Banned members

[spirit4711]

As there is no sub forum for forum issues, I've decided to put this here.

Lately I see a lot of banned members. i would like to see a short explanation. Sometimes I can think why people get banned, in other cases it's a total surprise for me. I know some members ask for a ban themselves.

A list, only editable by moderators, with oneliners in the form of member name, reason would be nice.

E.g.:
Spirit4711, 'violation of no abuse rule in post <number>'

Such a list might give new members a good idea of what is and what is not acceptable around here.

[SmartAlx]

It would also help to keep the moderators accountable for their actions against posters. Although moderators are generally reasonable, I can imagine a time in which one moderator in the distant future would ban someone that really didn't deserve it.

[Adrienne]

We ban quite a few people every week. Most you never see. 90 percent of who we ban are spammers trying to sell electronics or male enhancement drugs or gadgets.

Every time, a long term member has been banned and someone has asked why, we have been open in discussing why. See these threads.

Just wondering what got longtime member banned....

Plato has been banned

Forum Policy on remarks that aren't PC

why did "shamou" get banned?

Akashic Librarian got banned

Are the people who need LOTS of help getting banned?

and there is quite a few more where those came from.

Mods dont ban lightly. When a long term member has been banned, there is almost always a long discussion and multiple warnings that have gone into it. it is not just 1 mod.

The thread or post that gets a member banned, is often cleaned up before anyone else sees it. Which is why sometimes bans come as a surprise to people.

And you are correct, some people ask us to ban them.

If someone is banned, they do have recourse. They can still login and read, they just cant post. They can email a mod or an admin(using built in functionality of Vbulletin) and ask why and try to get reinstated.

If you have a question about a specific member, please feel free to ask and i or another mod will try and answer that for you.

As to keeping a master list of banning, i am open to the idea, but i dont like the idea.. Here are my reasons..

• We have banned 1000s of people since the start of the forum. That is alot of up keep for the mods to manage.
• If someone is banned, the post and threads have been cleaned up to no longer be offense, trolling, spamming, etc, so the evidence for non mods to see is not there. You are still just taking our word for it.
• 99 percent of people we ban are people whos names you would not recognize. They were short term members who lost it, or early on set spammers or trollers. People who when they are gone, few if any notice.
• Mods already answer the question as to why someone gets banned, why anyone is curious enough to ask. And usually posters want a more detailed explanation, more like a conversation. Not like a one sentence line of "banned for trolling"
• It draws attention to all the people who break the forum rules , instead of acknowledging all the people who are here and help people.
• If someone looks at a list, and still has questions, there just going to start a thread anyway to ask why for more details.

The forum rules which are clearly posted in each forum explains what is ok and what is not.
However, people still make mistakes or they dont know, or did not read. even then, we tend to give people quite a few warnings before banning them esp if they have been around for a while.

Adrienne

[spirit4711]

Hi Adrienne, thanks for replying so clearly. I've experienced that openness, I just wanted to have a central place to have this recorded. It's easier than to ask a mod.

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

Hi Adrienne, thanks for replying so clearly. I've experienced that openness, I just wanted to have a central place to have this recorded. It's easier than to ask a mod.

As a longer term user, how would you feel if you got banned and we put you on a list?
I know i would not like that. If i had posted 500 times, and i made some mistakes or lost it for a while, i would not really want it to be a on a list that people checked all the time. But that is me, and i am sure for some people it would be a badge of honor.

there is a central place it is recorded. It is just not accident to posters. We do keep track

it is easier to have it listed instead of having to ask us, to just have a list. but IMHO does not do it listed. A name with something like banned for trolling, does not really do the person justice if they were a long term member. And that is not what i would want them remembered for. More like the 100s of post before they went kittywompus

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by Adrienne

As a longer term user, how would you feel if you got banned and we put you on a list?
...

I wouldn't mind. I would have attracted that ban in some sort of way. If I didn't want to be put on a 'banned' list, I should act accordingly.

A badge of honour, no not either for me.

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

I wouldn't mind. I would have attracted that ban in some sort of way. If I didn't want to be put on a 'banned' list, I should act accordingly.

A badge of honour, no not either for me.

True true,

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by Adrienne

True true,

Now don't you ban me, you hear!

[Adrienne]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

Now don't you ban me, you hear!

I promise i wont as long as you play nicely with others

[Brutha]

The reason people get banned is often more complex than a simple violation of rule X.
It might be, a personal attack in thread A.
Afterwards Moderator M wrote a PM to the User U and got back a message about:
But the user really was an idiot.
Than U writes a new personal attack in thread B and gets banned.

