In my experience, most posters never get warned or even noted. Of those that do, most will require only one or two notes or warnings, they learn from it, and don’t give us any more problems. A poster who requires frequent notes/warnings is quite rare.
All in all, I’d say that our system works pretty well as it is, and probably we don’t need to add repeat suspensions.
I’ve been there. My ban was lifted just a few hours later. Not providing a link or cite, just answering your question.
How utterly amazing!
My suggestion is to ban everyone who’s posted in this thread. Except for mods, of course…
Ooops…
Bye, all. Nice knowing you. 
It doesn’t seem terribly amazing to 99.9% of the board’s users. You might want to ask yourself why that is. Maybe it’s you, not the board. What’s “amazing” about it?
I cannot emphasize enough that the objective evidence clearly demonstrates that the board works well. Few people are ever warned. Few people who are warned are warned more than once in a blue moon; warnings (and thread closures where appropriate) almost always solve the problem. And the evidence strongly demonstrates that suspensions work once in awhile but usually don’t.
Complicating the suspension process is, in my humble opinion (and I held this opinion before my recent appointment as moderator of one of the lesser forums) a complete, utter waste of time and a virtual guarantee of far more complaints, far more confusion over the rules, and much worse quality of moderation. Furthermore, since the avalanche-overwhelmingly-sized percentage of posters seem fine with the way the board is run, arguments to substantially change it don’t carry a lot of evidential weight.
Someone who doesn’t get the message from a two-week suspension isn’t going to get the message from a suspension of any length. And once they’ve demonstrated that they’re not going to get the message ever, why beat around the bush?
Eureka! I’ve got it. The problem seems to be that anything short of a banning really isnt any punishment at all (which is why I support a LONG suspension so that it at least hurts). Now the sequence is more like a bunch of finger wagging, a parking ticket, then a fatal ride in ole’ sparky.
A serious infraction, or some significant number of minor ones in a short period of time means your susbscription is cancelled or you now have to subscribe/resubscribe to post again.
???
Profit!
Repeat as neccessary. Heck, they could even change the motto to “banning assholes for fun and profit”. Gold plated ban hammers for everyone! 
Yeah, that would probably only attract rich assholes with free time on their hands.
Back to the pre banning suspension length. I think there are two ways to look at that. One, that some have expressed, is that bad posters won’t get the message. And thinking about it that way is basically asking how long is long enough? I think another way to look at what the suspension length is to ask “How long would be too long?”. Given that I can come up with several reasons why a long suspension is good and no reasons why a short one is good (or better) I think we (yeah I’m French) should err on the long side rather than the short side. It would probably only rarely “save a soul” so to speak, but I can’t see how it would hurt.
Just wanted to say that I approve of both the current warning/suspension/banning policy, and the recent direction it’s taken. Keep up the good work, mods!
Nah. It IS a waste of time. Let’s face it. Not one recent banning has been a surprise to those that knew the history of the banned poster. Just because someone is a prolific poster doesn’t mean they are either 1) intelligent or 2) have some divine right to do as they please (even if it sometimes appears that way) on the boards. I’d argue that the mods in many cases bend over backwards to keep a long-time or prolific poster around. Much longer than the board rules imply that they should. And even THEN, with rules stretched beyond the tensile strength of steel, they still can’t help themselves. And for all the predicted doom for the board, the brain drain, the posters the board cannot live without, the board is still here. The posters are not missed by the vast majority of the TM. In fact, I’d argue that the absence of certain posters has made the board a **better **experience.
This is one of the strangest posts I’ve read in a long time. Did you read it again before you hit the “Submit Reply” button? Seriously, you contend that if we take you as an example, your behavior **might be changed if you received another suspension instead of being banned? I don’t know your history, but you claim that you’ve been warned several times, and suspended once. And yet despite your best intentions :dubious:, you’ll probably be banned someday. And your argument is that if ONLY you received another long suspension at some future date, instead of that final banning, that you’d 1) have a chance to think about your bad posting habits, and 2) you ***might ***decide to change your ways. :dubious:.
The fact that you are still posting with your history and “interesting” thought process should tell you about the leniency of the board and the mods. I suspect that if you are truly concerned about the value of your contributions and feel that many readers of this board will be deprived of reading “whatever it is that [you] do contribute”:dubious:, you may want to decide to do that self-evaluation now before it’s too late. I’m not sure the board could survive your banning or not. But since according to you it’s only a matter of time, when it happens I’ll be happy to start the timer. I’m guessing it will survive, but hey… who knows? Here’s an idea. If you really think your postings are invaluable, perhaps starting a blog would be in order. That way, those that are doomed to be deprived of your wisdom will have an alternative way to get it.
Honestly, after reading your post, I don’t know how/why the mods do it.
This is seriously one of the most perplexing things I have seen posted. You admit to having received numerous Warnings and even been suspended in the past. You know the rules of the board, and you know that repeat suspensions are rare, and that the next step after suspension is banning. Yet somehow if the punishment process of this board had been stricter you would learn your lesson and reassess your posting style, but because the board is more lenient, you aren’t going to undergo that self analysis that you admit you should? WTF?
I think it is possible to assess a poster’s merits vs detractions and decide that even with some good merits, the detractions are sufficient that they shouldn’t post any more. Sure, it is a loss on their good contributions, but think of all those good contributions we are missing out on because people don’t know about this place. Think of all the good contributions we are missing out on because the possible contributor doesn’t have internet access. Think of all the wonderful contributions we could get if only the contributors weren’t dead.
The assessment of whether someone is a “good poster” or not goes on more than just the good posts. It also has to be measured with their bad posts.
Is there an echo in here? :eek:
…ECHO…Echo…echo…echo…
Yeah, I saw that, but had already worked up on the issue and had to say my piece.
LMK when you guys are done echoing, and I’ll be glad to respond…
If you respond, we might not need the echos…
This is an aging population. A lot of us have been here over a decade, and to us I suppose a year-long suspension would be very functionally different from a permanent ban.
I’ve felt exactly the same way for a long time, right down to :dubious:ing at all the banned users in old threads. For some reason I’ve always felt really bad for weirddave, who met his wife here and now can never post here again.
Every time I look in my usercp I see 3 old “infractions” - all over a year and a half old - for ridiculous, petty little things. Why do these NEVER expire?
According to my own User CP data they are set to never expire. My guess is so they can keep track over time. IIRC, though, it’s infractions that happen in close proximity that get you into real trouble…so, if you got 3 new ones in close succession, that’s when you should worry, especially if they give you a time out as well.
-XT
And today we learned it is possible to go from zero to banned in the space of a single thread.
Aaah! We’ve banned trolls a lot faster than that. It depends of the level of trollery.
(And maccy got our attention in several separate threads where he did not catch a Warning, but that did add to the overall level of evidence for his intentions.)
“Oh, won’t you
Gimme three steps, gimme three steps, mister
Gimme three steps toward the door?
Gimme three steps, gimme three steps, mister
And you’ll never see me no more”
For, sure