I've been banned questions

mm2

Hello,

I've been banned (I think) - well the box at the bottom says "I may not" a lot on the username mishmash. I have recieved three negative reports - and can see the thread they refer to...here.

I have some questions...

*I can see I have a PM on my mishmash account - which I guess tells me why I've been banned but I'm unable to see it because I've been banned - is this a bug...

*Can I see if I've been banned / suspended for a period of time ...

*What can I do about it?

Thanks,

koneko

From the looks of it you were banned for pimping a website (your website?) - all your posts were about this site. If you want to advertise that site, contact the admins and pay for it like all the other companies.

mm2

Is advertising banned here?

It didn't mention it in the rules, and seams to be quite common, look at the signatures on these posts for an example.

Obviously I will be much more careful with my new account, (not that I thought I was reckless with the last one... see here that even includes a discussion with a moderator....)

koneko

Did you read the charters for the boards you posted in? The webmaster/flash one specifically says no advertising.

Having a link in your sig and constantly posting and advertising a site are completely different things.

The admins can answer properly though, I'm just guessing. Negative feedback (red dots in your UserCP you referred to) just means people didn't like your posts and gave you negative reputation. Banning is done by the admins.

seamus

It does mention it in the rules.

Blatant advertising is banned. You posted up a link, saying that "You can use this search box from this site, for your", which is usually ok, but then your second post said, "My site is great because x and y". That's blatant advertising, trying to increase traffic to your site. It's a bannable offence here because you're piggybacking on the freeness of the site. Why should you get free advertising?

Signatures are usually OK, so long as they're not intrusive, a small link or image is fine, so long as you don't append "LOOK AT MY SITE, ISN'T IT THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!!" to it.

mm2

that seams reasonable... I wouldn't have posted a post saying my site's great if it wasn;t for

Cgarveyasking: "is there any advantage of using it" ....

When I said "rules" I meant the overall ones you have agree to when signing up... I hadn't noticed the plethora of constantly changing per board rules...

koneko

You posted in threads that aren't even related to webdesign pimping your site, like the fashion board. I think the problem isn't that you posted about your site, it's that you *only* posted about it. It makes it look like the sole reason you signed up is to advertise your site.

seamus

There's also the relative newbie aspect. If someone is seen with very few posts, putting links to their site and starting new threads about it, the natural reaction is to think "Damn Spammers", and just ban them from the whole site by the admins. Whereas if a user with a couple of hundred posts did the same thing, they'll usually only be banned from that forum, as punishment for their pimping.

mm2

What I said on the fashion board - in a dicsussion about shaving was:

mishmash wrote:

Hi,
There's lots of reviews of Shavers here. I think it is worth buying a more expensive one, the cheap ones can be really nasty and ... bits of the grill broke off my braun...

Seams quite relavant... to me ... and brought in something new .. have you seen these new Philishave things with shaving gel cartridges and no grills???

ecksor

I was the person who banned you. seamus and koneko have explained it pretty well. You appear to have some sort of work or business interest in that company so from my point of view that just looks like trying to get free advertising.