PsyKater

Users banned

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Hi staff.

This is probably a very difficult topic and I do not want to start off a never ending discussion. But perhaps you can just think about my suggestion and post your opinion to it.

I wonder often why some user got banned. This is a very large community and it needs severe moderation, for sure. And there is no need for justification of staff decisions. Nevertheless I feel it would be good if we'd know why somebody got banned. Sometimes I look at the user's last posts and cannot find anything harmful. Maybe it is because these posts were being deleted or as it was in private.

It could be good for us to know as we could avoid doing the same "mistakes" like those user. I think of a locked topic where the staff posts a short message like "User xyz got banned for posting confidential images." or "User abc got banned for rude behaviour to other users."

To ban an user forever is a very hard penalty and can only be spoken once. And even though I have a rather large experience in using online boards (very active user in some other boards), I sometimes feel afraid of posting something, because I am afraid to be banned without warning. While I think that you speak with these users in advance in the most cases, it does not become clear to other users. And maybe a warning system (like yellow cards or flags) could be helpful.

These are just suggestions. I know these things from other boards and they make very good experience with it.

:innocent2::wub:

btw: This is an example for a post that I almost did not dare to post.

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We don't post about why users get banned, because it'd only encourage discussion about why a certain user got banned and we want the discussion on EB to focus on LEGO, obviously.

It could be good for us to know as we could avoid doing the same "mistakes" like those user.

If you simply follow the Site Guidelines, which (each and every one of) you agreed to when you signed up, you're not going to get banned.

To ban an user forever is a very hard penalty and can only be spoken once. And even though I have a rather large experience in using online boards (very active user in some other boards), I sometimes feel afraid of posting something, because I am afraid to be banned without warning. While I think that you speak with these users in advance in the most cases, it does not become clear to other users. And maybe a warning system (like yellow cards or flags) could be helpful.

The decision to ban someone is not taken lighty. We always have a discussion with someone violating the Site Guidelines. Unless you're clearly a spammer, you're not getting "banned without warning" and most people get a second chance.

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The decision to ban someone is not taken lighty. We always have a discussion with someone violating the Site Guidelines. Unless you're clearly a spammer, you're not getting "banned without warning" and most people get a second chance.

A clear statement like this helps me to feel much better. Even if it is self-evident. I just had a strange feeling when trying to understand why some users got banned. I think I have to be satisfied with this statement of yours. EB is a great community and we simply have to trust that all of you staff members are doing your job great and are monitoring each other on your own. Should not be that hard (to trust you :wink: ).

Thanks for that fast statement! (You may close this thread to avoid discussion if you like to.)

Edited by PsyKater

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I have been away from the forum for the past 6 weeks or so, in that time a fairly active (5000+ post) member of the sub-forum I am a most active in has been banned. Is it possible to find out why they were banned for?

I never knew that they did anything wrong and if they were banned for doing something it would be good to know so myself and others do not do the same thing.

Paul

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I have merged your post with an existing thread on the same topic. I hope my reply above answers your questions.

edit: ... that, or CopMike's reply below. :wink:

Edited by Rick

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I have been away from the forum for the past 6 weeks or so, in that time a fairly active (5000+ post) member of the sub-forum I am a most active in has been banned. Is it possible to find out why they were banned for?

I never knew that they did anything wrong and if they were banned for doing something it would be good to know so myself and others do not do the same thing.

Paul

First -no it´s not possible to find out why someone has been banned.

That´s because the we think it´s between the member and Staff, and not for an open discussion. We understand what could be benificial about an open comment about such things, but we strongly feel that the negative sides of that outweighs the positive ones.

The "process" is handled by these guidelines:

Taking a Break means that a member has done something that goes against the site guidelines: spamming, foul language, improper behaviour, underage membership, multiple accounts, or generally poor posting practices are common causes. This isn't automatically the end of your time here, but it is serious and should be taken as such. The staff will discuss the problem with you in private, make sure you understand, and if it is something that can be corrected or improved and you've shown the right attitude, you will usually be given another chance to participate as a normal member. If that happens, however, you need to remember that you've been lucky to receive a second chance and act accordingly

While this takes place the member has this User Group tag:

taking_break.gif

In the guidelines you´ll see basicly all there is to know. And if you just follow those there will be nothing to worry about.

I hope that helped a bit, even if I didn´t really say anything new!

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First -no it´s not possible to find out why someone has been banned.

That´s because the we think it´s between the member and Staff, and not for an open discussion. We understand what could be benificial about an open comment about such things, but we strongly feel that the negative sides of that outweighs the positive ones.

