Most of the time when you see complaints that a forum user was banned or got their locked or their post was deleted, it is because of something that didn’t comply with the forum rules. This thread is about those extremely rare cases where a forum user did nothing (not exaggeration but truth) for any of these 3 actions to be warranted. In this case, unwarranted means the admin/mod knew the user, for that particular instance, did nothing that broke the rules but that admin/mod still did said action. To say someone never gets banned for literally no reason is foolish.
As far as how such situation gets resolved, we have these outcomes. The affected parties got a proper apology on the forum/PM and the situation was fixed (un-banned, unlocked, or post restored). Second the admin/mod will either PM the user saying something like or gives the forum behavior of “we know you did nothing to warrant this. However, we are still going to keeping it the way it is” angle.
I clearly have put all the variables and factors in. Now, what are the results? What is a case that you are aware of (hypothetical scenarios are allowed) where they truly were innocent? To get the likely comment out there, this should be the only time the “writing a Tarzan novel” post gets mentioned her.
[Probably should steer clear of Dope examples folks…]
Another forum, was fairly active. I posted a totally original long post about some pet theories of mine.
A mod sent me a PM indicating that I was getting a warning. For allegedly copying and pasting an entry from my blog (or a blog). First of all, I have no blog, and would never plagiarise anyone else in any event (I pride myself on my originality). Second, she provided no URL or any other proof. Third, it was couched in the most mealy-mouthed and passive-aggressive prose imaginable (“Well, I kind of sort of am giving you a warning here…”). After raising hell I eventually got it rescinded, but was much less active there afterwards (partially for other reasons too). Unlike here where all warnings and bannings are public, there it was all hush-hush and secretive, and they didn’t even have the guts to actually put “BANNED” next to someone’s name, they were instead in “perpetual” suspension.
Back when I played World of Warcraft I was pretty active on the WOW forums, and there was one forum about guild management that prompted a lot of arguments. There was a contingent of people in mid-level guilds who felt that former members who left the guild were downright awful if they didn’t give weeks of notice beforehand and jump through a bunch of hoops and hated being told that it’s a game and people aren’t going to treat leaving a guild as a bigger deal than leaving a job or relationship, there were people who would ask ‘how do I get people to join my guild’ and then get enraged if you pointed out that their guild wasn’t actually doing anything that people wanted to do, and a bunch of other contentious topics. I would regularly get in long drawn out arguments (largely because I was working a job where I didn’t do much but couldn’t play games so would forum war) and never heard a peep from the mods about any of the back and forth.
But one day I cracked a joke about being able to have multiple wives in Utah, and got a three-day ban for “hate speech” from a mod. That’s the only adverse action I ever got from a forum mod or GM in something like eight years of playing the game and being on the forums, and it’s hilarious that big long acrimonious arguments never got a peep, trolling people in trade and general chat was never a problem, but one good-natured Mormon joke and BAM the mods are all over it. I never bothered to contest it since it wasn’t a big deal, but I remember it to this day.
The question is not stated in such a way as to limit to this board, though that may be the intent.
The worst treatment I have noted is a board manager who will justify changing the actual post of a member, (me, in this case…) and then responding to the post as himself: (Bob, at a group having to do with Rokons…) thus making himself look like the Great Savior of Righteousness that he in fact thinks he is.
True story: I went to a Johnny Cash concert once. He told this story: Once a fan asked him: If you shot a man in Reno, why are you in jail in California?
Back when there was this place that did snarky “recaps” of TV shows, I complained (in the proper forum) that assigning a TV show to “a reviewer that openly admits he hates the show” and I was banned. Not sure if it was called the ‘recappers’= reviewers (they did both, not just a straight recap) or because I complained.
One of my friends is a Disney parks fan (I like them too) and she was posting in a group where the rules were “No mention of any other parks except Disneyland, they don’t exist). Some woman posted that she had a ill daughter (cancer, likely fatal) who loved princesses and she wanted to make sure the little girl could have a marvelous princess experience. So my friend suggested Ariels Grotto in DCA. A Admin said “that’s a no no” whereupon my friend posted- What would Walt do for a terminally ill little girl? Follow the rules or make the little girl happy?” and then banned her. She thinks her banning was a badge of honor. They banned a LOT of people.
I read (but rarely post to) another board where threads are locked and posters are banned, without warning or commentary from the mods. Many times, such mod actions seem whimsical, done out of personal animosity, or just because the mod is having a bad day. Without reasons, what else can we conclude?
At least on the SDMB, we always get a good reason for the locking/banning, and we know that any such actions are not due to whimsy, personal animosity, or “bad days.” And if we need to discuss/argue/refute them, we have ATMB.
I don’t know how Cash responded, but I understand the song. Lots of criminals go to jail for things OTHER than the crimes they brag about to other inmates.
As for mods, I suspect that anyone who posts enough, and expresses themselves at all firmly,is going to be “dinged” unfairly on occasion. And since most forum mods are volunteers, not paid professionals, chances are good that you’ll occasionally get one who volunteered precisely so that they could hyper-police their own particular paranoias.
I had a mod on another forum ban me for a year, because I pointed out that someone else had used a fake/stolen photo, on a forum that required that only real pictures of the real person be used. And I quit one forum entirely that I once liked, because it devolved to the point where everyone BUT me and a few others were allowed to say the most vile things to us, but we weren’t allowed to respond.
I don’t know if it’s official SDMB policy, but the practice is to not criticize members or staff of other forums by name so that we don’t foment any board wars here.
A note to all participants to please steer clear of naming specific boards in this discussion, and thanks to those of you who have already avoided doing so.
Board moderation brings out the worst in some people, like any other position of low power.
I quit a special interest board where I was a fairly prolific contributor. Another poster clearly violated the board’s rules including derogatory comments about me by name in a thread OP rant, though my name was only incidental to the rant. Their rules clearly prohibit that, no ‘BBQ Pit’ there. I complained to mod. Mod made believe for awhile they didn’t get the message, eventually gave a vague response implying they didn’t know what I was talking about. In a later thread ‘what ever happened to so and so?’ somebody correctly suggested why I left and mod spoke up to lie and say I’d never complained about it.
Otherwise I’ve left a couple of places because of ‘warnings’ I thought were petty dictatorial BS. But as board owners (or whatever they are) will tell you ‘it’s our playground’ and that’s valid to a point on judgement calls who is being (more) the troll. Some people congenitally recoil from deciding any conflict, to which they are not somehow a party themselves, is more one side’s fault than the other. Lying to avoid owning up to applying the rules differently by poster is another level though.
