THIS THREAD is now closed… but how come ‘nicetomeetyou’ was posting in it?
I don’t get it, Also - Admin, What does ‘DNFTT’ mean?
If I was banned right after I posted this message, you’d see ‘banned’ under my name the next time you checked this thread, but my message would still be here.
People who are banned can not post new messages, but the posts they made before being banned would still be visible.
DNFTT mean Do Not Feed The Troll. ‘nicetomeetyou’ was obviously someone the mods recognized as a sockpuppet of a banned poster.
Gee, now I wonder what the original member got banned for.
Is there any way to find out?
…So I don’t step over that line etc.
How many people get banned?
Anyone popular get banned? What for?
Basically, don’t be a jerk. Don’t personally attack someone on the boards. Aim your flamethrower at the person’s post rather than the poster.
Also, it’s not good form to ask why a person was banned. Odds are, they were a jerk somehow. Yes, popular posters have been banned. Why? Jerkness. Violating the board rules, etc. You’d think that someone who’s been posting a long time would know better, but people are people and people screw up and act like jerks sometimes.
If you are wondering why someone has been banned, email a mod. DNFTT means “do not feed the troll” which means “don’t encourage this person whose aim is to draw attention to themselves and disrupt the board” - which is the reason you should email a mod for an explanation.
The rules on posting are here
The most common method of getting banned is by attacking posters - if you absolutely have to do so, go to the Pit. Even there, I think you have to have really good reasons to attack another poster.
You will find that most people banned are socks or people trying to return with a new handle after being banned.
Let me point out in general terms that unless you are obviously actively and wilfully being a total obnoxious jerk at another poster (see page 2 of Hastur’s “It’s not a lifestyle” thread here in the Pit for an egregious example of the sort of behavior I mean) or are obviously (by the technical techniques the Admins. can use that are NOOB for obvious reasons) somebody who has been banned coming back under a new name to make trouble, the appropriate Admin. or Mod. will explain to you as a warning by e-mail and/or in an appropriate post, possibly with a bit of asperity but in clear language, what you’ve done to violate a rule in their opinion. (If your intent in what you said was other than what they read it as, be sure to make that completely clear to both them by e-mail and to the board as a whole in your next post to that thread, with appropriate apologies if indicated.)
Nobody’s out to ban people; I’m confident that the Admins. would just as soon they never had to do so. But they will act, and forthrightly, if someone persists in continually breaking the codes of proper behavior here. So my message in this is basically, post with an element of human decency about what you say, and don’t worry about being banned; you won’t be.
This is also probably a good place to post columnist William Raspberry’s brilliant observation (from a commencement speech late last month): “You should learn to tell the difference between an enemy and a problem.” That you and FatHeadedDoper see things differently is a problem; he is not your enemy (unless you insist on making him one).
An exception to what Polycarp said is spammers. People who register just to spam the board are summarily banned without warning.
This question is in the wrong forum, but since it’s been answered already, I’ll just close it instead of moving it.