Have I Been Banned?

Factual Questions
1

I do not mean from this messageboard. (Placed here for mouse-over preview.) My apologies in advance if this is a Unmentionable Question, and mods, feel free to move this to ATMB (where I considered starting it) or the Pit or lock it or whatever.

I am a member of another messageboard which shall be nameless. At least, I can still sign into it, read everything, and I don’t get any messages that I am persona non grata with the moderator(s) there. I can even post to threads, and I can then see and read the posts. But I am getting no response as if anyone is reading them.

And what triggers this thread is that if I go into those boards without being signed in, I do not see my posts, whereas if I sign in, they appear.

I suspect there is an option in their messageboard software that essentially puts me on everyone’s ignore list. I ask the techies here, is this possible? And, again if it is not an Unmentionable Question, is this what happens when one is banned from a messageboard?

I was not even given the courtesy of a message warning me that this is how I was going to be treated, which I suppose is their right, but still seems a little tacky.

I suspect I am, in fact, banned from that messageboard but they don’t want to admit to anyone else that they did so. So they are hoping I will get bored never getting any response and leave. Like I said, rather tacky and passive-aggressive, but I can’t say I will miss that place much - I will merely mention that the standards of thinking and evidence are much, much different than here on the good ol’ SDMB and leave it at that.

So I ask those with experience with messageboard software - is what I suspect true?

Regards,
Shodan

PS - if no one responds to this thread, I will really get worried. :eek:

2

Yes, it’s an option on some message board software. I’ve heard it referred to as “bozo-ing”, as in “I have decided to bozo Shodan”. It’s like banning but the person to whom it’s done gets no notice, thinks they’re posting, etc, but no one else sees their posts.

3

It’s called being “hellbanned” on somethingawful. I don’t think it’s done much anymore there, though.

4

On vBulletin, it’s called the Tachy Goes to Coventry feature.

Try logging off and clearing the cookie for the site. Go back in and visit the board, but don’t log in. If you can’t see your posts, you’ve gone to Coventry.

It’s much harder to tell if you’ve been hellbanned if it’s a board where only registered members can see posts.

5

“Bozo” is the term used by forums hosted by About.com, apparently.

6

I see banned people.

7

So what happens if you start a new thread on the other board? Does it just not appear on the lists and so gets no views?

8

LIke elmwood said, it’s called Tachy goes to coventry. It’s a feature that puts you on everyone’s ignore list but your own…so sometimes it takes awhile for the person to realize it.

I made a topic in this forum a bit back about it, asking where the name came from. Far as I know nobody knew. : p

9

Looks like rudeness in certain parts of the internet knows no bounds; why not just come out
and tell the bannee that he’s toast, goodbye don’t came back now ya heah? Seems
extremely chintzy to play little games like that.

The complete opposite I guess would be a board like Race Sim Central, where you always
know where you personally stand-they even have a Warning Meter-reach 100% and they
kick you, and you know it.

I know I once got banned from a board because I used an obscenity in my password-
figured nobody else would see it so what was the harm? Couldn’t believe that they would
filter and ban you for something which was private like that, or that they even
anticipated that someone would put bad words in their passwords and then set
things up to autoban such people.

10

I bet it’s designed to fight trolls. Ban a troll and s/he’ll just sign back up. Make it so everyone ignores the troll and they go away forever.

11

That’s possible. Although it still seems a little too passive-aggressive for my taste.

Unless they have a mass conviction of DNFTShodan groupthink like you wouldn’t believe. :smiley:

That’s what I did, and that’s what happens.

Isn’t there a short story by Heinlein called “Coventry”? No idea where the Tachy comes from.

:shrugs:

They’re idiots on the other messageboard anyways, and, IMO, presenting a danger to the public health.

Oh well. My first banning, more or less.

Thanks to all for your responses.

Regards,
Shodan

12

Well, it least it keeps the bannee from reregistering under a sock, I suppose, at least until they catch on. I might call it the “Peter Peachfuzz” solution, but that really dates me.

Strange. If this was a password to someplace that really mattered much, they should be stored with a one way encryption in the first place, and there wouldn’t be a way for the admin to even find out your password. It doesn’t surprise me if this isn’t done on some boards. If it’s an automated procedure that checks what you typed in against a list of naughty words before encrypting it to accept as a new password or compare against the stored string, that’s OK, I suppose, but I hardly see the point.

13

Exactly. When such a feature is used properly, the victim already knows that it’s a persona non grata, and knows exactly why. Such a person has probably already been banned one or more times in the conventional manner, and it hasn’t dissuaded it from signing up under a new name immediately. With this feature, though, the troll might think that everyone’s ignoring it and leave, and even if it figures out, it’ll at least take it a while, so the flood of re-joins will be somewhat slowed.

Using it for a first offense without warning, as apparently happened to Shodan, is of course quite rude, but that’s a problem with the people using the feature, not with the feature itself.

14

Here’s the thread. Banquet Bear’s theory sounded plausible to me.