went so far as to call the local police in Singapore, plus the national “FBI” type service there, and they were most helpful. Rather than face publicity about this person, which I was going to use as a last resort, they handled the matter themselves. He is now banned from the Net for ten years, and if he does use a dialup account with someone elses username and password, his originating phone number is logged and checked. He would then face jail time.
O
To paraphrase our ex-pres:I feel your pain!
A last post?
Get a grip, they arent being executed!
They dont get a blindfold, a ciggarette, or anything else.
I seem to recall Oat Willie had a “last post” but I can’t find it. As I remember, TubaDiva said she would give him a last post because he wanted to quit with an explanation. Then the thread was locked. Probably deleted shortly thereafter to discourage copycats.
I was just curious. If I did something wrong, I’d want to say goodbye, even if everyone hated me by then. I jus think it’d be a nice luxury, maybe a kinda last “I’m sorry” to go along with it.
Scrote Willie did, in fact, manage to post a sayonara thread where he coughed up his tricks. Those were extreme times - he had mounted a major war on the board.
I don’t think the mods/admins need to go to any further effort than they already make. Bannings that flare up with insufficient justification can be rectified once it’s all sorted out, and people can rehabilitate themselves (witness Silo and Krispy).
–Okay, a personal opinion here.
If I were really, really sorry to go I would have
heeded the first of the warnings and altered my bannable behavior. Heck, I might even make a public apology for going over the line.
Am I the only one who would do this?
Let’s see…a banned poster analogy…here’s a good one.
A drunk goes into a bar, a place he’s liked and well known for quite sometime…or maybe he’s just a continuous pain but not enough to get rid of…or he’s new to the bar.
That drunk starts harrassing several patrons of the bar. A small fist fight breaks out but the drunk just wont let it go. Yelling obscenities and trying to start more crap.
Bar manager and owner decide that drunk is no longer allowed, and proceed to remove drunk from bar. No goodbyes, no ability to say anything else that might incite more violence from the rest.
I think it was a good idea to 86 the drunk since he wasn’t playing by the rules of good conduct. Do it swiftly and not allow the drunk to continue with his harassment.
I think that allowing banned posters to say “goodbye” is a ludicrous idea. As my analogy shows, it’s usually the best to make it swift and clean.
The drunk is okay to call his friends up on his own phone and remain buddies and hang out with his buddy just not in the bar he met them in.