This question from a longtime lurker and infrequent poster… I was reading the posts over in GD as I am usually inclined to do on a slow Tuesday afternoon, and I noticed that a poster named “Morgan” had been banned. I’ve seen plenty of trolls here before, and you can usually tell from an exmaination of their recent posts why they’ve been banned. So I thought I’d go find out what rudeness or mayhem Morgan had been spreading, and I did a search of his (her?) recent posts. But I found something a little odd… there was nothing offensive or stupid or baiting, etc. etc.
So my question is, what did they do that got them banned?
99.99% probability that he had the same IP number as a previously banned poster. “Banned” means “banned permanently”, not “banned until you come back under another name”.
Morgan was banned because we asked him – nicely – to refrain from doing something that was a violation of forum rules, a question of etiquette more than anything else.
His response was to get nasty towards the moderator of the affected forum. Wrong answer.
Let me quote a couple of lines from the registration agreement:
The first rule of the Straight Dope is “Don’t Be a Jerk.”
The second (unofficial) rule is “Don’t piss off the moderators.”
TubaDiver - Trying to make this sound as respectfull as possible, may I ask the reasons his thread in the pit was deleted? (if this is honestly the case.)
Myself, and others recieved an email from him concerning this. It included some of the conversations between Manhattan and him. (I won’t post this as Manhattan’s email was considered a private letter, and I believe it would cause more trouble than it’s worth.)
Your reasons for banning him are of course your business. And I can understand why you did. (Personaly I think he was more of a hothead who felt he was being wronged than any real trouble maker, but shrug it’s your board.)
What I am unsure of is the reason for deleting his post in The Pit. Is this standard practice or is this just an exceptional case?
I had thought that the policy was to lock such threads, not delete them. Would you explain it to me clearer so I have a better idea of it?
Again, I intend no disrespect. I am merely curious as to the policies on deleting threads, and what constitutes deleting such a thread.
No harm, no foul, dear heart. Ask all the questions you like.
How we handle a particular post or thread depends on the forum, the thread, and the post . . . the rules are slightly different in some areas (the use of some insults is okay in the Pit, it’s not in General Questions, to give just one example). Everything is handled on a case by case basis and the determinations can be different in every case.
Sometimes we lock a thread, sometimes we delete it. It varies.
In this situation, we asked this poster politely to make changes and he got up in our faces and got nasty. We don’t have to put up with that kind of bad behavior on this board; posting is a privilege and not an inalienable right. And it’s really too bad, it wasn’t necessary for him to be like this. He’s absolutely in the wrong; he started wrong and continued.
Furthermore, it was wrong for Morgan to send this sort of begging email to other people; that falls under the “do not annoy or harass” section of our registration agreement.
Well, thaks for the honest answer. And sorry about the nick typo, seriously, that was an honest mistake on my part. Can’t believe I did that… it’s been a really off day.
And if we notice it, he gets banned again. Anyone who’s banned needs to contact an administrator to see about getting unbanned. Some folks are banned for life, most aren’t. But just coming back with a new handle is NOT the way to do it.
OK, you say he’s “banned for life”.
But, he obviously CAN come back or you couldn’t “ban him again”.
Isn’t that the most obvious contradiction? Or am I missing something?
And TubaDiva, you are putting words into my mouth. I never said that rules are breakable. I just said I hope he comes back and gets a new name, i.e, that you let him back in and give him a new name. He can’t keep the current one after this thread, because people will always be throwing it in his face.
It seems he was really smart, and an asset to the board.
You seem to be hesitant to say what the dispute was about, so I assumed it was one of the kind you can get past and get on with the main topics instead of the banning topic all the time.
The Banned for Life thing is more of a motto than a fact, so it can’t really be dissected.
It’s more of a label than anything they do. I’m sure they can’t ban an IP, or all the users of one ISP would drop out at once, willy nilly.
But it still hurts the Banned One. Words hurt, especally when you have to come back in disguise and continue posting in fear of Outing. (Although, I do think they Out some people that aren’t due for it at all, but that’s another discussion.)
BTW, nice picture on the People Pages. Can’t see your face, but can tell you never lit up a cigarette before.
Are you sure you were really that sweet?
Sure doesn’t sound like you guys.
Then you trash Piano for saying he was a good poster; That’s more your style.
It seems the first rule should read “Don’t be a jerk, just because you see us do it”.
You always try to look so innocent, then edit the other guy’s arguments out and declare yourself the true victim.
Then when proven to be a bully you fall back on “Well it’s my sandbox, so my mommy says I can throw sand in anyone’s eyes I want to.”
Whenever you do that you lose all credibility. You can always con the Duck Duck Geese of the world, but like Lincoln said, you can’t fool all the people all the time.
I’m quoting and answering more than one person here:
Nope. I said that some people get banned for life. Morgan isn’t one of them. Getting banned for life generally involves making threats against the MB, like spamming it, or suing the Reader and assorted people connected with it.
Some idiots come back with a new email and handle after being banned. However, their STYLE doesn’t change. So, when we find an old pain in the butt who’s been banned but who has resurfaced with a new name, we ban him again. The PERSON gets banned, not the handle. If someone we’ve never seen before pops in and starts up with an old argument, we start looking real hard at that person. Maybe it’s a lurker, but more likely it’s someone who’s been banned.
Morgan was warned of inappropriate behavior, and chose to ignore it. What’s more, Morgan then started using a nasty sig directed against a mod, and blocked email from a mod. After that, Morgan mass emailed all the mods and apparently quite a few posters.
Let me clear something up. When you check the box about allowing email from the administration, you are NOT opting out of email warnings and such. You’re opting out of mass email (though it’s not commercial email). For instance, we had a hacker break into the database a while back. We mass mailed all who accepted email from the administration, warning people to change their passwords. That’s the ONLY time we’ve used that feature. We don’t sell or rent or otherwise make available our email database, even though it would net us some money.
Nobody said ANYTHING bad about Piano giving his opinion about Morgan. Piano’s rebuke was for suggesting that someone defy the rules. Apparently, Piano meant that Morgan should apologize and be allowed back on. That IS within the rules.
Generally, we don’t edit out the other guy’s arguments, we leave them in. We might close off a thread, but that’s not editing stuff out.
If you are not happy here, then there are plenty of other playgrounds. If you want to start up your own, go right ahead, we won’t even try to stop you. However, if you don’t moderate a message board, it will become overrun with spam and flame wars.