The "process" is handled by these guidelines:

While this takes place the member has this User Group tag:

taking_break.gif

In the guidelines you´ll see basicly all there is to know. And if you just follow those there will be nothing to worry about.

I hope that helped a bit, even if I didn´t really say anything new!

Thanks for the reply.

I am not interested in discussing what they did or why they were banned but simply knowing why a member with over 5000 posts was banned when I can see nothing on here which would suggest any wrong doing by them. If it was something they did behind the scenes then that is fine. The last posts from them on here don't show any wrong doing on their part.

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First -no it´s not possible to find out why someone has been banned.

That´s because the we think it´s between the member and Staff, and not for an open discussion. We understand what could be benificial about an open comment about such things, but we strongly feel that the negative sides of that outweighs the positive ones.

The "process" is handled by these guidelines:

While this takes place the member has this User Group tag:

taking_break.gif

In the guidelines you´ll see basicly all there is to know. And if you just follow those there will be nothing to worry about.

I hope that helped a bit, even if I didn´t really say anything new!

Basically you're saying if you're messing up you'll get the "knock it off" email. And if you're clever enough to figure out what happens next you'll probably get the ban hammer if you do it again. Seems simple enough.

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I have been away from the forum for the past 6 weeks or so, in that time a fairly active (5000+ post) member of the sub-forum I am a most active in has been banned. Is it possible to find out why they were banned for?

I never knew that they did anything wrong and if they were banned for doing something it would be good to know so myself and others do not do the same thing.

Paul

I know who you are talking about :wink:

I too was wondering why they were banned...

Many AFOLs are members of multiple Lego websites, so you can always ask them why they got banned via another website.

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There have been quite a few users that I wondered why got banned. Maybe you don't want an open forum about it, which is understandable. I still think that there should be an explanation on the profile page of the user of why they got banned. That way, only the people who already know and are curious of that particular user would see. They could ask the banned user for permission of what they can and cannot say.

I have been away from the forum for the past 6 weeks or so, in that time a fairly active (5000+ post) member of the sub-forum I am a most active in has been banned. Is it possible to find out why they were banned for?

I never knew that they did anything wrong and if they were banned for doing something it would be good to know so myself and others do not do the same thing.

Yeah; That guy. Formerly active in the Techic forum. It seems really strange to me. A guy in his 50's with over 5000 posts; he got banned maybe a month ago. I am really curious about this one.

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The last posts from them on here don't show any wrong doing on their part.

Recently, I saw an entire thread that I had posted in vanish. Not moved, not merged, gone - poof!

Joe

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Thanks for the reply.

I am not interested in discussing what they did or why they were banned but simply knowing why a member with over 5000 posts was banned when I can see nothing on here which would suggest any wrong doing by them. If it was something they did behind the scenes then that is fine. The last posts from them on here don't show any wrong doing on their part.

A lot of times things happen in private that we would not discuss with the general public, since it is between us and the member.

Recently, I saw an entire thread that I had posted in vanish. Not moved, not merged, gone - poof!

Joe

This is incredibly uncommon and not how we do things here. Are you sure it's gone? Please let me know what the topic was about so I can look into that.

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Yeah; That guy. Formerly active in the Techic forum. It seems really strange to me. A guy in his 50's with over 5000 posts; he got banned maybe a month ago. I am really curious about this one.

Yes that is the one. As I said if the admins can't tell us then that is that and nothing we can say or do will change that.

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Yes that is the one. As I said if the admins can't tell us then that is that and nothing we can say or do will change that.

That would definitely be between us and that user.

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This is incredibly uncommon and not how we do things here. Are you sure it's gone? Please let me know what the topic was about so I can look into that.

Oops, sorry. Maybe I opened a bigger can of worms than the one I was trying to help bury?

Anyway, the title of the thread was 'The Lone Ranger' I think. The topic was the movie, not the sets.

I looked for it several times from my 'My Content'. Maybe only my polite, respectful and well-meaning comments were deleted and the thread remains? I dunno.

Anyway, hope that helps and have fun!

Joe

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Anyway, the title of the thread was 'The Lone Ranger' I think. The topic was the movie, not the sets.

Your post can be found in this thread.

I looked for it several times from my 'My Content'. Maybe only my polite, respectful and well-meaning comments were deleted and the thread remains? I dunno.

Your post spurred a reaction from another member that was dealt with by a member of the staff. The member's response and your reaction to that were removed.

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Yes that is the one. As I said if the admins can't tell us then that is that and nothing we can say or do will change that.

