A recent user, Dorkweed, just had the honor of being banned. Of course, I say "honor" because he very well knew for many weeks before that he wanted to get banned and was going to get banned.
But let me start a bit further back.
We have 25K+ members. There have probably been 12 or fewer banned in the last year...that makes it a special club. Of course, lots of people WANT to be special. It's a certain kind of fame!
Being "liberal" (in terms of enforcing behavior), the moderators usually don't ban unless there is a very valid reason. Of course, we could be having a bad day also, but if you look at the numbers we must not have many of those...less than 3 valid members banned per moderator in a year!
Short of bad moods, you can add up the points and get banned for stuff like this:
1. If over 80% of your posts are in the Ash Can and if most of those deal with your guns or your religion, then chances are you will arise on our radar.
2. If you attack the moderators and call them names - that's likely to bring your name to the surface too!
3. If you claim that this is your forum and that you have "free speech" and "constitutional rights" here, that's another hint.
4. In a more rare case, I recently banned a new user with only two posts - both of them being critical of others, cynical and sarcastic. While we generally welcome such behavior as a tongue-in-cheek banter between helpful and experienced members, things that START like that are not likely to get better.
5. Emailing or messaging me privately about off-topic forum topics and your constitutional rights does not endear you to me. I have to assume some of the other mods feel this way too. The Ash Can is the Ash Can and not real life.
So, basically - as many long term members can tell you, it's quite hard to get banned around here. Still, some people rise to the challenge. The above gives those who aspire to such lofty heights some hints on achieving the goal.
Note - feel free to start a Conversation (private message) with me or other mods if you have questions as to what might get a member banned, etc.
But let me start a bit further back.
We have 25K+ members. There have probably been 12 or fewer banned in the last year...that makes it a special club. Of course, lots of people WANT to be special. It's a certain kind of fame!
Being "liberal" (in terms of enforcing behavior), the moderators usually don't ban unless there is a very valid reason. Of course, we could be having a bad day also, but if you look at the numbers we must not have many of those...less than 3 valid members banned per moderator in a year!
Short of bad moods, you can add up the points and get banned for stuff like this:
1. If over 80% of your posts are in the Ash Can and if most of those deal with your guns or your religion, then chances are you will arise on our radar.
2. If you attack the moderators and call them names - that's likely to bring your name to the surface too!
3. If you claim that this is your forum and that you have "free speech" and "constitutional rights" here, that's another hint.
4. In a more rare case, I recently banned a new user with only two posts - both of them being critical of others, cynical and sarcastic. While we generally welcome such behavior as a tongue-in-cheek banter between helpful and experienced members, things that START like that are not likely to get better.
5. Emailing or messaging me privately about off-topic forum topics and your constitutional rights does not endear you to me. I have to assume some of the other mods feel this way too. The Ash Can is the Ash Can and not real life.
So, basically - as many long term members can tell you, it's quite hard to get banned around here. Still, some people rise to the challenge. The above gives those who aspire to such lofty heights some hints on achieving the goal.
Note - feel free to start a Conversation (private message) with me or other mods if you have questions as to what might get a member banned, etc.
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