Poll: Injustice of the Permaban

[gorfias]

The moderation here is fine as it is, it's only when the big names at the time get banned the moderation suddenly becomes a damn problem.

Seriously. No one was complaining about this til a week or so ago.

I've been coming here for some time and it has been a problem for most of that time. I've lost a lot of people I enjoyed arguing with. A sanction can be against someone for stating something another person would find offensive. In Politics and religion, most of what people write might offend another.

Most of the time, when some one ticked me off, I'd reply in kind. That was enough to get a sanction to me for responding.

I'll have to review: is 8 sanctions, regardless of time frame, enough to get one permaband?

You should have seen this place last November around the time of elections. People with thousands of posts were getting banned. Things have calmed down some since then.

EDIT: "Amnesty
After every 6 months without any warnings, you will drop down one level on the Forum Health Meter. After 2 years without any warnings, your meter will be returned to 0, regardless of where it was before."

 

[deadpoolhulk]

i'm going to say that i think the Modds are doing a good job. now clearly i amn not the most frequent poster, nor do i lurk much either. (I'd say this is just a site i go to when i randomly feel like it. or Zero Punctuation) but yeah, i'm yet to see anyone banned or warned, look at the post and think "wow the modds over reacted huh?" it has all seemed reasonable to me.

the fact that you get 8 seems pretty good. if you fail to learn from your mistakes seven times? i'm kind of doubting having more chances is going to help any.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Looking over the CoC [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct] now.

Don't Be a Jerk

This section is mostly fine, but I feel it needs concrete examples of what is considered offensive AND punishable.
Is saying "Jews are scum of the earth" different from saying "I believe Jews are scum of the earth" ?

Also, Poe's Law. How do you know if someone is trolling? (I mean, unless they say so obviously) And in the case that someone is banned for trolling, are the people who previously accused him of trolling going to be warned or not?

Have Respect for Others

Nothing wrong with this section. The fact that this thread is allowed shows it's enforced to the right extent.

Have Respect for the Site and its Content

I understand the importance of this, but it seems in need of examples.

Can you be warned for saying: "CONTRIBUTER1 is an idiot" or "I think CONTRIBUTER1 is an idiot" ? Obviously only posting that, it would be lacking merit for discussion and would only be an insult.

Is it better to have: "I think CONTRIBUTER1 is ignorant because etc?"

Put Some Effort Into Your Communication

Fine in theory, but I may have seen some people warned for only having a sentence and a half which seems excessive (I'll have to see if my examples are as I remember them).

Use Our Forums Appropriately

Fine.

Posting Pics or Videos

Also fine, but I've seen quite a few posts where people have posted images larger than my head without spoiler-tags, should I flag them?

 

[Colour Scientist]

Well when you put it like that I feel bad -_- although I kinda assumed you had me on ignore anyway. Nothing personal though, I just disagree with some post you have made, and I feel at least one would have gotten a warning for anyone else.

I don't have anyone on ignore.

And it's cool. I can be condescending and a bit smug/prickly (though I do try not to be). You're not necessarily wrong. I try to be fun most of the time. That likely doesn't come across on the forums all that often anymore. You should've been in here in 2010. =D

I used to think you were a really happy-go-lucky poster, back when you were using Pincer as your avatar and that ridiculously cute pika uh one.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

I'd say moderation here is pretty reasonable on the whole. Looking over the CoC, the penalty system gives A TON of room for mistakes. 4 warnings BEFORE probation is pretty good going and after that, you two have more chances before getting the dreaded permaban. Add to that the presence of the appeal system and forum health regeneration, I'd say it's all pretty fair.

I have my gripes with it though, primarily the leniency and inconsistency of the mods with regard to the 'Don't Be a Jerk' rule. While being a jerk is a bit of grey area, that should not make it a no-go zone. Mods need to be a little more strict about these things. If someone has a problem with getting a warning for a comment they've made, they can use the appeal system and make a case for themselves. Simple.

 

[Legion]

The concept of perma-ban itself is flawed too. A long term ban of perhaps one year would be enough. It's enough time for people to grow up and change, or just loose interest in the forum completely anyway. That way less people would be tempted to ban-jump too.

A user who was banned last year recently had their permanent ban revoked after a year away.

