Apparently you can simply stick a “BANNED” tag on someone, can’t post anymore, done deal, but all their posts are still there. Typical for long-term members natch.
Lately when I am bored and browse the latest Doper lists, I will sometimes come across the “You do not have permission to access this page” message–which is ok, presumably so that if a spammer or sock or such is involved, their profile and posts are all gone, no attention possible (or links in profiles visible).
But today I saw something odd. This afternoon I saw the name of the newest member at the bottom, “The Sundial”. But I just tried to find this person tonight, to no avail, going back 20 members worth into yesterday. So, is there a THIRD level of bannination, where you are cornfielded and become a non-person, like the account never existed? What circumstances would warrant such an action? Why isn’t the “no permission” choice sufficient in these cases? [not interested in this account specifically, just curious in general]
Although an admin can completely disappear an account, we generally don’t do that.
I don’t know what actually happened in this case, and out of respect for the user’s privacy I’m not going to ask our admin about it.
Here are some things that we have done in the past that would result in a similar situation:
-
Someone has a problem with their account. They either create a sock themselves so that they can contact our admin, or our admin asks them to create a new account so that they can test something. The sock account is then either deleted or merged in with their main account.
-
Someone created an account, then either they or someone else realized that it was very similar to the user name of an already existing account, and the account name was changed.
-
Someone behind the scenes on the technical side of things created an account just to test something, then deleted the account when they were done.
There are probably other possibilities that I’m not thinking of off the top of my head, but these are some of the types of things that can cause this to happen.
We don’t disappear accounts for spammers, socks, trolls, etc. Those are all just banned, so it’s nothing along those lines.
If a new user gets caught in our spam filter, you’ll get the “you do not have permission to access this page” message. They won’t just be disappeared, so it’s nothing like this either.
I would take this as another sign the system is failing around us. It’s a failure of search.
Nothing has been done to this account by anyone in management and the user is in good standing.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Might it be someone who, at the time you checked, was in the process of registering, but the process was not yet complete?
Conceivable, but even if they were one of those “Registered Users” who didn’t open their email to confirm their registration, they should still be visible in the user queue/have a user #. I didn’t recall seeing the user handle before, apparently he’s [she’s] been around for 7 years, low post count. Some posts on the day in question, but would have sworn it was in the new user field. <shrug>