Depends on the rules broken, whether the offenses are repeated, etc. Basically, persistent and continued rules violations may result in posting privileges being suspended or lost.
If you break a rule, a Moderator will generally warn you about it. Warnings can be serious (usually called “official” or capital-W “Warning,” usually posted in the thread)… but often emailed as well, so be sure your email address is up-to-date.
An individual warning isn’t usually the end of the world, although that depends a bit on what rule is broken. A well-meaning poster will suffer no further consequences. Repeated offenses or a consistent pattern of rule violations may result in a 30-day suspension or banning. Warnings usually drop off the radar after a year or two; we’re looking for persistent repeated offenses or patterns, not for the occasional goof that we all make from time to time.
If a paying member and reasonably long-time poster is suspended or banned, we usually announce this in the About This Message Board forum. We try to strike a balance between informing our members about what’s happened, and respecting the privacy of the individual. If you don’t see a thread in this forum with an explanation, then the person was either a sock puppet, a spammer, or a banned person trying to sneak back in.
Also, please remember that you may not be seeing all there is to see. If someone had four or five inoffensive posts and is banned, you probably didn’t see the 20 spam posts that led to a porno site – they’d be “disappeared” along with the poster.
While we post the reasons for banning a long-time poster, we really don’t want to post reasons for sock puppets, banned persons trying to sneak back in, or spammers – we don’t want them to have more publicity. The publicity is what they want. If they don’t get it, maybe they’ll go away and leave us alone.
If you’re dying of curiosity and really MUST know or you won’t be able to sleep nights, then email a Moderator. We’ll be happy to tell you offline.
(* - A “sock puppet” or “sock” is a person with multiple usernames, including “repeat guests.” A spammer is a person trying to sell things or just annoy with multiple posts leading to some website of no (or harmful) consequence. A banned person trying to sneak back in is a banned person trying to sneak back in. These are all violations of our registration agreement, and incompatible with the sense of community that we’re trying to build.)