New Moderator SOP regarding Suspensions/Bannings/etc
04-07-21, 08:37 AM
#52
DVD Talk Legend
Re: New Moderator SOP regarding Suspensions/Bannings/etc
I had to quote myself from 2014. I think with a lot of the bannings of late, since they seem to be more of a political divide, I think this would go a long way. I am liberal, but it seems that there is a lot of conservatives getting banned, and I think there should be more than "You can't talk about past members" if there is no official (moderator) announcement regarding a ban. When people get banned, I go to their recent posts, but often that leads to no answer. Just wiping people out, isn't really fair in my mind, unless it's new member-bot-spammer that doesn't need an explanation. But a member that has been here and is known? There should be an announcment.
Other websites do this. I stole this from a music site I belong to.
Other websites do this. I stole this from a music site I belong to.
I think that's probably worth looking into and thinking about. I'll offer that when someone is banned that even if it's listed how or why, I'm personally not interested in a huge community back-and-forth about it. Banning do not come lightly and there is a lot of discussion before a member's actions bring on that consequence.
That said, exactly zero people are banned - or warned or suspended - for their politics, period. The way people express their politics or ideologies or philosophies in ways that violate the rules, though, that's what brings about moderation action. Yep, that happens all the time. I don't have a snappy answer about which end of the political spectrum is more prone to behave this way or that way because I don't really track that.
That said, exactly zero people are banned - or warned or suspended - for their politics, period. The way people express their politics or ideologies or philosophies in ways that violate the rules, though, that's what brings about moderation action. Yep, that happens all the time. I don't have a snappy answer about which end of the political spectrum is more prone to behave this way or that way because I don't really track that.
I think a "banned/suspension" thread where people can't comment would be a welcome addition. We can see people are banned or suspended under their usernames already so it's not about embarrassing anyone or calling them out. And I think if we're saying this is a community, that community should know what happened to get someone kicked out of the community.
I very much agree with this and don't have much else to add. Aside from your typical spammers, this would help the community understand the reasons for mod action on long-time members, but also helps to show if/when people are regularly catching suspensions for behavior, or if they're caught running multiple accounts. That said, I also respect that this is extra work for people doing this job for free... So maybe only do it if the community rightly asks what happened? That's a good starting point.
Honestly, I didn't even know who was recently banned, because I was sure it might have been someone else who espoused similar rhetoric about calling for harm on others.
Honestly, I didn't even know who was recently banned, because I was sure it might have been someone else who espoused similar rhetoric about calling for harm on others.
04-07-21, 09:59 AM
#53
Administrator
Re: New Moderator SOP regarding Suspensions/Bannings/etc
Decisions to suspend/ban members are done publicly on exactly zero forums in my department and rarely on forums in general. I think also that generally those active on the P&R forum can glean why a user was suspended/banned (although I understand that sometimes their posts can be deleted and they are banned before you can see). Even without seeing a "final straw" there are usually signs leading up to it.
Story, Dex, and I can bring this to VinVega and the mods, but I don't believe we really have justification to change this.
Story, Dex, and I can bring this to VinVega and the mods, but I don't believe we really have justification to change this.
04-08-21, 09:22 PM
#54
Admin
Thread Starter
Re: New Moderator SOP regarding Suspensions/Bannings/etc
I take no joy in suspending or banning people. It is the worst part of my job here. In general, we give posters more than enough rope and an off ramp to avoid these things. We've found over the years that a public discussion over why so and so was banned leads to a higher likelihood of that poster coming back under a new account and starting the cycle all over again and disrupting the community. It also leads to threads trashing the mod team and lobbying attempts to have the mods reverse their decisions (which are made by multiple mods coming to a consensus about what action to take), or lobbying to get more posters suspended/banned. We're not perfect, we're not infallible, but we make the best calls we can in these situations. There's just way more downside that comes when we get into a public discussion about why someone received mod action.
The following 2 users liked this post by VinVega:
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04-08-21, 09:44 PM
#55
Re: New Moderator SOP regarding Suspensions/Bannings/etc
I've ran my own forum communities since 2000 and I can vouch that publicly stating banning is never a good idea. At best people go "good he deserved it" and at worse you alienate a large portion of the member base who had grown close to said user and they start rallying against the moderation team and demand their unbanning. Then you have new people coming to the board who see these ban lists or announcements and possibly decide that either the forum is too heavily moderated and strict or simply full of bad actors that they wish to not be part of. All in all, it just breeds more negativity in the community to publicize such things.
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05-07-21, 06:40 AM
#56
Banned
Re: New Moderator SOP regarding Suspensions/Bannings/etc
Just a suggestion of when the admins/mods suspend someone: send them a screenshot of the offending post. Someone in this forum got recently suspended and was notified about it but also sent a link to the offending post. A suspended/banned member can't see the link when they are suspended due to the way the system is set up, so that suspended member can't see which post was the offensive one. A screenshot of the post should be more informative about the issue.
05-07-21, 11:07 AM
#57
DVD Talk Hero
Re: New Moderator SOP regarding Suspensions/Bannings/etc
That said, exactly zero people are banned - or warned or suspended - for their politics, period. The way people express their politics or ideologies or philosophies in ways that violate the rules, though, that's what brings about moderation action. Yep, that happens all the time. I don't have a snappy answer about which end of the political spectrum is more prone to behave this way or that way because I don't really track that.
The late science fiction author and outspoken right-wing firebrand Jerry Pournelle got his ass kicked off of ARPANET in 1985 for not being able to follow the rules. ARPANET, for those not in the know, was what eventually evolved into what we now call the internet. It was a government-funded private network, accessed mostly by the Department of Defense and several universities. Pournelle was granted guest access, which he was supposed to keep to himself and not tell anyone. He couldn't help himself and bragged about being able to use ARPANET in his column in Byte magazine. When called out on this, he acted like a jerk and played the victim, and found himself "flushed" from ARPANET.
https://www.bradford-delong.com/2013...e-arpanet.html
05-07-21, 02:08 PM
#58
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: New Moderator SOP regarding Suspensions/Bannings/etc
Thanks?
