Some times when I note a banned user that had a very low or (very high) post count, I like to dig through some of their latest posts to see if I can figure out what they did to be banned. Today some link-surfing led me to a (short) thread where everyone who had posted in it is now banned. (I’m betting that there were fewer unique posters than there were usernames.)
Any idea what the longest thread is where everybody posting in it is now banned?
(Put here in the Pit instead of ATMB or MPSIMS because of the potential harshness in discussion of banned posters.)
This thread was from 2002. Back then I think it was much easier to get banned: now there is usually a systematic progression of warnings, suspensions and finally banning.
I can remember reading an old thread thinking great poster, then notice the poster is banned, do a search to see the explanation–and the reason seems to be that the poster challenged a mod’s authority–and immediately got banned.
It’s no easier to get banned now vs then from what I remember. There are only four posters in that thread and it’s sixteen years old. It’s not that unlikely.
What happens to you when you’re banned? Is it like hell? Or boredom? Maybe it pushes you over the cliff of normalcy into the pits of real people and real events. It must be horrendous!!
As PastTense says, it is much harder to get banned now than it was in the early days of the board. (Of course, excluding spammers, trolls, and socks, which then as now were shoot on sight.) It was fairly arbitrary early on; later it took the votes of just two mods (one of them an admin) to ban; now it takes a consensus of the mods. And we have a graded series of steps from warnings through suspension to banning. Procedures were formalized when the board went Pay-to-Post to avoid banning paying customers without clearly documented reasons.
This said, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were only two posters in that thread instead of four.
It’s certainly more formalized and less capricious now but in my opinion there were some posters who went on for years acting out who would have been banned sooner under a more formalized system. It’s tough to say. It was a more close knit place back then and more people knew each other personally.
If you look at the posters, the OP was banned within 10 minutes or so of starting that thread. Two of the other posters were banned within a few weeks and one of them was still active a couple years later.
I would agree that standards of behavior have tightened from the earliest days. On the other hand, the multiple warning/suspension system gives people the chance to change their behavior before they reach the brink.
Years ago, you would have been simply banned at the point that today gets a suspension. Posters petitioned to be allowed back in and were sometimes reinstated (but most ended up being banned again).
Do only posters who were permanently banned count, or do people who were temporarily banned count? Because there was that one time that Marley went mad on power and banned everybody…
Ahh, I remember that. I got SO much done… caught up on work, reorganized my closet, painted the house (inside and out), started our local Esperanto Club, ran a cutthroat campaign for Esperanto Club President, and still had time to learn Esperanto so I’d fit in.
But I do appreciate the mod notes and warnings that posters get nowadays. Partly so people can dial it back… but also because then I know to keep an eye on that thread for the drama of Death By Mod.