There also an issue of information assymtry when dealing with people who attempt to break rules.
Users are mostly anonymous with makes it difficult to see whether someone has a commercial interest when he posts a link.
As a result being 100% transparent increases peoples ability to trick the rules.

Such a list might give new members a good idea of what is and what is not acceptable around here.

I think that new members should attempt to be as friendly as possible.

Most people know what being nice is all about.
If someone doesn't that raises the question of whether this forum is the right forum for the person.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

Such a list might give new members a good idea of what is and what is not acceptable around here.

Well, you know, the rules are listed here: Personal Development for Smart People Forums - Announcements in Forum : Health & Fitness

Thought the ones that results in a ban almost in all cases are personal attacks, trolling or spamming. It is rare for a member to get banned for a case when it is not one of those three.

People who break the other rules listed almost always don't break that rule again after a reminder/warning. Almost without fail, if a member break the same rule they were warned about once, it's the no personal attack rule.

That's why for new members who launch personal attack we tend to immediately ban, while new members who break one of the other rules we tend to instead give a warning.

[Lil Chris]

As stated earlier, we almost always (95% of the time) have somewhat lengthy discussions behind the scenes, before a senior member gets banned. It's good to have several perspectives before taking that kind of action. It's not taken lightly.

[bright]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

As there is no sub forum for forum issues, I've decided to put this here.

Lately I see a lot of banned members. i would like to see a short explanation. Sometimes I can think why people get banned, in other cases it's a total surprise for me. I know some members ask for a ban themselves.

A list, only editable by moderators, with oneliners in the form of member name, reason would be nice.

E.g.:
Spirit4711, 'violation of no abuse rule in post <number>'

Such a list might give new members a good idea of what is and what is not acceptable around here.

I really +1 to this suggestion as well.

[Savage]

Bad idea as this would raise the moderation burden substantially, especially if people wanted to nitpick/debate each banning they didn't understand. It might work for a small, low-traffic forum, but I can't see it working here without a lot of extra effort. And what's the reward? More off-topic discussion? And more opportunity for trolls to waste the mods' time?

I'd only consider implementing something like this if we charged a subscription fee to access the forums and trimmed the membership substantially, so we could have some form of two-way accountability and abuse would be less likely.

Would you be willing to pay a membership fee to access the forums in order to implement greater accountability standards?

[Michelle]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Would you be willing to pay a membership fee to access the forums in order to implement greater accountability standards?

This is an interesting question.

Part of me would be willing to pay if it meant an increase in quality and positive energy or focus for the group.

On the other hand the fact that these forums are accessible to everyone is part of their beauty. The more positive "safe" places people have, the better.

[Savage]

One of the potential benefits of creating a paid membership forum is that we could get by with fewer mods and possibly pay each mod a monthly stipend to compensate them for their efforts.

If we did that, the community would probably shrink substantially, but the quality and depth of discussions might improve. Also, it's unlikely we'd have any real issues with spammers or trolls.

At present the forums aren't much of an income generator, especially since I removed the Adsense ads, so it's hard to justify increasing the workload when people are volunteering to help maintain the community.

[Michelle]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

One of the potential benefits of creating a paid membership forum is that we could get by with fewer mods and possibly pay each mod a monthly stipend to compensate them for their efforts.

If we did that, the community would probably shrink substantially, but the quality and depth of discussions might improve. Also, it's unlikely we'd have any real issues with spammers or trolls.

I think it is a cool idea and have the feeling it could raise the vibration of the forum significantly.

[Savage]

If we did move to a subscription-based model, it probably wouldn't be that difficult. The capacity for managing subscriptions is already built into VBulletin.

We'd probably charge a very modest fee, maybe $20 per year or so.

If only a fraction of the existing community was willing to pay that much, we could probably hire a dedicated forum admin who could do a lot more than Erin and I can manage, such as adding plug-ins to enable new features.

Some forums charge for different levels of members, like you get avatars if you pay a little more. That might be something to consider as well.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by Michelle

On the other hand the fact that these forums are accessible to everyone is part of their beauty. The more positive "safe" places people have, the better.

This forum isn't meant to be a safe place. And even less a safe place for everyone. I've learned that lesson now.

[Michelle]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

If we did move to a subscription-based model, it probably wouldn't be that difficult. The capacity for managing subscriptions is already built into VBulletin.

We'd probably charge a very modest fee, maybe $20 per year or so.

