# Questions about accounts that show up as "BANNED" **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [December 3, 2019, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325 "2019-12-03T20:31:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrianDime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@BrianDime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrianDime)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2019, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/1 "2019-12-03T20:31:59Z")
Are all those folks actually banned, or is there an ability to set your status to “BANNED” as an inside joke? I checked the FAQ and didn’t see anything except for about “real” banning. I only ask b/c it seems somewhat common to find a fairly new thread where the OP is showing up as “BANNED”, but there doesn’t appear to be any mod comments or anything that would have led to the banning. The recent GD thread about Global Warning Denialists being an example. The OP shows “BANNED” but nothing in the thread seems amiss. Sorry if this is in the wrong space or has been covered before. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/2 "2019-12-03T20:36:23Z")
Your best best, besides PMing a mod and asking, is to click on their name and look at other things they’ve posted over the last few days. More often than not, you’ll find a few of those posts of a mod warning soon after them in the same thread. From there, you can put together the pieces. Also, if the person registered within the past few days, it’s possible that they made a few normal posts, but were otherwise spamming. And, yes, if it says BANNED, they’ve been banned. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2019, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/3 "2019-12-03T20:40:49Z")
> [@BrianDime](#): > > Are all those folks actually banned, or is there an ability to set your status to “BANNED” as an inside joke? A mod can give you the real answer, but I thought BANNED is not allowed as a custom title. Welcome to the SDMB. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2019, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/4 "2019-12-03T20:49:15Z")
> [@BrianDime](#): > > Are all those folks actually banned, or is there an ability to set your status to “BANNED” as an inside joke? I checked the FAQ and didn’t see anything except for about “real” banning. I only ask b/c it seems somewhat common to find a fairly new thread where the OP is showing up as “BANNED”, but there doesn’t appear to be any mod comments or anything that would have led to the banning. The recent GD thread about Global Warning Denialists being an example. The OP shows “BANNED” but nothing in the thread seems amiss. Sorry if this is in the wrong space or has been covered before. > > Thanks! If a poster gets banned, we don’t usually go to all their currently active threads to explain the reason for the banning. If the banned poster has been around for a while, we’ll post a thread in this forum, ATMB, explaining why they were banned. [I believe the thread you’re asking about was started by this guy.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=886064) FTR, we generally don’t start ATMB threads if we ban spammers or obvious, newly arrived trolls. You can also always PM a mod and ask why a particular poster was banned. ---
**Author:** ![BrianDime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@BrianDime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrianDime)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/5 "2019-12-04T15:36:36Z")
Great information/explanation! I wasn’t concerned with any specific instance, just that I see it pretty often and was curious. Thanks to all that helped! ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/6 "2019-12-04T19:07:48Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > A mod can give you the real answer, but I thought BANNED is not allowed as a custom title. > > Welcome to the SDMB. > > Regards, > Shodan I had thought that some “BANNED” titles were custom and not moderated action. Any mods want to clarify? ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/7 "2019-12-04T19:29:14Z")
Using ‘Banned’ as a custom title was asked and answered in [this thread.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=552461) The answer was no, not surprisingly. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/8 "2019-12-04T19:39:03Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > I had thought that some “BANNED” titles were custom and not moderated action. > > Any mods want to clarify? The mods _could_ set any title to BANNED or SUSPENDED without actually affecting the functionality of the account. Might be fun as an April Fool’s prank, but you’d need to run a script to change a large number of titles, then to change them back. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/9 "2019-12-04T19:48:13Z")
We do not allow confusing titles like BANNED. We also do not allow titles like Admin, Moderator, Staff, etc. Custom titles are supposed to be fun, so we do not allow profanity or anything extremely controversial or likely to cause offense. Your title can be self-deprecating, but you can’t insult someone else. Basically, you still have to follow the “don’t be a jerk” rule. See [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=552461) for more details. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/10 "2019-12-04T19:50:50Z")
Some user titles are linked to UserGroup settings. BANNED is linked to a UserGroup called, amazingly, Banned, which has zero privileges in it. We see quite a few spammers here. They don’t get to live long. And yes, they’re all Banned. Jenny your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/11 "2019-12-04T20:22:43Z")
It should be noted that title changes show up retroactively on all posts. So if someone sticks around for a while, and makes a bunch of posts (most of which are probably not problematic), and then does something (or a few somethings) that are extreme enough rule violations to get banned, then if you go back and look at all of the old threads they were in (OP or replies), all of those posts will say “BANNED” under their name. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-accounts-that-show-up-as-banned/844325/12 "2019-12-04T21:01:30Z")
Those you see with BANNED after their names is the reason this message board got turned around and none of us got ice-cream; Collectively they are the reason we just can’t have nice things. 😉