Every now and then I read a post and see that BANNED tag under the user name. And I think to my self, “pity, seems like a fine fellow to me”.
Guess haven’t read the critical posts, but I wished I did because I always get curious. (“What did he do, what did he do? Tell me, tell me, what did he do?” - You know, like a ten year old when a classmate gets punished and you missed it all.)
Not asking about the forum rules, but rather from what you’ve noticed over time, the praxis if you will:
What’s the ususal reasons posters get banned from the SDMB?
Socks, where a poster with one username makes another account with another username, and trolling–saying deliberately inflammatory stuff and behaving badly (rule number one on the SDMB is ‘don’t be a jerk’)–are usually the reasons.
Mods will give out warnings for trollish behaviour before canning a poster, but socks are generally deleted straight off the bat.
Usually the poster in question is a sock, or a previously banned user who signed up again under a new name.
The reason they leave those posts intact is for board continuity. The spammers and bots are normally quickly discovered and their posts “deleted” (for lack of a better term). This doesn’t affect board continuity because they may have one or two posts or OPs. Deleting the posts of active socks is not only time consuming, it can leave confusing gaps in threads.
Oddly enough, I have not seen somebody banned for ‘being a jerk’ in quite some time, which I find strange, as this is toted as the cardinal rule of The Dope.
Then there are the total melt-downs, committing suicide-by-Mod. Some people seem to feel that when they want to leave someplace, they have to make sure everybody there thinks they’re completely bat-shit crazy.
BTW, asking questions about banning sends a warning flag to the mods, thinking that this must be a returning sock. You’ll be caaaaaarefully monitored for some time to come.
When a member of long standing is banned, there will usually be a message in ATMB listing some of their offenses. Here’s the most recent.
That particular one doesn’t list the banee’s offenses, but an earlier message suspending him did.
If there is no announcement then you can bet he’s a sock puppet.
A personal note: Frank removes a sock’s post the same as we all do, one at a time. He’s probably done the fewest removals. I have personally removed most of them, especially those of mental cases.
Most of the people who return under a different name are small timers, some of whom enjoy the board and just want to keep posting the next month but may not have the money(or choose to pay it). They come back one time, and when we find them and remove them, they usually give it up.
There is a second tier group who have a grudge against the board and may come back more than once(or twice) and come back over a period of time. They usually have a distinctive posting style, quite often are combative, thus making waves and making themselves easier to spot(thanks, guys!).
And there are an incredibly small number of posters who I personally think are mentally ill. While I can’t understand the mental process which would cause one to do this, they come back forever. And they don’t always post to cause trouble. They are simply looking for something. Some sense of community? Something lacking in their personal life(they don’t have one)? I’m of the opinion they either need to get back on medication or start medication.
Fortunately, like petty criminals, most returnees are (naively?) stupid. They are trying to do something that has a low percentage of success. Sure, you can get in a post or two, or maybe do it for a few days or weeks, but it’s almost impossible to maintain.