1) I have one friend

2) She got banned for getting into a fight with someone who was bullying her and almost drove her to suicide

1. Yes, but most I never really talked to that much.

2.I heard about how they were banned because of other members, but so far all their reasons are valid. Rules are the rules, and if any member does something that is against policy, than they must face the consequences. The mods are only doing their job by doing what is necessary unless proven otherwise.

1) I have one friend

2) She got banned for getting into a fight with someone who was bullying her and almost drove her to suicide

1. Yes, but most I never really talked to that much. 2.I heard about how they were banned because of other members, but so far all their reasons are valid. Rules are the rules, and if any member does something that is against policy, than they must face the consequences. The mods are only doing their job by doing what is necessary unless proven otherwise.

Thank you for participating.

A couple of my friends were banned, and I have no idea why. I do like the suggestion of making public ban times and reasons (after all, warnings and issues are public). We are a tight-knit, trusting community here and we need to know for sure what's going on here. When there is a disruption, we need to know its nature so that we can be sure that it happened in the best interest of the forums and we could learn from it as to the exact bounds of what goes and what doesn't on this site.

I honestly think they just need to do two things: Chill with the perma bans and actually discuss things with people, communicate, try to resolve problems, instead of just jumping to the ban button.

That is what I think needs to be done. There is so much secrecy and barely anything is really resolved. Plus, I think perma banning is very unnecessary in most cases and all it does is scatter the community further.

Yes o have had like 5 friends banned and while it sucks there are very easy rules to follow on this site and they are pretty basic, you know no NSFW, so I agree with em. And no, I'm not a mod but a ban list would only start unnessicary drama, don't need more of that

This has been discussed multiple times, and the decision has been that "bans will not be made public". The most prevalent issue is that the banning of a popular member seems to incite anger in friends/known associates/etc., and it creates a hurricane of backlash that simply isn't practical to deal with. Besides, some of the things people have been banned for were bad enough that people really shouldn't want to know why.

A year or two back, there was a terrible storm of users either leaving (one every couple of days), being banned (in which users started being generally unruly if it was someone they liked), or just were difficult to deal with. I remember talking to some of the mods/admins who were having to deal with it, and it was insanity.

It was part of the reason I left for 6 months+; the whole community just turned sour for a long duration of time.

This also leads into stuff like "well why was my friend X banned when user Y posted something similar?". In the end, it has to be a human that makes that call, and humans are inherently flawed. judgement calls are hard to make, and someone is bound to disagree with them.

As for me, I'm not sure where I stand. I probably tilt towards the "keep bans silent" side of the fence, since there's no real reason to promote ideas of negativity.

 

While I appreciate the concern shown by some here, the fact of the matter is that none of you have access to all the information. I'm not trying to be mean-spirited and dismissive -- that's just the truth. We don't like airing dirty laundry in public, and it behooves me to say that these sorts of discussions, though sometimes pursued with the best of intentions, are not helpful. It's guesswork at best, misinformation and hearsay at worst.

Bear in mind that we find ourselves banning a lot of dummy accounts. Such accounts are often used to circumvent certain forum restrictions. Warnings are then often issued to the primary accounts, which may give the appearance of people "disappearing" without a trace. More often than not, however, these are "members" who have multiple iterations.

We do our best to accommodate members who break the rules, but sometimes rules are broken and warnings must be handed out. More often than not we'll send a PM rather than give a warning; however, repeat offenses will happen.

Our decision to withhold information is practical: we don't want to fan the flames of drama, and it would be laborious to publicize each and every single ban on record. It's not a matter of maintaining some sort of aura of secrecy; rather, it's a matter of privileged information.

In sum, please avoid trying to figure out a public problem with little more than inference.

Thank you everyone for participating.

While I appreciate the concern shown by some here, the fact of the matter is that none of you have access to all the information. I'm not trying to be mean-spirited and dismissive -- that's just the truth. We don't like airing dirty laundry in public, and it behooves me to say that these sorts of discussions, though sometimes pursued with the best of intentions, are not helpful. It's guesswork at best, misinformation and hearsay at worst.

 

Bear in mind that we find ourselves banning a lot of dummy accounts. Such accounts are often used to circumvent certain forum restrictions. Warnings are then often issued to the primary accounts, which may give the appearance of people "disappearing" without a trace. More often than not, however, these are "members" who have multiple iterations.

 

We do our best to accommodate members who break the rules, but sometimes rules are broken and warnings must be handed out. More often than not we'll send a PM rather than give a warning; however, repeat offenses will happen.

 

Our decision to withhold information is practical: we don't want to fan the flames of drama, and it would be laborious to publicize each and every single ban on record. It's not a matter of maintaining some sort of aura of secrecy; rather, it's a matter of privileged information.

 

In sum, please avoid trying to figure out a public problem with little more than inference.

I understand, but you have to at least consider how efficient and productive this would be. Secondly, if everyone's "dirty laundry" is aired, people will be less likely to complain about ban decisions because they will know what happened. "Guesswork and misinformation" would also cease to be an issue if my idea were adopted.

Now, if the laundry you're handling is really quite dirty, you would simply put "User banned for [ ]" and leave it at that.

 

"Guesswork and misinformation" would also cease to be an issue if my idea were adopted.

No, it wouldn't. Instead we would have people saying, "Oh, I heard X was the real reason for why they were banned." Hearsay remains a part of the process. What you lead out the front door you let in through the back.

Regardless, this matter is not up for debate.

Regardless, this matter is not up for debate.

Someone's grumpy.