How not to get banned.

[TimeLord]

Sometime I think the "don't be a jerk" rule needs some more...specificity. I've seen mods give warnings/ban for the most bullshit stuff, while some pretty rude shit goes unpunished. It all seems like selective justice. Or rather, random justice.

I think a few weeks ago I saw a guy get banned for saying he thought Grey Carter ought to be fired. Now, I happen to like Grey (as a comic writer, at least), but ffs, you should be able to say stuff like that.

Actually she requested that ban after said incident. But still, insulting contributors and the people who work for the Escapist is not a great way to behave on the site.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Hmm. This didn't start out as a "moderation sucks" thread but it sure went there in a hurry.

Let me throw a real-world example at y'all. Half the people I know have a story about themselves, or someone they were with, being "beaten up by cops for no reason." My favorite one goes like this:

We were walking around the Old Port, right, and we were all drunk as hell and yelling to beat the band. I had a cap gun in my pocket, the kind they don't make anymore.

This cop comes up to us, asks us how many we've had. I say, "Not enough!" Then I breathe fumes right in his face and tell him to fuck off.

Cop asks if we've got any weapons or drugs on us. I say, 'Yeah, I got a gun right here, wanna see it?' and I reach into my pocket to show him my cap gun.

Next thing I know, this fucking pig punches me, then he tackles me, he's screamin' in my ear, 'Don't you move! Don't you move!' and wrestles me around and sits on my back while my face is grinding into the cobblestones so he can put the cuffs on!

I didn't even do anything wrong, man! I had a black eye for a week!

Does anyone honestly think that is "no reason"?

Every time, I'm talking EVERY time any person has told me their cops-beat-me-up story, it has gone something like that. And every time, I've been like, "Okay, let's listen to this guy hang himself.........intoxicated, strike one!.........attitude, strike two!...........Ooh, criminal threatening - strike three, you're outta there!"

It doesn't matter that the gun wasn't real. What matters is this moron got right in a cop's face, told him to piss off, and reached for a gun-sized bulge he'd just told the cop was an actual gun. You don't do that if you want to remain vertical with your face on the front of your skull where it belongs.

Because I understand this, I do not have a beaten-up-by-the-cops story of my own. I have been arrested twice. I was respectful and cooperative -- and you know what? So were the police. One officer even apologized for the inconvenience and I'm pretty sure he meant it.

Now back to our program.

I have never been warned for something I didn't do. I picked up one for a low content post, which it was. I picked up two more during an argument I had with another member during which we both acted like little kids (he got suspended, I don't know what his health meter was at the time). Can't complain.

I see people being suspended or banned for what seems like insufficient reason, but I don't know their full post histories. There could be loads of context in there which I am not privy to. I don't assume it's unjustified based on a single post, or whether I am friends with said poster or not.

I also think the "thin ice" rule is entirely justified. If a guest in my home deliberately swept his dinner from the table to the floor, I'd warn him. If he then mouthed off to me or my hypothetical wife and kids, I'd warn him again, probably with a little physical discouragement. If he did anything wrong -- anything at all -- after that, he would not be a guest any longer. I would remove him physically if he did not leave on his own. Afterwards I would dust my hands and congratulate myself on a job well done. And it would be a job well done, because a man is allowed to protect his household.

We are guests in The Escapist's house. We didn't build this house. We don't own it. We don't make the rules. We remain guests only as long as they say so. Don't like it? You don't have to come here.

Users here should A) already know how to behave like civilized people, or B) learn quickly. This is not 4chan and I, for one, don't want it to be.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Users here should A) already know how to behave like civilized people, or B) learn quickly. This is not 4chan and I, for one, don't want it to be.

This is why I like the escapist.

What was Allison Stroke thinking? Do I attract spammers/bots and trolls? :/

 

[Something Amyss]

Looking at the post that he was banned in that's probably the case. Although I wouldn't be surprised if his overuse of the word 'liar' had something to do with it as well.

Shame he was banned though, even though he was probably a bit too straightforward in what he thought, I found him to be among the more insightful people on this site

Mortai was indeed the goods. I didn't even know he was in trouble. I mean, I don't run around checking forum health meters or anything, but usually I see "suspended" notes and stuff before this happens.

I'm certainly going to be doing that more often (thinking that is)

I still maintain though that I get cought unaware more often

I haven't followed what you've been moderated for, so i can't truly comment here, but Definitely take a sec to go back and re-read your posts f you're getting caught unaware.

yeah...the "reported" thing could be a bit petty at times...I think he even admited it at one point

Well, petty or not it DOES seem to violate the whole "mark it and move on" thing.

 

[Euryalus]

Users here should A) already know how to behave like civilized people, or B) learn quickly. This is not 4chan and I, for one, don't want it to be.

This is why I like the escapist.

What was Allison Stroke thinking? Do I attract spammers/bots and trolls? :/

You have to admit though, the irony of it is glorious
Banned in the "How not to get Banned" thread lol

 

[Evil Smurf]

Users here should A) already know how to behave like civilized people, or B) learn quickly. This is not 4chan and I, for one, don't want it to be.

This is why I like the escapist.

What was Allison Stroke thinking? Do I attract spammers/bots and trolls? :/

You have to admit though, the irony of it is glorious
Banned in the "How not to get Banned" thread lol

it all went tits up for her

 

[SEXTON HALE]

I love how straight foreward and simple this all seems yet I can imagine no amount of etiquet training will stop me acidentally making a fool of myself on here one day either by being a straight up git,Making a poorly worded comment or any of the other dozens of ways of messing up.

Though im pretty sure this will go a long way towards preventing that eventual screw up and for that I thank you sincerly.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I love how straight foreward and simple this all seems yet I can imagine no amount of etiquet training will stop me acidentally making a fool of myself on here one day either by being a straight up git,Making a poorly worded comment or any of the other dozens of ways of messing up.

Though im pretty sure this will go a long way towards preventing that eventual screw up and for that I thank you sincerly.

I try my best to help

 

[Nouw]

I'd also add a point about making pure joke posts. I was quite surprised when I received a warning for making such a post, it was a sentence long joke about sex with aliens being heresy with a picture spoil tagged, but apparently it counts for being low content. If you're going to reply, you want to add a serious response as well. Sure you don't see many people being warned for making a joke post, considering the abundance of them being unreported, but better safe than sorry right?

 

[JoJo]

[
I WILL say however that I feel as though [b/]no matter how careful I am[/b], I will get done for soothing eventually...unless I go through everything I say with a fine tooth comb and censor/change it...which I hoenstly think defeats the purpose of me posting in the first place

I think the same too. I know I'll get banned, it's just a matter of when.

It's just that, strong ignorance bothers me and I need to correct them.

To be honest, that excuse doesn't really hold water. It's perfectly possible to correct someone without insulting them and thus staying within the rules.

 

[Basement Cat]

Users here should A) already know how to behave like civilized people, or B) learn quickly. This is not 4chan and I, for one, don't want it to be.

This is why I like the escapist.

What was Allison Stroke thinking? Do I attract spammers/bots and trolls? :/

You have to admit though, the irony of it is glorious
Banned in the "How not to get Banned" thread lol

The "Allison Stroke" profile reminds me of the "Sweerdo" profile from my Thread: "The Post Count causes ELITISM and should be done away with! " Do you agree?. The "Sweerdo" profile was created on the same day "Sweerdo" posted his/her ONE and ONLY post (I checked) and the post was this: "Yes. It should be removed."

The profile was almost certainly created on the spot by another poster who just did it to make a point. Or a lame joke.

Chances are the "Allison Stroke" was the same kind of facade.

 

[Rawne1980]

Anyone else see the funny side of someone being banned in a "how not to get banned" thread?

 

[Steppin Razor]

How not to get banned:

• 1) Join the sheeple and have no opinion of your own.
  
  2) Don't call obvious trolls, trolls. Don't say they're lying either.
  
  3) Obtain a masters in the intricacies of the English language so you can get a good grasp on the difference between saying someone is something, and blatantly implying it.

The context should really do it. But alright, if you say so.

Ha, context. You act like it should mean something when experience shows it doesn't.

 

[Porygon-2000]

I find that being nice to people tends to work out well for all parties involved. No sense in losing your cool over what someone on the internet typed about your mother, is there?

So, really, don't be a dick. Fine advice for any situation

 

[Johnny Impact]

Users here should A) already know how to behave like civilized people, or B) learn quickly. This is not 4chan and I, for one, don't want it to be.

This is why I like the escapist.

What was Allison Stroke thinking? Do I attract spammers/bots and trolls? :/

You have to admit though, the irony of it is glorious
Banned in the "How not to get Banned" thread lol

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's a classic Trek episode like this. The all-powerful magic genie alien claims to be reasonable. Kirk uses logic to explain how such a being can't actually exist, and suddenly, poof! It ceases to exist, undone by the power of rational discourse. Or something. It's been a while since I watched TOS.

 

[dyre]

Sometime I think the "don't be a jerk" rule needs some more...specificity. I've seen mods give warnings/ban for the most bullshit stuff, while some pretty rude shit goes unpunished. It all seems like selective justice. Or rather, random justice.

I think a few weeks ago I saw a guy get banned for saying he thought Grey Carter ought to be fired. Now, I happen to like Grey (as a comic writer, at least), but ffs, you should be able to say stuff like that.

Actually she requested that ban after said incident. But still, insulting contributors and the people who work for the Escapist is not a great way to behave on the site.

Ok, so I went back to the article and it appears she got a warning for it (or "was moderated" for it, which I assume means was warned), which she then asked to be elevated to a ban.

In any case, bad example, I guess, but I still wish there was some more standardization. In some smaller forums I've been in, if there was a heated argument that turned ugly, you'd probably see a mod just close the thread and warn everyone involved (that is, an informal warning, not a strike because there wasn't any strike system). Here, I'd half expect half the people to get strikes while the other half walked off unharmed because they were snarky assholes instead of aggressive assholes.