They went straight back into posting aggressively:

Yeah? Your position is not just offensive it's also spineless. You stand for nothing? Are you-serious? This isn't about what your favourite fucking ice cream flavour. It's about BASIC, HUMAN, RIGHTS. and you should feel absolutely ashamed that 'your neutral on it'.

Obviously that doesn't mean that people cannot ever be redeemed. UltraJoe was once banned years back and was a moderator for a while. But that doesn't mean that a permanent ban is always a bad thing. I think it's better to have it as it is, and with the option of appeal that is available.

Posting Pics or Videos

Also fine, but I've seen quite a few posts where people have posted images larger than my head without spoiler-tags, should I flag them?

Yes, if they are ridiculously large. Although the chances are, if the image is appropriate, they may not get in trouble (I honestly don't know), but just have the image put in tags instead.

Personally I don't see flagging as necessarily "This post should be moderated!" as much as "Do you mods/staff think this should be moderated?" I do it to bring attention to a potential problem more than anything.

I am not sure if that's the "right" way to go about it, but considering it's down to a moderators discretion to do anything about it or not, I think that it is.

 

[loa]

Um yeah, you have to be super inoffensive around here.
DON'T even try to argue with other people much or you WILL rack up permanent warnings and good luck arguing with the moderation about the reasoning behind those.

 

[incal11]

The concept of perma-ban itself is flawed too. A long term ban of perhaps one year would be enough. It's enough time for people to grow up and change, or just loose interest in the forum completely anyway. That way less people would be tempted to ban-jump too.

A user who was banned last year recently had their permanent ban revoked after a year away.

They went straight back into posting aggressively:

The point remains that he had a chance to change. There are lots of people who could use such a chance. Letting people come back after they have matured is worth having to renew the year-bans of a few sub-normal dicks.

(captcha: "love you" heh!)

 

[Chromatic Aberration]

Read through the whole thread now and I think I'll add in my two cents on this issue.

First, generally the rules seem to be good. I've never seen someone get perma-banned who didn't deserve it for one thing or the other. In fact, users such as Katatori (blatant mod sass, hostility) and Danyal (flamebaiting, spamming) should have gotten the boot much sooner than they did. Personally, I've gotten along just fine up until now with about half of my posts in R&P without incurring a single infraction up to this point - so it's not impossible to discuss even controversial topics without getting into trouble. If I had to guess the whole "the moderation is blatantly unfair!"-argumentation seems to suffer a lot from the psychological drive to think as oneself of being right, or how Guppy put it so succinctly,

GOOD MODERATION: The guy I reported gets a warning. Tee-hee!

BAD MODERATION: The guy I reported doesn't get a warning. Outrageous!

APPALLING MODERATION: I get a warning. Clearly there is a conspiracy against me.

Plus, factor in that memories that are attached to emotional distress will be more prevalent, meaning that everyone remembers the troll and not the mass of people who just quietly voice their non-controversial opinions on things and you will get the perception that the moderation is utterly dysfunctional.

You're allowed to insult groups of people all you want

You might want to back that up with some, you know, evidence.

Because the mods give out warnings to people who insult religious people, soldiers, and even bronies.
All groups of people.

I've provided my evidence, where's your's?

If you want I can link you some. The sad fact of the matter is that it is socially acceptable to shun some minorities on the basis of broader political movements and viewpoints that are prevalent in Western countries. That might be acceptable in case of some (Nazis, Fascists) but gets a lot more fishy when it comes to other groups that are "criticized" sometimes to the point of almost advocating genocide (criminals, muslims and immigrants as the most striking examples) and that see no mod attention simply due to the fact that those viewpoints represent parts of broader cultural movements (the surge in anti-immigrant parties across Europe, the death-penalty advocates in the US or elsewhere). For instance, we have just about now a poster over at R&P who has spouted the typical fundamentalist homophobia and who also hasn't received any kind of mod attention as of yet.

However, while I find those "viewpoints" to be completely disgusting I can see why they are not moderated though: a society must deal with those kinds of viewpoints as long as they see see the popularity they seem to have in the broader context; banning this kind of "expressions" might have consequences for the staff and the site that they might not want to take into account, so I can understand their reluctance in that regard.

I think I'll now write a second separate post about an issue that I think I need to voice my opinion on : moderation in R&P.

