I banned my first person today! (No, not here..)

I run a teeny tiny message board/group over on Yahoo!. I’ve made it my goal to stay as much out of the way as possible, to let things kind of flow as they will. If anyone’s ever been over to their Groups section, you know how primitive it is - you don’t have forums or even threads within one forum; you have one message area.

Still, my intention has always been to keep things civil. Here, we have The Pit. But there, my number-one rule is that people do not attack other people. There are no vendettas, no bitching at fellow members (like here, you need to sign up to post). If you get pissy once, I’ll post an official “warning” that basically just asks people to be nice (!). If they persist, another posted warning that’s not as nice, but still polite. (Always be polite, as Patrick Swayze said in “Roadhouse”.) And if they continue to do it, I’ll email them and explain the policy a little more in detail.

Well, after all of two months in operation, we had a skirmish. A couple of them, actually. The first was quelled after I sent out one warning. People were apologizing in their posts! It was WAY cool! The second one didn’t last long, either - a couple warnings was fine, and people went merrily about their posting ways.

But last night, someone (who had been warned earlier about improper behavior) created a poll on the Web site that asked for opinions on censorship. This person had unsubscribed from our group a few days earlier, then resubscribed. She didn’t post but began this poll, which in essence was asking if people appreciate someone deleting posts from the board (which I do, with an explanatory note, when people are completely out of line, in my opinion). You know how some polls can be worded to get a certain reaction out of someone? That’s how this went. It was, to say the least, an inflammatory poll. I was not amused. I emailed the person, explaining that she had two options: remove the poll within the hour (members can do this themselves) or I’ll remove it myself in an hour and then ban her.

Since she had posted the poll only minutes before, I had good reason to believe she was still online. Also, bear in mind that she had been warned - and not with the threat of banning, just “further action” - and had been given every opportunity to play nice. I never trapped her into acting one way or another, such as giving her no alternative BUT to act badly. So, since she had every opportunity not to misbehave and instead chose to misbehave, I was the one left with no alternative. So I banned her.

Well, you can see the forum this is in - this is mundane and pointless, not a debate! Just wanted to let Dopers know that I now know what it’s like to consider banning someone from doing something. This was definitely not an easy decision, and I can appreciate the admins here all the more because of it (and they do it on such a large scale, too). I didn’t want to ban anyone, and now I have. I just don’t know if I’m a better person for it - or, more importantly, if the board itself is better for it.

You power-hungry jack-booted thug! :stuck_out_tongue:
Hey, you did what you had to, and it seems you were more than fair. If people can’t play by the rules, then they deserve what they get.

Guess you were sort of like that old Far Side cartoon, with your finger over the “smite” key!

:stuck_out_tongue:

Don’t be hard on yourself at all.

I’m sure the other members of your board will go merrily on their way a little more relaxed because they don’t have to worry about running into this person’s behavior.

Heh. Good one, Dire Wolf! Smite, indeed!

There are only two of us running the board, which now has 100 members. I’ve told the other moderator not to mention this banning to anyone publicly, and that if anyone does ask her, she can send them along to me. I’ll then explain in private, and of course if I’m inundated with zillions of requests, I’ll make a statement. There’s nothing wrong with an informed populace, but I do feel that discretion is necessary. I’m sure some people will disagree with my actions, but I don’t want to plant the seed of dissent. There are other seeds I’d like to plant, but… :wink:

You’re talented. :wink:

I’m the admin for HRnet, a Cincinnati based human resouce message board. I’ve never gotten to ban anyone. That’s the problem with professional message boards. Everyone behaves because their reputation and career is on the line. No fun at all. Of course not much work either, thankfully.

if you enjoy banning people, I suggest you get OPs in a big channel on IRC. Then, you’ll be banning people every couple of hours…it becomes a pain after too long of doing this, so I just have a couple of bots that ban for scrolling, and that sort of stuff. I suppose this post was just as mundane and pointtless as the OPs…oh well

Oh no, **Evnglion **, I don’t enjoy banning people! Not in the least. If I did, I would have banned about 20 people right off the bat. But in the interests of making the board an enjoyable, entertaining place, I didn’t. Besides, if I abused the power, people would leave, and where would be the fun in that, I wonder? :wink: And yes, I’m well versed in the power-mad struggles of OPs on IRC channels.

So, dan, where is this board that is dedicated to people having a nice time while maintaining common decency?

Never mind. Some of the folks here aren’t capable of common decency.

Whoops! Didn’t see this as a new message, sorry. Well, drop, it’s a group that consists of people who chat in a particular channel on Prodigy Internet (at least what’s become of it nowadays). Anyone is welcome to come over, but I’m not sure how much interest it would hold for someone who’s not from there (it’s not like there are different forums you can play in, or a multitude of fun things to do; it’s more the company of the people). Anyway, the url is Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos you can sign up with a Yahoo ID or simply link an existing email address.

Here’s a quick update on The One Who Was Banned: Late yesterday afternoon, she emailed me. I’m sure this is what happens here, too, when people feel they’ve been slighted by a moderator or administrator. And this is where my SDMB experience was most useful! She bitched a bit and tried to explain herself, so what I did was respond to each part of her email on a point-by-point basis, methodically and logically. I left the door open for reinstatement; it’s better, IMO (and it’s a small board, so it’s not tough to do this), to have her come back and be productive and entertaining than to have her leave all pissed off - because then she’ll bitch to all of her friends, and they’ll get pissed, then maybe people will leave. Ok, so that’s a little farfetched, but I still think it’s better to leave the door open a crack. :slight_smile:

The person in question did come to an understanding with me; she was apologetic and contrite, so I offered to reinstate her immediately if she so desired. But I haven’t heard back, and that was a few weeks ago.

Since then, I’ve begun a new board. I find Yahoo to be too constrictive, so I registered a new place over at ezboards (as recommended by people on here), and I love it. :slight_smile: