[Mikahcho]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Essentially you aren't allowed to behave like a jackass. If you want to disagree with my posts or ideas or with anyone else's ideas, feel free. But if you just want to be a jerk and treat me or anyone else here with disrespect, your account will be closed.

I don't see how the OP was disrespectful. She pointed something out- Infact, something you may be able to take into account about your behaviour, to become a better person. You can always become a better person. I'm not attacking you, in fact, I've never read any of your material. The only reason I'm on this forum is to post as helpfully as I can to give others advice, whilst expecting the same when I run into a dilemma. So I don't know whether you're full of yourself, or full of it, but to me, she didn't seem disrespectful.

Sometimes people come here with a personal grudge against me and do stupid stuff to try to mess with the community. Such people get themselves banned since they're only here to behave like asses and not to contribute.

I think this topic has opened up quite a good conversation, didn't seem like she was trying to express a grudge. Reading her posts, she does mention that she's somewhat a fan of yours, or atleast interested in you, positively. She's been reading your blog since 2006, that's four years, four years of dedication, I'd say. If she wanted to intentionally attack you, she had 4 years to do so.

I don't know why the OP was banned. I didn't do the banning, but I can guess it was due to stupid trolling. I certainly don't get the sense that the OP was here to get help and/or contribute to this community, so it doesn't surprise me that s/he ended up getting banned by a moderator. The mods are very good at pulling out the weeds.

I don't want to seem like I'm shooting straight at you, I understand that it wasn't you that decided to ban her, but the way she was banned was wrong. I've been a mod on various forums, and there is a proper procedure. You can pull out everything in the garden and you'd be good at pulling out the weeds.

The general way to deal with something like this is for the moderator to make a post explaining why the topic will be locked, locking it and then pming the OP to explain what he/she did wrong. After recieving a reply, the situation and their reasoning is assessed. At most, if they understand their mistake and apologize, they could be given a warning.

Atleast that's the way it worked on every other forum I've been a moderator on. And every other forum I've been a part of.

This method of just blocking the poster and leaving the topic open seems to be lazy, unsympathetic and, to put it bluntly, rather annoying.

The OP has made a blog post about it too:

Steve Pavlina banned me from his forum!! |APrettyLife

I know I'll probably be blocked for saying all that, but I do think of it as unfair. I've dealt with A LOT worse than this kind of post, and didn't have to react so harshly.
Blocking this account would be rather annoying... I use the name Mikahcho for everything... It'd be a shame to have ot come back under a new name.

I also read that people who get blocked can come back under a new name? Doesn't this make banning an ineffective way of getting rid of haters? Why not ban via the IP address? Though the individual can use a proxy to get past that ban, it'd be a lot more hassle than just creating a new account.

*Prepares To Be Banned*