 

[Hazy]

I try to make posts that are insightful and witty (read: showing others that my opinion is right and theirs are wrong) so that I may better educate the populace.

No, but seriously, I think it's okay.

I got banned once for something that wasn't even in the rules, so that was pretty asinine, but that was quite a few years ago.

 

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

Katatori-kun got banned? I had him blocked for giving me a stomach ulcer so didn't know.

I think the mods are fairly fair in a fair way. They are human. granted the one warning I got was over something I stand by to this day and even got the mod to admit that I was right in a private message but rules were rules. Moral victory 1 Rule Enforcement 1... damn a tie...

 

[Chromatic Aberration]

Now about an issue I want to voice my opinion on: While I hate to beat on a dead horse, I'm kind of disappointed with the apparent lack of will to moderate the R&P section properly and take the concerns of it's regulars into account. After some lengthy discussions in the mod-group-chat about half a year ago I expected some changes to happen in that regard. What we got was a promise to install an R&P specific mod and a very nice sticky from NewClassic on how things need to be taken into account. People jumped on that sticky and voiced their concerns and shared some interesting ideas on how to improve things.

However, the attention of the mods quickly faded and not until prompted reacted to any inquiries voiced in the thread. Even the most basic ideas (like simply adding a reason to every moderated post over yonder to make mdoeration more transparent) were, if at all, only applied spotily and a few weeks later, the stance of the staff about an R&P specific mod seemed to have changed. A few weeks ago then, the sticky was locked (presumably out of accident) and was subsequently automatically deleted. As far as I see it, all those developments do not reflect well onto the will of the staff to account for the controversial nature of the R&P section.

As I see it, those things should still happen; It still is a good idea to just have the mods simply add a reason to moderated posts over there (even if its only one word or obvious) and it might be advantageous to look for a specific mod among the regulars over there (I can name you at least 3 people who I think would suitable for such a role) who know the section and have a vested interest in it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Katatori-kun got banned? I had him blocked for giving me a stomach ulcer so didn't know.

I had him blocked, too. I just went and looked at the post that got him banned, though, and it sorta seemed dodgy to me.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

In light of this situation, I have an opinion... Bans aren't handed out at whim, you really have to be a continuing screw-up to garner one. This site is a membership, not a right and you must abide by the rules. Breaking rules consistently means you eventually get banned.
I don't feel sorry for permabanned folk because they had their warnings, they apparently can read (if they can post they can read) the CoC and they refuse to honor it. We come here under the Escapist's umbrella and its their (the mods) right to choose who sits under the umbrella and who is too much a problem and subsequently put out in the rain.
I'm not sorry some of you had friends who were banned but maybe if they took the time to alter their language so as not to violate said CoC they would still be here.
Again, its TE's right to say who stays and who doesn't, as they own and operate the site and as such have delegated the responsibility to keep order to the MODS. Therefore you have no rights to be here indefinitely, you only have the privilege to remain here as long as you follow the rules.

 

[blackrave]

I still don't understand how permaban is useful
For example, I get permabaned
Fine!
1.I try to make new user. If it's tied to email, then
2.I make new email and try one more time. If it is tied to IP, then
3.I go to another place (I have 4 spots to access net on the daily basis). If all of these spots are tied to my current user, since I visited Escapist from all of these, I go to public library, icafe, etc. If all fails I can call my provider and ask to change my IP, for "security reasons" (or some other BS)
Either way, I'LL BE BACK!!!

So how this circumvention is better than 1y extended ban?
(after ban ends you have 1-2 warnings before another extended ban)

 

[Eleuthera]

Although it may be some kind of default feature that appear when someone gets perma-banned. And normal mods may have no control over it.

^This

The perma-ban avatar is automated and not put there by the mods. I understand why people dislike it, and I'm not a fan myself, but this isn't something the mods can do anything about.

