Just curious if this has happened to anyone else for non obvious reasons?
I was on a relationship site and got banned for pointing out that people in affairs don’t just “fall” into them.
I’m a longtime forum fan, since the interwebs began. It seems like a lot of forums are soooo incredibly strict to the point that it’s ridiculous.
I was effectively banned from this gambling related forum due to a combination of their idiotic software and members. I asked a question, with a generally angry tone aimed at the casino that ripped me off, not aimed at any member. The first reply implied I was either an idiot or a liar, pointing out an “inconsistency” in my story. I replied pointing back he’d completely got the wrong end of the stick of my very clear OP, added “read for comprehension next time, idiot”. One of the admins suspended me for a week, but it didn’t matter because a legion of idiotic forumites proceeded to give my post negative feedback, and the software would not let anyone with less than -10 post anything ever, so even if I did want to post there again I couldn’t.
Yes. After about 3,500 posts and much core contribution to the board, one of the owner/moderators (who prides himself on being the biggest asshole possible) took exception to a VERY mild political opinion I expressed in the off-topics subforum. **Wham - 2 year ban. (As I said, it was in the any-subject, off-topic forum, politics allowed, flaming not unacceptable… but it was a regional issue he was extremely tetchy about, und zo…)
Four years ago. Haven’t looked back although a few of the posters have asked me to rejoin. I don’t need to hang out in someone’s playpen where they can ban users for completely personal and arbitrary reasons, without any form of recourse. It is, unfortunately, the only large and active forum devoted to that topic, but I’ve managed to cope.
I got banned on a (now defunct) creationist forum for trying to explain what endogenous retroviral sequences are.
And apparently calling out trolls is a huge no no on some forums.
It does seem to be a power trip for a lot of forum admins.
Two years? That’s kind of arbitrary. As if you would just sit around waiting two years to rejoin.
I’ve never heard of a forum using ratings from users to ban people, I wouldn’t want any part of that.
I was kicked off a forum for acknowledging, in another forum, that the first forum existed.
Was it a competitor forum?
Would any of you consider or have you set up new user names using a proxy to keep posting?
If I posted what forum I got kicked off of and why, I’d get kicked off of SDMB too!
(Actually, I just got suspended, but I walked away and never looked back.)
Mysterious…
I got temporarily banned from a special interest forum. I was trying to be helpful by posting relevant eBay links regarding that interest and one link for helping key the 1940 US Census but TPTB thought I was spamming.
I’ve never been kicked off of a forum before, but recently I stopped going to a forum that I used to spend a lot of time at due to what I considered out-of-control moderation. The breaking point for me was when a poster said, in reference to some political figure:
“Dear <politician>. Go fuck yourself. With a <something culturally appropriate>. Sideways.”
A moderator warned him, not for the language (which was kosher on this forum) but for making a “rape threat”. I had no idea who either the moderator or the poster was, but I was really offended that the moderator would make such a serious accusation over something so trivial. I contemplated a suicide-by-mod before I came to my senses, blocked the site in my browser and just stopped going.
I’ve never been kicked off a forum, but I have walked away from one that just had too much woo in it. Most of the posters were extremely socially conservative AND woo believers, for instance, there were a lot of anti-vaxxers on there. There were some very intelligent and sane people on the forum, too, but I got tired of reading rants about evilutionists and the dangers of fluoridating the drinking water.
Not kicked off, but I used to be a moderator on a forum whose main topic is pro wrestling. I was doing the recaps for Monday Night RAW, and was “modded” so that I could start the RAW thread with my recap. This also had the side effect of unlocking the Pro Wrestling forum to allow new posts.
So I went there one day to find I’d been newly added as a moderator, but I went about my business of simply posting the RAW thread the way I always had. Apparently, in the administrator’s eyes, I wasn’t a “real” moderator, though. I got de-modded for doing something as simple as removing a duplicate thread.
At least, that’s my assumption, because that’s the only thing I ever did outside my usual boundaries, and I never got a PM from the admin explaining why, or even a warning not to do that again.
I did the RAW recap for a couple more weeks after that, but that experience-- coupled with the fact that doing the recap is hard work-- eventually encouraged me to stop.
I’m still a regular poster there, however.
I was suspended once for raising havoc with a troll who had needlessly gone after a much loved and completely harmless member to the point of posting photos of the loved member to mock. It was fire and brimstone, and we both got booted. Sadly, the troll had gotten the email addy I’d used to register, before I knew to make a forum specific addy. And wanted to keep the battle going in my mail. I wrote the admin of the forum and asked him to remove the email addy, and was about to notify all my contacts and create a new address, when he wrote that he had removed my addy, and also reinstated me as the other members pleaded with him to do so. So after that, it was a simple matter of ignoring her mails.
I left one forum and am pretty close to leaving a second because of the slime molds that pass as admins there.
Some examples:
I can’t remember what forum I was on (not porn), but I got kicked off shortly after signing up because, apparently, having the number 13 in your screen name can only mean you are 13 years old.
A sub-group from the old Ecunet forums concerning “creation v Darwin”. You think its bad when reasonable people disagree and you try to interject some common sense? Try doing it when two people who are convinced they know the “mind of God” disagree. Even when you are just as religious and dedicated, showing any willingness to find a middle ground usually results in both sides screaming “die heretic”. 
The only ban I’ve ever had is a mystery. I joined a Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky forum, which (like many car/bike forums) demanded I post a hello message in the introductions forum before I could post anywhere else. I posted with my location, a pic of my Solstice GXP, and didn’t visit again for a week. Next time I went there, I got a private message saying I was banned - no cause stated, no replies from the admins. Still no idea what happened.
I wonder if they thought you were a banned user with a new account.
I never have, but I’ve participated in many. I will say that I really appreciate my experience here at the SDMB, as our culture and behaviour here are so strict that if you follow them elsewhere, you can rarely be faulted.
What I’m getting at are things like the following:
– Attack the post, not the poster. No ad hominem attacks.
– State facts, and cite, cite, cite.
– Don’t accept blogs and opinion pieces as necessarily factual; do your due diligence and find a factual piece from a reputable source to support your argument.
– Stay on topic, as dictated by the OP.
– Don’t be a jerk.
There are others, as we all know, but I think the important thing is this: if I use our strict SDMB “culture and behaviour” rules at other forums, and somehow get banned, then I know that there is something wrong with the other forum, not me. And if that’s the case, then maybe I don’t want to be there anyway.