# You're banned from this thread **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [April 13, 2011, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223 "2011-04-13T13:48:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/21 "2011-04-13T14:47:41Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Not sure I follow. Lemme try an example. In this example, a mod would probably say “this is a hijack, and we’re done with this now.” I’m just saying there could be over examples where the tangent is less crazy and the problem is more with how the individual poster is talking about it. In a situation like that, I’d hesitate to tell other people they couldn’t discuss the topic in that thread. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/22 "2011-04-13T14:48:26Z")
How about we just support free speech instead of trying to supernanny every discussion to make sure nobody gets their feelings hurt, or God forbid, departs from the hive mind… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/23 "2011-04-13T14:52:04Z")
Nobody is supernannying anything, and it has nothing to do with hurt feelings. We’re talking about a different way to handle something that the moderators already deal with on a regular basis. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/24 "2011-04-13T14:52:10Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Because there’s no reason to. Even if there is. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/25 "2011-04-13T14:58:22Z")
If you think someone is breaking a rule, by all means use the report function. If they aren’t breaking a rule, then there is no issue. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/26 "2011-04-13T15:01:22Z")
Capital idea. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/27 "2011-04-13T15:02:48Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > If you think someone is breaking a rule, by all means use the report function. If they aren’t breaking a rule, then there is no issue. Is this a real post? _If you think someone is breaking a rule, by all means use the report function._ Pretty fucking obvious. _If they aren’t breaking a rule, then there is no issue._ Pretty fucking irrelevant/obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/28 "2011-04-13T15:03:45Z")
Good. So there isn’t any point in making a new rule. Everything is already covered. If someone is breaking a rule, they can already be warned. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/29 "2011-04-13T15:03:58Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > If you think someone is breaking a rule, by all means use the report function. If they aren’t breaking a rule, then there is no issue. We’re talking about people who are breaking rules: > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > This could be used when one or more posters is hijacking a thread into back-and-forth bickering that’s only tangentially related to the OP, or just plain threadshitting. ---
**Author:** ![multimediac17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/30 "2011-04-13T15:09:13Z")
I think this would be an excellent idea. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/31 "2011-04-13T15:09:15Z")
> [@Implicit](#): > > So everyone posting in the thread can no longer respond to any posts by the offender? No one can correct whatever ignorance the offender posted? What about posts made by the user that were on topic and occurred before whatever the offender did to get themselves banned from the thread? That makes no sense. > > If you are really concerned with people responding to posts made by the person who has been banned from the thread, then their offending posts should be removed from the thread. **LHoD** said it a bit more eloquently than I did. As for ignorance? Most likely, I’d assume, the reason for the thread ejection would be either trolling or taking the thread off-topic. As for removing the posts, well, that seems problematic in two ways. One, their posts may have been on-topic at some point and then veered off later. Causing a mod to figure out which ones to keep/delete. Two, manually deleting posts may/may not be a function of this board and if so, may be a tedious one. I’d prefer not piling more work onto a mod’s plate. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/32 "2011-04-13T15:11:35Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No. This just sounds like a way to try to stifle unpopular opinions. If someone is violating a rule, there are already warnings the mods can impose. I don’t see this as based on opinion so much as behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/33 "2011-04-13T15:11:43Z")
> [@](#): > > This could be used when one or more posters is hijacking a thread into back-and-forth bickering that’s only tangentially related to the OP, or just plain threadshitting. When that happens on the board I moderate, we issue an in thread instruction to get back on topic. Sometimes, if a tangent has some intrinsic merit, albeit off-topic, we split those posts of into a separate thread. If it’s just a couple of posters bickering, we sometimes split those posts off into our equivalent of the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/34 "2011-04-13T15:15:29Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > As for removing the posts, well, that seems problematic in two ways. One, their posts may have been on-topic at some point and then veered off later. Causing a mod to figure out which ones to keep/delete. Two, manually deleting posts may/may not be a function of this board and if so, may be a tedious one. I’d prefer not piling more work onto a mod’s plate. We handled this on my old board by editing offending posts into oblivion. They’d look like one of these two things when we were done: > [@](#): > > [Mod note: post removed for violating board guidelines] or > [@](#): > > Ponies! I like ponies! And rainbows! I love rainbows! And board rules! I’ll follow board rules next time I post! But that board was a little bit sillier than this one, and it was a little bit of extra work, and I don’t really think that’d be suitable for this board. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/35 "2011-04-13T15:20:59Z")
