Banned users will remain invisible to users.

[Twilight Sparkle97 395]

Why did the term banished have to be removed off of banned members for? I kind of liked it better when the term banished was used on banned members. Can you admins please bring back that term? Its kind of hard to tell which members are banned and which aren't because the term banished is no longer shown on banned members anymore. 

[Tom Gallagher 33,521]

Yeah, that made it much clearer if the person was gone or not. I think it should be brought back as well. 

[Props Valroa 26,042]

I would like to see it brought back. There was no issues from what it was before, why change it? 

[ExplosionMare 18,007]

I feel like it should come back too so people don’t get confused and try to contact people who are long gone from the site

[Pandora 38,004]

I feel the same but asked this before too and they said it would be better this way 

[Splashee 28,537]

2 hours ago, ExplosionMare said:

I feel like it should come back too so people don’t get confused and try to contact people who are long gone from the site

That's a valid point. At least for people that decide to get banished by their own choice (without first saying good-bye? Oh, it gets complicated. Maybe members don't want to say good-bye, and leave quietly?).

Back when this change was made, and the forum was upgraded, the [message] (private messages) button came back, which meant you could potentially contact banished members. And did it work? Yes it did. At least back in early January 2021. Probably a glitch though.

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

There's a lot that goes on with the site and from what I understood, "banished" was treated as a rank by the system, which may have banned a member on their side but on our side, we could still interact with the member's profile like look at their stuff and even send PMs to them.

[Venomous 18,813]

@Twilight Sparkle97

This rank/title will not return so please do not expect this discussion to lead to it coming back.

Only staff need to know who is banned, not users. 

Giving those banned users their own rank is simply not necessary. Slapping a big stamp on someone saying: “Hey, I was kicked out!” is just not needed, not to mention humiliating. The user themselves are not here but it just adds insult to injury. 

[Twilight Sparkle97 395]

48 minutes ago, The Wife of Hawks said:

@Twilight Sparkle97

This rank/title will not return so please do not expect this discussion to lead to it coming back.

Only staff need to know who is banned, not users. 

Giving those banned users their own rank is simply not necessary. Slapping a big stamp on someone saying: “Hey, I was kicked out!” is just not needed, not to mention humiliating. The user themselves are not here but it just adds insult to injury. 

Dammit, Dammit, Dammin! 

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

16 hours ago, Twilight Sparkle97 said:

Dammit, Dammit, Dammin! 

I'd have to stand with @The Wife of Hawks on this one, showing that someone is banned just doesn't sit well due to the fact that it is humiliating and hurtful to the one who got banned. 

[EpicEnergy 22,076]

If you don't want to bring back banished ranks and red, highlighted names, then why not hide banned users from public view? No need to hide all of their content, just their profiles, so that users won't get confused as to who's banned and who isn't. Or perhaps disable all communication with banned users such as PMs, status updates, follows, and add friends.

[Props Valroa 26,042]

3 hours ago, Courageous Thunder Dash said:

I'd have to stand with @The Wife of Hawks on this one, showing that someone is banned just doesn't sit well due to the fact that it is humiliating and hurtful to the one who got banned. 

I have to disagree because, how will we tell who is banned and who is not? It's not humiliating or hurtful, it is a necessary labeling so the community knows who was banned. Otherwise, we are left in the dark and can only wonder. 

[Pandora 38,004]

22 hours ago, The Wife of Hawks said:

@Twilight Sparkle97

This rank/title will not return so please do not expect this discussion to lead to it coming back.

Only staff need to know who is banned, not users. 

Giving those banned users their own rank is simply not necessary. Slapping a big stamp on someone saying: “Hey, I was kicked out!” is just not needed, not to mention humiliating. The user themselves are not here but it just adds insult to injury. 

but what part of it is humiliating when the banishment is their own fault?
It's more humiliating for the community to not know so they end up trying to befriend people who've been banished for some time without them knowing tbh

[Venomous 18,813]

6 hours ago, Pandora said:

but what part of it is humiliating when the banishment is their own fault?
It's more humiliating for the community to not know so they end up trying to befriend people who've been banished for some time without them knowing tbh

The worst that will happen is that a user will PM/quote a banned user and not get a reply. There is no harm in that whatsoever and it certainly isn’t humiliating unless you make your failed efforts public for some reason. A user not getting a response from a banned user is an extremely small price to pay for removing the badges/titles.

[Props Valroa 26,042]

1 minute ago, The Wife of Hawks said:

The worst that will happen is that a user will PM/quote a banned user and not get a reply. There is no harm in that whatsoever and it certainly isn’t humiliating unless you make your failed efforts public for some reason. A user not getting a response from a banned user is an extremely small price to pay for removing the badges/titles.

It seems rather superficial to remove a badge system that has been in place for years and had become rather well known, even respected. 

[Venomous 18,813]

40 minutes ago, Monotonality said:

It seems rather superficial to remove a badge system that has been in place for years and had become rather well known, even respected. 

We tried it, didn’t like it, and removed it. It was an aesthetic we didn’t like.

[Props Valroa 26,042]

3 minutes ago, The Wife of Hawks said:

We tried it, didn’t like it, and removed it. It was an aesthetic we didn’t like.

Why not allow the community hold a vote on decisions such as that? I feel like the community should be more involved with these decisions as it creates a better basis of communications between the community, and the staff?

[Venomous 18,813]

5 minutes ago, Monotonality said:

Why not allow the community hold a vote on decisions such as that? I feel like the community should be more involved with these decisions as it creates a better basis of communications between the community, and the staff?

The removal of a singular badge is not something that requires the voting of the users here. It’s an extremely minor change. Waiting for votes to add up from users would take much more time than it would for staff to get together on Discord in a chat to decide.

[Jeric 46,835]

I'm locking this but before I do this is what my thoughts on the matter are. 

 

Deja Vu.

When I joined we did not have a banishment badge. It was an old fixture of the forum before I became a fan of the show, but it was removed before 2014. It was added along with a rule set that would automate banishments when I was no longer an Administrator. I despised the fact that it was brought back, and it was on my list of things that I wanted to remove in 2018 but I didn't get to it. Lo and behold we had to upgrade the forum software and the old plugin that assisted in the ban automation was no longer compatible with the forum software. Bans do not come with a user group like Admin, or Mod, or Subscriber. Now, can we visualize who is banned and who is not? Yep. Won't have a badge, but it's a trivial setting change. Will I?

 

 

 

 

 

The main reason .... bans are not usually permanent anymore. If someone is banned there is a good chance if they appeal to me particularly that I would reinstate them. Users do not get to know (from us) that a user was banned or why they were banned. Period. Full stop. Too many people here are nosy as all get out. This is a closed issue and I will be adding this question to the FAQ and going forward all future references to this will be linked there and closed.