Is it considered bad form to discuss specific instances of people being banned? I ask because whenever I see someone who’s been banned recently, I’m always curious to find out why they got banned. I think it’s the same curiosity that makes us gawk at accidents. For example, with YOZZER recently, I want to know what thread(s) led to his banishment, so I can go see how they progressed. But for some reason, I get the idea that talking about this stuff at all is taboo on the boards.
Seems pretty obvious why he got banned. What isn’t so obvious to me is why he can’t be prevented from starting new accounts again. His latest account is still active. By now he should be a “kill on sight” user.
He got banned because he’s a jerk. And he’s had three names, none of which have posting privileges. If I notice him again, I’ll remove his privileges again.
oddly enough, pheonix’s posts don’t have BANNED next to them. Anyway, if you want to see why someone gets banned, just hit the search button next under their name, and pull a list of the threads they posted to. The evidence is usually quite clear.
Well, it was quite obvious that YOZZER was going to get banned, but in general, my curiosity lies in whether or not there was a particular post which crossed the line and caused the admin to ban a particular person. There’s no way to tell from searches. All of YOZZER’s stuff, for example, seems equally jerky and annoying. Was it just a buildup, or did I miss someplace where he really blew it?
Whenever I am searching archives and I run across a post from a banned poster, I can’t help but think, “ooh, I wonder what this person did…” I guess it’s the gawker in me.
I do that too galt.
Its like driving past an accident - you cant help looking! And those threads that are locked… I HAVE to read those every time!
I am sick.
I do it too, kellibelli! I’ve even done a “last 60 days” search on the BBQ Pit…weird. I feel that I’ve learned a lot of what not to do, simply by reading the locked threads and the vacant ramblings of a few BANNED posters.
Either Tubadiva or Lynn explained this before. In order to ban someone, they merely have to change a selection the poster’s profile. This doesn’t automatically change the title, that must be entered in manually.
The title is merely descriptive, and it isnt necessarily connected with reality. For example, they could also put “Sex God to all the lovely ladies out there,” next to my name, but that would not necessarily make it so. But it couldn’t hurt. 
And Dr. Lao COULD send me a 50 pound box of Godiva chocolates, too. This wouldn’t automatically put “Sex God to all the lovely ladies out there” next to your name, but it couldn’t hurt.
Lynn, I think that the 50 kilos of chocolate would go stale before they got eaten.
A weekly tribute of enough chocolate to keep you and TubaDiva happy would do the trick. Fresh chocolate, because there is nothing nastier than stale.
I hate to nitpick, but that sounds like the hard way to do it, if that is what they are doing. What I did was create a new User Group called “Banned” that has no rights to perform any Board functions, and then if someone is banned I just click on the drop-down box in vBulletin and move them to that User Group. Then, they are banned, and their description shows up as “BANNED” on all posts they ever made within 1 second.
I mean…you can edit each individual User’s profile, but why? It seems like extra work. Coldfire mentioned in another thread that Mods had their individual profiles changed one at a time, rather than being added to a “Moderator” group. Not to stick my nose in too much - I’m sure there must be a logical reason for doing these two things this way, but I am uncertain why.
Well, to address Galt’s OP, yes, Ed Zotti has asked us all to refrain from public discussion of bannings, trolls, sock puppets, the reason being that it tends to excite them even more (the attention) and ultimately makes the problem worse.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=855768#post855768
And TubaDiva said:
Well, I am not an administrator, and I’ve never seen the Holy of Holies board control panel, but I can take a guess at Anthracite’s question. Perhaps we’re using different versions of vB? I know that the Powers that Be here don’t like to use the newest version of anything, until most of the bugs have been found (I don’t blame them). If you’re using the latest version, then this user group thing might be a recent addition.
First it was a one time shot for 50 lbs. now it’s 50 kilos a week? This is getting expensive. It will probably easier just to imagine I had a fancy title.
closes eyes
ahhh…I feel better now. 