I’ve noticed that some of the threads I’ve read under there name it says banned. What exactly does that mean and are they still allowed to post?
I would think not, else what would be the point of banning them?
This thread should be posted in ATMB forum.
FWIW, banned means just that. The poster is no longer allowed to post to the SDMB. Kaput. Zilch. Nada. Elvis has left the building.
You can read the details of a number of banned posters in the ATMB forum.
No the “banned” turns up on every post they made retroactively.
I changed my username, and the posts I made under my original name all say “Eats_Crayons” even though I was Crayons at the time. Same kind of thing.
They aren’t posting while banned.
After you’re banned, your posts remain on the board. If you read a post by someone marked BANNED, it was a post that poster made before he or she was banned. Banned posters can’t make new posts or threads.
No, they cannot still post. The posts that you see like that were made before the member was banned. The member status gets changed to “BANNED” when the member is banned and is displayed retroactively all the posts that the member ever made.
To me, (as a database/web programmer by trade,) this is a perfect example of a foreign table reference. For each post, on the main thread pages, certain information is looked up in the master member datafile. Each of your posts are tagged, I presume, in the ‘posts’ datafile not with your username, but with a unique number that is your user ID number. Thus, when your name or membership status is altered, the new information shows up anytime someone views one of your old posts.
The old posts are not really changed retroactively because those particular details (username and membership status) were not attached to the post at the time it was created. They are showed up-to-date all the time. That’s all that matters.
Does that make any sense to someone who isn’t a programmer? 
I have moved this to the appropriate ATMB forum, from General Questions.
Once a person is banned, they can no longer post.
What happens to prior posts depends entirely on the circumstances and reason for the banning. When a long-time poster with a lot of posts (some good, some not) who is banned, it is likely that we’ll retain the past posts. When a fly-by spammer posts the same religious rant in four forums (which happened this week), the poster will be banned and the prior posts will disappear.
So, if you see a poster with “banned” under his/her name, it means either:
(a) this person was banned, but the posts remained; or
(b) this person was banned and the posts are being removed, but you happened to catch one in between the banning and the removal.
However, some posters that are banned will show sincere repentence and this will get them another chance. I have never heard how many successfully return and how many get banned again. I only know of one that ended up being banned again for the same offense.
Can banned members still lurk or is the whole site off limits after exile?
Thank you for clearing that up for me 
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Varies on the offense(s) that got them banned. We have had a few situations where unfortunately it was necessary to institute a larger ban than just the screen name.
A ban can be quite large or quite small, depending on the circumstances; I know of a board that once banned an entire continent of potential users from signing in. I would hope we are never in THAT situation, either.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Raise my curiosity, and then leave me hanging . . . . You are such a tease!
Not at all; it hit me after the fact that perhaps that was not my information to disclose, as it was not on a board that I administer.
But it can be done.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Lemme guess…Antarctica. 
So, what prompted your cannibalism?