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=79016&st=0

Read it all and tell me he isn't out of line trashing lego left and right and making a mess of my thread. Sorry if I just broke a rule pointing the finger. Why would you post a topic "where is dluders" in the technic forum? 1. These forums are meant to be educational and recreational 2. Who cares. 5000 posts doesn't mean anything if you have nothing positive to contribute.

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http://www.eurobrick...opic=79016&st=0

Read it all and tell me he isn't out of line trashing lego left and right and making a mess of my thread. Sorry if I just broke a rule pointing the finger. Why would you post a topic "where is dluders" in the technic forum? 1. These forums are meant to be educational and recreational 2. Who cares. 5000 posts doesn't mean anything if you have nothing positive to contribute.

At first I thought you were overreacting, since he starts out being helpful, but further along the line, he indeed is getting way out of line. Ranting about TLG customer service is of no use. One can be a little critical, but don't overdo it.

I can't blame the user for creating a topic in the Technic forum, since most of the Technic users were wondering why DLuders has been banned. We did/do care about him. When I joined two years ago I thought he was like the Godfather of the Technic forum, always being helpful and supportive.

But I guess rules are rules and they need to be obeyed, even if you have 5000+ posts.

Thanks for making this a little bit more clear!

(even though this might not be the reason he's been banned of course)

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It's not only how one behaves in the forums, abuse of the pm system is also (rightly) not tolerated - which is something we peasants won't see. Not saying it's the cause here though

Anyway, David is easy to find, just google dluders :wink:

I've been using, moderating and owning forums since the mid 90's. I'm currently active in a quite a lot of non LEGO ones. They are all different regarding this banning issue

Some have the policy that talks about banning is a nono, some spell it out (the banning reason) and some don't mind a thread about why is X is missing. EB has it's own firm policy of this issue and that's entirely up to them. If they do not want the speculation here, it's fine. It can lead to some nasty threads as I've observed many times. I have also observed that talking about why X is banned can be handled in a civilzed maner with good input from members

Talk _will_ happen however, either through the pm system and/or email - or 'worse' on other forums. Last two options is out of EB's control

I see EB has the 'taking a break' tag that suspends the user for a given period. Maybe that should be used more than outright banning?

Just a suggestion :thumbup:

Cheers,

Ole

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I see EB has the 'taking a break' tag that suspends the user for a given period. Maybe that should be used more than outright banning?

Just a suggestion :thumbup:

Well as I wrote some posts above:
The "process" is handled by these guidelines:
Taking a Break means that a member has done something that goes against the site guidelines: spamming, foul language, improper behaviour, underage membership, multiple accounts, or generally poor posting practices are common causes. This isn't automatically the end of your time here, but it is serious and should be taken as such. The staff will discuss the problem with you in private, make sure you understand, and if it is something that can be corrected or improved and you've shown the right attitude, you will usually be given another chance to participate as a normal member. If that happens, however, you need to remember that you've been lucky to receive a second chance and act accordingly

While this takes place the member has this User Group tag:

taking_break.gif

So yes, while there is a discussion between the involved the member in question is "Taking a break". If it goes well he/she gets their useful tag back and everything is back to normal. If it doesn´t work out, then it´s banning that´s next.

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I see EB has the 'taking a break' tag that suspends the user for a given period. Maybe that should be used more than outright banning?

Most banned members, especially those who spent a lot of time contributing, are given plenty of time with the "Taking a Break" tag and plenty opportunity to discuss and improve. We do try to use it before banning and have numerous discussions, devoting a lot of free time to try to make things work amicably. We are not ban happy.

As for discussion and things being said on other sites and rumors, yes, we're aware. I, personally, don't mind that. Let it happen. The most important thing is that we keep that banned member's business as their own. I would not want to discuss their banning when they are gone and not able to tell their side of things. Just laying out what happened for every member to read is very disrespectful to the banned member, in my opinion. I, personally, would not take part in anything like that.

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I understand. What you do works for this forum

But thank you anyway for making this post, Hinckley - makes everything a bit clearer :classic:

Edit : Also thanks to the Fabuland copper :thumbup:

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I understand. What you do works for this forum

But thank you anyway for making this post, Hinckley - makes everything a bit clearer :classic:

Edit : Also thanks to the Fabuland copper :thumbup:

I second that! :thumbup:

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I have one rule for all of my internet postings: would I say this to someone if they were standing in front of me and I didn't have the anonymity of the Internet?

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Thanks to everyone for the amicable conversation regarding this topic. :sweet: That is much appreciated.

I have one rule for all of my internet postings: would I say this to someone if they were standing in front of me and I didn't have the anonymity of the Internet?

So many people have trouble with that one. It's the best rule to go by but I think there's a large portion of people that get "anonymity nerve".

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