Now about an issue I want to voice my opinion on: While I hate to beat on a dead horse, I'm kind of disappointed with the apparent lack of will to moderate the R&P section properly and take the concerns of it's regulars into account. -snip-

The problem here is that a lot of people (including several mods) don't like to go into R&P.
Due to the mods not visiting the R&P forum themselves, the only posts they see is the flagged ones. Post flagging is irregular even on the more popular forums, but I think most of the R&P regulars don't flag anything unless it's very out of line (ie the dead baby picture yesterday). However whenever a new poster (to the R&P) section goes in there they tend to flag a lot more posts. The regulars have come to a reasonably workable status quo I think, but the newbies don't knwo this and get flag happy.
At least that's what I think is happening in R&P.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

On one hand, I personally haven't had any warnings or anything and I tend to be fairly blunt. On the other hand, I've seen people banned for posts that are barely calling the person irrational. In my opinion, a forum such as this, where there are actual opinions presented on divisive issues, should be more accepting of frustration and flared tempers than we are. There's being civil and then there's an obstacle to discussion. And I think the rules concerning admissions of piracy and accusations of trolling (the latter I can sort of agree with, but is often levelled against references that are not straight accusations of trolling) are stupid.

But yes, it does seem that a non-negligible amount of people manage to get banned by what amounts to being around too long.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

I'm inclined to say "yes." There are a few topics where I'm downright afraid to post in because of the banhammer's ever constant vigilance. I can't, for example, say what I honestly think about subjects like piracy - even in articles about piracy! And this is despite being a swearing, quasi-drunken, passive-aggressive asshole to everyone. Especially you. Yes, you, reading this. Fuck you, whoever you are. (That was a joke, ladies and gentlemen.)

I don't think it's a problem in the way that I'd label it an "injustice". That's hyerbolic. But I would say there's a problem in the way that it often discourages genuine discussion. Perhaps that's a good thing. I can't say for sure. I haven't seen any truly unfair bans - even the coveted Vault101 crossed a line.

But then... on the other hand... a lot of drunk and stupid people with really poor snap-judgement have a great deal many interesting things to say. Hmmm. I don't think there's a conclusion we can draw, really, over what could happen. The conversations that might have happened if something or other was implemented or replaced.

 

[cerebreturns]

8 strikes over years is too strict? right...

The rules here are not exactly harsh, if you are getting that many strikes you are ignoring the rules.

If you post a lot you should be even MORE aware of the rules then people who are not posting.

I find 8 strikes absurd...in that where is the punishment in letting someone ignore your rules WITH warnings nearly 10 times?


I don't even know the rules, I post when ever and what ever I want and I've gotten ONE warning (lack of content for a post), now I don't do it anymore.



If you can't stand the idea of having to not be a total complete jerk on public & very popular forums...then you deserve to be banned.


No, the 8 strike rule is far too lenient.



And the whole "regular posters should be allowed more lineancy"...what makes you think they aren't? And isn't this usually the kind of conservative mentality (good old boys) that gets horribly flamed by nearly every "regular" on this forum?

Katatori-kun got banned? I had him blocked for giving me a stomach ulcer so didn't know.

Oh man I hope this is true.

 

[JoJo]

I myself have close to 8000 posts and no infractions.

Probably because in all my time here I have never even seen the text equivalent of you raising your voice. Nothing wrong with that mind you, just some people *points to self* have a hard time remaining 100% neutral. dammit sometimes people on the internet are WRONG and I feel the need to criticize them -_-.

Heh, not going to deny that, though remaining calm is a skill that can be improved with practice, you should try it. Having lived and worked with young children, it's one I have honed to a T. I have actually been involved in quite virulent debate at times on this site but I usually don't let it grind my gears, an opinion on an Internet forum is nothing to get worked up about. I see you have no infractions yourself major so you aren't doing too badly either

I still don't understand how permaban is useful
For example, I get permabaned
Fine!
1.I try to make new user. If it's tied to email, then
2.I make new email and try one more time. If it is tied to IP, then
3.I go to another place (I have 4 spots to access net on the daily basis). If all of these spots are tied to my current user, since I visited Escapist from all of these, I go to public library, icafe, etc. If all fails I can call my provider and ask to change my IP, for "security reasons" (or some other BS)
Either way, I'LL BE BACK!!!

So how this circumvention is better than 1y extended ban?
(after ban ends you have 1-2 warnings before another extended ban)

Permabans are still useful since I doubt most banned users would go to those lengths to come back here when they could just go to another forum. I'm sure it does happen given that ban-jumpers with several hundred posts have been uncovered on occasion but the worst offenders are going to stick out like a sore thumb and besides even if they do return it's still a punishment, who wants to start all over again after building up a rep?