What are the odds of a random poster being banned?
Well, Cat Whisperer has been with us since 2000, but that may have changed since I last checked. Right now I can’t really say whether she’s banned, not banned, or in some sort of weird suspended-position.
The thing is, it really is not that hard to stay without warnings. I’ve been here since 2002, and been posting regularly since 2004 (I think - I could be off a bit). I don’t believe I have ever incurred even one warning. I don’t think I’ve even been told to “knock it off” by a mod.
You should look at all the people who have stayed here for years and years and not gotten in any trouble.
Off to double check my join date.
ETA: Joined 11-19-01. But I know I didn’t post much at all for the first two years or so.
Well, I joined in 2003 and haven’t gotten a warning, so I agree that it’s not too tough.
Me too - I hardly posted the first year (2008) beyond my Ron thread - I was trying to get the lay of the land. Plus, I found out about SDMB because of my new bf - and I didn’t want to look too stupid!
But yes, no real warnings today.
That is one heck of an example of staying cool under pressure :D:D:D:D:D
P.S. PM I believe I saw a reference to firing glasses in a post of yours… what’s your mother’s number? 
That’s some old fashioned socking right there. You don’t see very much of that around here anymore.
Huh? Firing Glasses? Mother’s number? What you talkin bout, Willis?
I would kinda like to think that we are all random in our own ways.
Oh, not what you meant? 
Don’t open that box.
What I find amusing is socking, then stalking your alter ego, and then posting inflammatory remarks that would draw moderator action, including possibly banning for behavior. Yeah, just what you want to do, draw a target on your alter so the Mods start looking for you to return as a sock.
My mistake, I am under the impression you have been taught to cautious about such things 
One thing I gotta ask, how many regular posters are there to begin with? It seems to me that the average poster only ever makes a handful of posts, then vanishes never to return. Out of 80,000 users that have signed up only a tiny minority ever become regulars. It’s easy to not get warnings if you only ever made 30 posts.
How many people are there with, say, more than 1000 posts? Or who maintain an average of 1.0 posts per day or better?
You say the ratio is maybe 1 in 500. Really? Maybe a dozen regular posters get banned per year. Are there really 6000 regular posters active at any given time? It doesn’t seem like that many.
I think the proportion is a bit higher than 1 in 500.
We don’t want to get into too much detail – Creative Loafing is a privately held company and does not disclose a lot of data publicly.
Last year we banned over 950 registrations from the board. All but 8 of them were spammers or socks, with the overwhelming number being of the spam variety.
And no, those 8 weren’t “regular posters.” Regular posters don’t get warned and warned and warned and suspended and banned for bad behavior. Those are irregular posters, if anything.
Sorry that my question is putting you on the spot TubaDiva. It must be tough riding herd on a bunch of math geeks. Again, thanks for the information you are able to supply.
By “regular posters” I meant those who are not spammers, socks, or short-term trolls. I was not indicating how active they are as posters.
While I have no direct information on the board population, we get something like 3000-4000 posts per day. While of course many people post several times a day, many only post a few times a week or less. During the course of a year, I’m sure we get posts by several thousand individual users.
I think that’s a good practice to observe.
I’m not sure I get the OP or the attempts to math it out. No one is “randomly” banned, and mistakes are cleared up via PM/e-mail. Perhaps there was a new poster or two that were mistakenly banned spambots and didn’t return, but any figure assigned to that would be wholly arbitrary, wouldn’t it? (Er, the “wouldn’t it” is an invitation for those with actual math/statistical skills to please correct me if needed).
Small aside-Am I the only one to check the records to see if anyone named A Random Poster had been banned?
Come to think of it, we haven’t heard from Random in a long time.
Random – guest (last posted 01-02-2008; military intelligence stuff)
Random Axis – no matches
Random Design – guest (still posting)
Random Nerd – no matches
Random Order – no matches
Random Sample – no matches
Random Scrub – guest (last posted 12-24-2000; looks like he or she was scooped by Santa)
Random skylark – no matches
Random,too – no matches
Random1 – guest (last posted 18-19-2003; something about getting lucky)
Random5 – guest (last posted 07-02-2006; off in multiple time/space dimensions)
Randomantic – no matches
Randomatica – no matches
Randomdoc – no matches
Randomer13 – guest (last posted 18-17-2006; lost in Palestine)
Conclusions:
6.666667% random posters still posting
33.33333% random posters drifted off or were kidnapped
60.00000% random posters could not light a rescue fire if they tried
0% random posters banned (unless they were disappeared)
I wonder how many posters who drifted off were eaten by their own cats?
This thread has 60 posts, by 29 distinct people (8 of whom are SDMB staff). None of them have been banned.
In case you’re interested, most have only posted once to the thread, as for the others:
Attack from the 3rd dimension 8
StusBlues 7
TubaDiva 4
Colibri 4
Marley23 4
Peter Morris 3
Rhythmdvl 3
xash 3
melodyharmonius 2
Muffin 2
Angry Lurker 2