Ban notices auto-updated archive

[Evil Eye]

Obviously I can see why the staff may be averse to this idea, but I feel like an archive of bans from the website along with reasons for said bans would be a good idea for honesty's/transparency's sake. We've had announcements for bans before (notably BBF) after all. Obviously for historic bans, reasons given might be impractical but for more recent ones I think it would be fair, especially as this forum is generally very well-moderated and doesn't seem to have a lot of bans. I'd probably restrict it to permanent bans rather than temporary ones, but I think being upfront about who's been banned and why would be better; it demystifies the moderation process and also makes it even more clear what behaviour is and isn't acceptable. Also removes any chance of "Hey, what happened to that guy?".

 

Just an idea.

[Brother Tyler]

The staff is discussing this suggestion.

[Brother Tyler]

Members can already see everyone that has been permanently banned (i.e., placed in the EXCOMMUNICATUS group):

 

(Note that you can click on each of the images below to see larger versions.)

 

1. Click on the SEARCH icon (the magnifying glass) at the top right of the screen.

 

You'll be taken to the Search the Community page.

 

2. Click the "Member Search" tab.

 

You'll be taken to the Member Search page.

 

3. De-select all of the member groups that you don't want. In this case, leave only EXCOMMUNICATUS checked.

 

4. Click the Search Members button in the bottom right of the screen.

 

The search engine will find all members of the selected group, displaying them so that you can select any whose profiles you would like to visit. As of this post, there are 256 permanently banned members.

 

Realistically, most of the banned accounts come down to either repeated violations of the forum rules or sockpuppets (often for previously banned accounts). There are a handful of accounts that were permanently banned for fewer than 5 violations, but it would take considerable research to figure most of those out. Some banned accounts were spammers, and those are often deleted on my occasional sweeps of the database (we don't delete accounts that were banned for other forms of misbehavior). Many accounts were banned prior to the big crash in which we lost a ton of data, making determining the reasons for their bans almost impossible to figure out.

 

We changed our policies a few years back to announce permanent bans. What we might do in the future (and possibly going back through previously permanently banned accounts when the Administratum members have time) is replace a permanently banned member's signature or About Me page with a link to the ban announcement. I'm much more partial to the latter as the former seems a bit spiteful.

 

Something that isn't seen is deleted members. While we didn't delete members for the first two decades of the site's existence, we changed our policy a few years ago as digital privacy issues evolved. We didn't make a public announcement of this change, though the provisions for deleting a member's account were included in our terms of use. I don't recall why we [the Administratum] chose not to announce the change, but in hindsight, that was a mistake. So guidance on requesting account deletion will soon be available. When a member's account is deleted, their content remains, but is attributed to "Guest" (posts say "Guest-[Display Name]" while other content says only "Guest"). We won't announce member account deletions, nor will we retain a listing of deleted accounts. Many people want to erase their digital footprint (the "right to be forgotten") and we will do everything in our power to meet that standard, ensuring that all personally identifiable information on such members is completely removed from the site. You didn't include deleted members in your suggestion, but it might be implied in your comment about "Hey, what happened to that guy?" and it came up in the discussion among the staff (especially since several accounts have been deleted recently). The only times we delete an account are member request (i.e., a member requests that their own account be deleted) or spambots.