> [@Implicit](#): > > So everyone posting in the thread can no longer respond to any posts by the offender? No one can correct whatever ignorance the offender posted? What about posts made by the user that were on topic and occurred before whatever the offender did to get themselves banned from the thread? That makes no sense. This is kind of my feeling. My suggestion would be that you ban the person from the thread, but make it very clear why and tell people they are to stop _that_ conversation. So if **John** is in a thread about which kid movie is the best and starts in about how anything under PG can’t be a good movie, but later goes on to start a discussion about grown people seen G rated movies being pedophiles, the mod might first attempt to stop the discussion. If **John** \* continues the pedophile argument, he gets banned. The mod makes it clear they are banning John for the pedo argument and the no one is to bring it up in this thread, they can’t start another blah blah blah. At this point, however, I wouldn’t see a problem with people discussing John’s points on on PG/G movies not being good, so long as they didn’t drift back into pedo territory again. John, however, having been warned and ignoring the warning, will have lost his privilege to post in that thread. \*And I’m not talking about just bringing up the subject, I mean bringing it up to the point of being annoying and picking fights with other posters. Personally, I’d rather see the rules eased up on this board and the mods allowed to use some more discretion. It makes me worried when there’s talk of starting rules about closing threads for ‘thread drift’ when it’s just something the mods are trying to start so they have a method to close problem threads. Personally, I like thread drift, it makes it interesting, besides, even if the thread drifts, there’s no reason why you can’t get it to drift back or have more then one conversation going on at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/36 "2011-04-13T15:21:34Z")
We do shut down hijacks, tell posters to start a new thread or take it elsewhere, and once in a while we’ll break off a hijack into a new thread. We don’t do that very often because the resulting thread can look like kind of a mess - you get an OP that isn’t really an OP, posts that are partly about the tangent and partly about the original hijack, and sometimes it screws up the original thread. But we do it when it’s called for. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/37 "2011-04-13T15:21:36Z")
Is there a value to creating a new intermediate category of a poster who is allowed to post but not in particular threads? A new intermediate category that will _sometimes_ be used, depending on a mod’s interpretations of the nature of the hijack, perhaps? It does seem complicated. Why go to this trouble to, in effect, _preserve limited posting rights_ for counterproductive people? Why not just Warn, suspend, Warn again if you like, and ban? I share the feeling that some threads with possible potential remaining value have been closed because existing enforcement measures _were not_ activated in a timely way. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/38 "2011-04-13T15:23:15Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > But what is the value of creating a new intermediate category of a poster who is allowed to post but not in particular threads? I don’t think we’ve ever said “You are not allowed to post about the topic,” and that’s not what this thread is proposing. We’re talking about kicking a poster out of an individual thread where he’s causing a disturbance. > [@](#): > > I share the feeling that some threads with possible potential remaining value have been closed because existing enforcement measures _were not_ activated in a timely way. That does happen sometimes, and it’s one reason to consider this idea as another option. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/39 "2011-04-13T15:29:27Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I don’t think we’ve ever said “You are not allowed to post about the topic,” and that’s not what this thread is proposing. We’re talking about kicking a poster out of an individual thread where he’s causing a disturbance. I can think of [one recent incident](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13528739&postcount=135)where it was justly done. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223/40 "2011-04-13T15:29:50Z")
Good idea in theory, ugly in practice. There are already a handful of instances where a mod has banned a topic in a thread, which generally (though not always) brings things back to the original OP circus tent. In cases where the mods feel the hijack is severe, there are also general thread instructions to keep on topic (these are most prevalent in GQ). If the poster is a true one-trick pony, they won’t be back to the thread or will either disappear from the thread or get a warning/eventual suspension/ban. Kicking otherwise rounded posters out of threads for straying will diminish the overall content of a thread–particularly as \*\*Dio \*\*said, it will likely be handed out to unpopular opinions. But even when it’s not, losing the input of a poster because some of their in-thread comments were derailing is going too far. I hope this is an innocuous example: Once upon a time, **Argent Towers** couldn’t let any thread with the words “assault weapon” go by without a long, detailed diatribe about what they were not. It got frustrating in many threads, I believe he was pitted for it, and it came up in various Pit threads. But expelling him from a gun thread would have been cutting our toes off to spite two in our bush. (Note I thought of this as an innocuous example because IME, this hasn’t happened in ages). So: There are already mechanisms–directives to stay on topic or to refrain from a particular topic–in place. There are more negative consequences to expelling posters from select threads than benefits–especially if the above mechanisms are used. The ATMB volume will skyrocket in complaints of mod bias, mod persecution, and general unfairness whines. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-banned-from-this-thread/578223.md?page=3)