If only a fraction of the existing community was willing to pay that much, we could probably hire a dedicated forum admin who could do a lot more than Erin and I can manage, such as adding plug-ins to enable new features.

Some forums charge for different levels of members, like you get avatars if you pay a little more. That might be something to consider as well.

Well, I'm guessing if a member can afford a computer there should be no barrier to $20 a year. My vote is go for it.

[wolfgang]

why do people need to know why someone was banned?

if you post with respect and know you aren't a troll - you are fine.

if you post with bent up pent up emotions all the time and attack personally - you will get banned. It seems.

[seeker5]

Instead of turning the whole website into a paid forum, what about adding a private section that is membership based. John Stone from John Stone Fitness - Welcome! does that. The private forum allows people to share private information and talk about private stuff that they don't want to be indexed by google or viewable by others.

If I remember, at johnstonefitness, the private forum membership was $20/year, and there was also a plan to get more features if you paid more. I did that myself for one year about two years ago. Both the public and the private forums were pretty active, although naturally, the public forums had a lot more activity than the private forum. However, the private forum was very neat because people were talking about things and posting pictures that they would not do on a public forum. I myself became a private forum member after having participated in the public forum for a little bit when I saw the value of the participation on the forum.

I like that idea applied to this forum because it allows the thousands of people who come here to get some very valuable help in their personal development, but who wouldn't pay $20 for a forum subscription. It also allows those people who would love to be much more open and talk about a lot more private details to do so without being concerned about non-forum members viewing it and the info being googled. If the numbers of those wishing to have the private forum are high enough, perhaps it can allow the hiring of a forum admin and the addition of those other modules.

[cinnabar]

Ooo... I love that idea, Seeker5!

[Adrienne]

That is an interesting idea Seeker. With both tho, do you think enough people would be willing to pay? It also might add more forum admin and mod overhead.

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Bad idea as this would raise the moderation burden substantially, especially if people wanted to nitpick/debate each banning they didn't understand. It might work for a small, low-traffic forum, but I can't see it working here without a lot of extra effort. And what's the reward? More off-topic discussion? And more opportunity for trolls to waste the mods' time?

...

Maybe you missed that I said this would be a topic for mods only to write and members to read? So no discussion, and not a lot of effort too. How much time would it take to add a one liner?

The benefits I stated already.

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by Michelle

This is an interesting question.

Part of me would be willing to pay if it meant an increase in quality and positive energy or focus for the group.

On the other hand the fact that these forums are accessible to everyone is part of their beauty. The more positive "safe" places people have, the better.

I agree with Michelle. Free is great.

How about this one? Charge a one time fee. If people get banned, they lose this fee. If people end their membership, they get it back (minus maybe a charge for administrative handling).

Make trolling expensive, I say!

[Rose of Cairo]

I totally don't like your idea, Seeker.

I don't like the separation this would be creating.

Originally Posted by seeker5

I like that idea applied to this forum because it allows the thousands of people who come here to get some very valuable help in their personal development, but who wouldn't pay $20 for a forum subscription.

$20 a year isn't much. I mean, it's just $20! Hello?!!! If they're not willing to invest twenty bucks in their personal development, I highly doubt they mean it seriously.

(I'm not advocating a paid forum, I'm just saying that the money is not an argument)

It also allows those people who would love to be much more open and talk about a lot more private details to do so without being concerned about non-forum members viewing it and the info being googled.

Those people are free to grow the courage to talk about their stuff publicly. That too is part of personal development.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Adrienne

That is an interesting idea Seeker. With both tho, do you think enough people would be willing to pay? It also might add more forum admin and mod overhead.

Yeah, I think a number of people would be willing to pay for a private forum on top of this forum. For example, people like Aspiring-to-Clarity who have stopped posting because her family could start accessing her posts. There's other people we've dealt with privately (as moderators) who stopped posting and asked us to remove their posts because they realized it was being googled. There's also several people I've talked to who use their real name on here who explicitly are very guarded in what they write because they don't want their real name to be goggled with what they write or want their offline family to know of an issue they are facing. Even in my Social Growth Threat right now, there are some people who aren't writing what's going on with them because they don't want that to be public and viewed by non-forum members too and I've been contacted privately to setup some type of system for us to communicate privately. I believe there is a good number of people who would be willing to use such a private system on top of this forum, and whom would benefit in a way they are not able to benefit from this forum. How many exactly, I don't know.

