Wall of Shame

[Randy]

Some forums are very open with who they ban and for whatever reason, they put up a section called the "Wall of Shame." This section lists every single banned user.

What are your thoughts on this? Is it unnecessary?

 

[Cory]

I think it's unnecessary unless it can somehow still affect other members. An example is on a marketplace board, a previous scammer gets banned and users know who the user that is banned is that scammed people. Of course, this doesn't stop scammers from coming up with different identities, but the more you know about them, hopefully, the more you'll be able to watch out for them.

I think a "wall of shame" is just public humiliation at its finest. Other users generally have no need to know why someone else was banned.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

I have never seen this. It doesn't sound appropriate.

Having a "banned" membergroup and displaying it on their profile or under their avatar is sufficient. No need to draw any extra attention to it.

 

[Laifot]

In our very old board, we kept that sub-forum for users that created stupid threads and most of it hilarious ban situations, anyway i think it's up to the administration to keep it or not!

 

[MrDawn]

I don't approve of that. I think a member's indiscretions should stay between them and the staff members above. It doesn't need to be put out there for everyone to see.

 

[ZandraJoi]

I do not believe in public shaming. I’ve seen it happen when it was a simple faux pas & the person now was the gossip & shamed. Even if it’s for something major, people can & do change. There are tactful ways to get the point across to bullies without becoming one yourself.

 

[riberet19]

I think it's unnecessary, that person has already been banned, there's no need to throw them on a wall of shame

 

[KenDaGamer]

Nah, there's really no need for all that. You can ban the person who misbehaves too much, but you cannot do a wall of shame on your forum.

 

[Jay™]

I don't think there is a need to shame people in the open, just ban them if needed and call it good.
Admins that do this are childish themselves.

 

[Senkusha]

I agree. I see no reason to publicly shame somebody. Just ban them and be done with it. So far on my current site, I've only had to ban accounts that belonged to Spammers. And then I delete the inappropriate (SPAM) messages.

However, back in the day when I worked Technical Support, we had a Book of Shame. These were a collection of service calls that we'd receive for the most obnoxious reasons. I had one entry in there from a time when I was "on call" during Christmas Week. I had some lady call me saying that her screen was black. Keep in mind that this is 2:30 in the morning. I'm also in the process of moving later that week, so my workstation is set up on a folding card table and pack moving boxes are scatter everywhere in my living room. Anyway, after 45 minutes of going though the standard troubleshooting questions, she notices that the clock on the wall had stopped moving, and that there was only one light on in the entire room. This lady worked as a medical transcriptionist for a hospital. Turns out that the power had failed, and that is why her "screen is black". OMG I was livid. This was also back in the day where that support guy from WordPerfect told a customer to pack up his computer in the box and return it to the store where they bought it because they were too stupid to operate a computer. Ah, the good ol' days...