One outcome I could see is that this would enable a form of stalking… you could just monitor the forum of shame for activity from a poster you dislike, take note of what sets him off and how many warnings he has, and bait him accordingly until he’s suspended or banned. Someone who is a warning short of punishment could easily become a punching bag. And they probably deserve it, but it’s not really a fair way to run things.
So…you’re inconveniencing posters intentionally? For something that’s perfectly allowable within the rules?
Look–we know a number of the SDMB administration absolutely hates “So-and-so was banned? Why?” threads (as well as “So-and-so is gone! YAY!” threads which are also legal)
For some reason the SDMB has been schizophrenic about this: “We would prefer you don’t start these threads” isn’t a reasonable board policy–it’s not a prohibition and something close to 100% of bannings and suspensions of members over 100 or so posts prompt a thread so there’s clearly a demand for this kind of thread but this has been the non-policy since at least about 2005 or so.
All this is doing is frustrating people: it seems like some of the mods are frustrated that people keep posting these (see Tuba’s response above) despite the stated preference to and some of the posters are frustrated because–these threads are legal: why try to slow down/prevent legal threads?
It seems to me that the policy isn’t trying to obstruct any legal threads… just to separate the announcement from the discussion, and avoid the appearance that the administration approves of the dog-pile that often follows. Often a good old-fashioned dogpile is cathartic, gratifying, and merited, but I see the need for the administration to keep their official communications separate from that sort of rabble. It’s a good policy but they need to articulate the rationale more clearly. Using the policy as a way to obstruct non-prohibited discussion sounds really silly because it’s obviously next to useless.
Now this is a good point, and probably a better justification than the idea that people will be hesitant to open a new thread. I frankly don’t see any reason why it is better that the discussion happen in the announcement thread.
On the other hand, to the statement that the necessity of opening a new thread is an inconvenience to our posters, all I can say is - if pressing the “New Thread” button is too inconvenient for you, maybe posting at a message board is not for you. I seem to be hearing two things: 1) Why do you think people won’t start a new thread anyway? and 2) It is so inconvenient for someone to have to start a new thread!
If we have a new thread every time anyway (which we don’t), then where does the inconvenience come in?
After thinking about the idea of making the list of warnings public, and reading your post, I think I will change my vote from a “don’t care” to a firm “bad idea”. The justification for the proposal that I have seen in this thread was “It will help the newbies know how to post at the SDMB”. But then I think back on what I’ve read in ATMB, and realize that the vast majority of threads I recall are not newbies asking “how can I post here without breaking the rules?” 95% of the people (and that’s probably a low estimate) seem to be able to figure that out and post here without any warnings or getting banned. I rarely, if ever, see someone asking “If I post this, will I get warned?” And the few questions I have seen of that type were easily answered by a link to the rules stickies in ATMB, there was no need to refer to past warnings to answer the question. “Newbie” questions are usually of the type “how do I use the spoiler” or technical queries in that vein.
If the public list of warnings were to be made available, the main people who would peruse it are the people who like to dredge up old grievances, use them in personal attacks at the board, or dwell on old warnings obsessively. Rather than being a help to newbies (which would be the intent, I assume), instead it will end up making discussions amongs long-timers more acrimonious. There, that’s my gloom and doom prediction. Take it for what it’s worth: about 10 ¢.
That makes a lot more sense and I cast two votes:
- Cosmic Relief for King of the Board
- Keep the thread separate.
Oh, just a few inconveniences that could be avoided. All just minor stuff, I suppose.
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One thread rather than two is less cluttered.
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Occasionally people start several threads about a suspension or banning. Maybe better if people are only respond to the announcement.
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When I see a discussion thread, I usually have to search for the announcement, in order to discover the reason for banning. It would be a little more convenient to have it at the top of the discussion.