It will add forum overhead no doubt about it. However, with the income, a forum administrator could be hired to take care of the increased forum overhead, plus some of the current forum overhead.

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

$20 a year isn't much. I mean, it's just $20! Hello?!!! If they're not willing to invest twenty bucks in their personal development, I highly doubt they mean it seriously.

I know the $20/year is insignificant to some people of us using this PD forum. I know if this forum became membership-only, I would pay that amount, and would probably even be willing to pay much higher. However, that's only because I've been in here a long time and I can look back and see how how much I've gained from it.

However, when I first became a member on here, I would not have paid that amount at all. I wouldn't even have considered it. I was reading books about PD, as well as reading Steve's blog, however, I wasn't in a financial place in my life where I felt it would be reasonable to pay $20 for a discussion forum. I didn't start posting much until 7 months after I first became a member (My first account actually wasn't this account), and I didn't really start opening myself to good PD feedback until maybe a year after I first became a member. I only became open to being open to getting good PD feedback on my personal life after having participated so long on this forum and seeing other people get great results from it. So people like me who were in that place won't pay the $20.

Furthermore, the $20/year isn't just about paying that amount of money. It's also about having to reveal who you are to the administrator and perhaps moderators of the site. So given that this is a personal development forum where a number of people want to stay anonymous from even the administrators and moderators (such I did at first), having the requirement to pay $20 will prevent them from becoming members. So those people won't pay the $20.

I'm sure there are many people who are serious about their personal development who wouldn't pay the $20 to use an online forum, but yet use this forum in a way that helps them grow and contributes to this forum. Simply to state that they aren't willing to pay that amount to equate that to mean that they aren't serious about personal development is a fallacy.

Furthermore, this forum serves as a wonderful introduction to personal development to people who aren't serious about it. I can name some members who came on here not serious about PD the way others might be, but who had questions about improving their own life and who overtime have become more and more serious about personal development. Having this requirement to pay $20 to even start participating on this forum would cut those people off.

Therefore, having a subscription-based model will substantially reduce the number of people using this forum. I'm not saying we shouldn't move to a subscription-based model. Maybe it's for the best, even though it would completely change this community.

However, I am saying that there are many people who are and who would be serious about personal development who would be cut out from using this forum. To simply state that $20 is an irrelevant amount is only to address things from your own personal perspective, and not to address it from the perspective of all types of different individuals whose personality and concerns are quite different from your own.

On the other hand, by adding a private membership-based forum to this site, it would allow the current community to keep existing, while adding another additional way for many people to use this forum to grow in a way they currently aren't able to. This could produce additional revenue which could allow the hiring of someone who can serve as forum administrator which would take off the load of administrating this site from Erin and Steve so they can go and produce more podcasts and products for us .

[ChaosKiwi]

I am curious as to how common it is for senior members to "self-destruct" so to speak and get themselves banned?

I am not an avid poster on the forum but I would be willing to pay a small subscription (only if the whole forum became private though). I have gotten some great forms of accountability and encouragement off of here, not to mention new ideas and information to process.

Do you moderators find it emotionally stressful to ban people? Do some people put up a big fight?

I have also wondered it there is a way to remove yourself from the forum, or does it have to be done by a moderator?

[seeker5]

I am not an avid poster on the forum but I would be willing to pay a small subscription (only if the whole forum became private though). I have gotten some great forms of accountability and encouragement off of here, not to mention new ideas and information to process.

That's interesting. Why would you be willing to pay if the whole forum became private vs a part of it?

Originally Posted by ChaosKiwi

I am curious as to how common it is for senior members to "self-destruct" so to speak and get themselves banned?

I don't have the exact numbers so I can't really say. It's not common, but it does happen once in a while.

Do you moderators find it emotionally stressful to ban people?

Yes, we find it very displeasing to have to deal with banning a regular member. Spammers and established trolls are very easy emotionally to ban. However, regular members can be hard emotionally to ban. I feel it's one of the most challenging thing for new moderators to learn which is how to overcome their deep reluctance to ban people who need to be banned. I've felt a few times quite sad after we've had to ban some people even though I knew they had to be banned. However, the more experience I've become as a moderator, the easier it gets to deal with that by switching my perspective on it.

Do some people put up a big fight?

Yeah, a few do by trying to re-register new accounts and trying to create havoc. Those people become trolls that we've learned to deal with using various tools.

People don't usually put much of a fight when we decide to ban them.
I have also wondered it there is a way to remove yourself from the forum, or does it have to be done by a moderator?

Only way is to stop posting, or you can request a ban.