I didn’t say you couldn’t discuss what’s being moderated. That would make the whole thing pointless. I said a discussion of the rules and their application is fine, and a bunch of “good ban, I never liked that guy” posts will get the thread closed.
How about a link to the relevant threads? It’s always bugged me that people get banned and I don’t know why. How about a non-posting sticky in this forum; they were a sock, she was a jerk, he made multple insults outside the pit.
For the ones in question here, all you have to do is set your display options for ATMB to “two weeks” and you will see all the announcements, most of which contain links to previous warnings. For previous ones, you can search titles in ATMB for “banned” or “suspended” or the poster’s name. Note that we don’t necessarily announce bannings of socks or short-term trolls; in such cases, e-mail or PM a moderator.
Ah, thanks Colibri.
There are other similar cases where posters who had smart things to say just seemed unable to refrain from profane rants and insults.
Being new to the moderator thing, it’s an interesting insight. Allow me to present my thoughts as a mod, but not speaking for SDMB administration.
Wthout getting into specifics, I can tell you that bans and suspensions are discussed in considerable detail when it comes to rules violations (spammers are just an automatic thing, with a system for filing away offending IPs, but no discussion.) The discussion concerning suspension/banning is usually detailed, and the longer the poster as been around, the more detailed it gets. Warnings are raised and discussed so everyone knows who’s piling them up. And it’s not a pile-on; you’ll have moderators argue one way and others argue another until a consensus is reached. In a recent case a ban was floated about and I argued against it, thereby earning the task to send a PM explaining to the poster they were on thin ice. (It was not a person mentioned in this thread.)
As to short suspension lengths and whatnot, bear in mind that while super-short suspensions have been used, making customary use of such things would present a rather significant administrative burden on the moderator group. While the board (IIRC, I’ve never banned anyone except spammers) allows for automated suspension lifts, getting into the habit of frequent short-term suspensions would present three problems:
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There would be a strong incentive to use suspensions more frequently, which is absolutely not a good idea, IMHO. Aside from, again, the administrative burden, the likelihood of suspending people for the wrong reasons would jump dramatically. It’s one thing to spam a no-doubt-about-it asshole with multiple rules violations, but if you start handing out little suspensions, like a hockey ref handing out minor penalties, you vastly increase the chance of making an ill-advised suspension and making the board and the mods look bad.
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Even if some 3-day suspensions saved a few posters from lifetime bans, you’d increase the perception that the mods ban and suspend people a lot for minor stuff, which really isn’t a good impression to give. To be honest the warning system works 99% of the time and doesn’t seme to bother anyone whose opinion you’d care about.
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Again, suspensions are subject to considerable discussion. That’s how the mod group calibrates itself, and makes sure suspensions and bans (there’s really no material difference - we could always lift a ban if the bannee made a good case and asked to come back) are consitently applied. But if you’re handing out bans all the time, you just don’t get a chance for that level of discussion.
As it is the conversation is a really busy one; I’d guess my mod mail account gets 50-100 SDMB related messages a day, easy. If you multiply suspensions, that number would become unmanageable, or else we’d need to set up working groups or some level of admin nobody wants.