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Should forums stop being so ban/trigger happy?
- Thread starter Kale
- Start date
Well I've been running forums since around 2007 and I've never been ban/trigger happy.
Usually you can work most things out by just sending the member a PM and having a chat.
If that doesn't work and they continue to break rules or be a nuisance, you can do things like:
- Placing moderator approval on their posts (their posts wont be shown to the public until staff approves them).
- You can place them in a usergroup with less forum permissions (can't send PM's and things like that).
- You can do a temporary ban (make sure to state in the ban message that it is only temporary and mention the date their account will be unlocked).
I'm not particularly ban happy, personally, I have only banned spammers and a couple of problem members on my personal sites. Only time I've stepped that up a bit was on GameWinners, which was a very strict site. Otherwise, eh...maybe a few jumping to conclusion situations, but sorted those out mostly.
Noticed this all over too. Social media especially is the worst place for it.
And that is what I think many should try to do first. If they continue then yeah perhaps mod queue, limited permissions, or whatever else. Most of the time talking with people works, but not always.
It's true, I have experienced being disrespected by a member where I'm an admin. I just tend to remove myself from the situation where that happens and avoid engaging with the member until they decide to be polite. I don't believe in cutting ppl off, just keeping a positive mindset about anyone and everyone. I'm not perfect but I try for the sake of my own sanity. It not only has a positive impact on my mental health, but also the community environment.
I feel like reacting actually continues to mess up the forum. If a member takes the mickey and you react to it as admin, then that justifies them taking the mickey in their eyes. Before you know it, you end up in a debate that goes nowhere, and then the member gets banned and it's like "what are they actually banned for?"
Sometimes it's a case of not engaging to prevent fuelling whatever it is you're fuelling, or if they're trolling. You never really know. The worst thing you can do, having been on both the giving and receiving end of this, is to call someone out for being a troll. What if that's just the way they are or they have a learning disability? That can be triggering.
I’ve been accused of trolling before. My social skills are bad I know that but ended up being driven away from that forum. Giving people a warning bar just discourages people who made a mistake to not come back and discourage others from going there.
Yeah, it's bad. Either the staff should PM the member to let them know what they're doing is annoying. If that doesn't help and it doesn't appear the member is attempting to rectify their behaviours, I suppose that not caring can be seen to be just as bad as trolling. Other thing is to choose your battles. If it's not damaging to the site but simply annoying to YOU, just simply don't engage. Just offering my 2 cents.
I've seen 'ban happy' admins actually make their board so dull it soon ceased to exist.
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Yes, they should.
Exactly. Then those admins go around complaining about how inactive their forum is... well, they did it to themselves so I don't really feel sorry for them.
But sadly I admit that I am trying not to be that way anymore. Such a bad habit from way back in the days when you could lose a member, then gain a new member. Now you cannot anymore, so need to stop being so ban happy or trigger happy with stuff.
I don't know the inner workings of groups anymore so I suppose every forum is different with what is tolerated from what isn't. Perhaps? On one hand being ban happy is a good way to getting a decline in members especially if they see the atmosphere of the group hostile with the administration. On the other, there are some pretty asinine individuals roaming around the net up to no good and rather than engage in FF with them, a swift decision should be made. I've spent a majority of my time on roleplay forums where I have seen both sides of the issue as a member and moderator.
Should those asinine individuals be given a chance to improve their behavior?
Nope. I say this because I've seen first hand the behavior of these individuals. They never change. They make new accounts to come back to do the same thing. Had a person contact me three times wanting to write a story about a human and animals procreating. Blocked. They were banned. They made another account, sent me the same message, was blocked and banned again. Came back a third time, sent the same message. You'll know the ones who legitimately want to change, they show it.
We never ban people on our site unless they doing something illegal on our site...we try to encourage people to ignore whoever they don't like etc because really it's just words and relying on pig culture just makes us as bad as those were want to ban...similar to cancel culture it's so hypocritical to police what others want to say or think...
I am not sure where these ban/trigger-happy sites are. Of the sites I am active on, forum.rpg.net is getting fairly strict around certain issues but given their size and posting volume, I would hardly call them trigger-happy when you actually work out bans per active user. And I can't think of any other sites I am on where people get banned on a regular basis.
Wondercafe2 currently has 2 people on permanent bans and they were extremely disruptive in their behaviour. That's on a site that will be ten years old next year. Temporary bans have been used sparingly. These days, I tend to encourage the use of reply/thread-bans moreso than total site bans. That defuses the immediate situation but keeps the offender around since they often contribute meaningfully in other threads. For instance we have one cranky old retired minister and professor who gets very uppity and insulting when his posts are questioned or challenged. He posts some wonderful stuff so I would not want him banned but if his huffiness gets a thread off track, I will happily suggest that the mods boot him from that thread until he calms down.
(EDIT: And I am not counting spammers or obvious trolls in any of this. Banning them is part of the admin/mods' job.)
Wondercafe2 currently has 2 people on permanent bans and they were extremely disruptive in their behaviour. That's on a site that will be ten years old next year. Temporary bans have been used sparingly. These days, I tend to encourage the use of reply/thread-bans moreso than total site bans. That defuses the immediate situation but keeps the offender around since they often contribute meaningfully in other threads. For instance we have one cranky old retired minister and professor who gets very uppity and insulting when his posts are questioned or challenged. He posts some wonderful stuff so I would not want him banned but if his huffiness gets a thread off track, I will happily suggest that the mods boot him from that thread until he calms down.
(EDIT: And I am not counting spammers or obvious trolls in any of this. Banning them is part of the admin/mods' job.)
Usually those big, lost in the crowd forums where they have hundreds of users online at a time.
Exactly those big ones that don't care about the ones they ban because they got so many joining each day they don't value individuals...it's just like big business or big banks not valuing small customers...
Anyways I'm banned at at all the franchises of a certain brand of sports forum because I couldn't help them ban members at our forum they wanted banned they actually sent me an ultimatum to either we ban people for them or I get banned...of course I got banned...
