question for moderators about banning ;)

siobhank

Hi moderators,

Just a quick query. I joined the site 2 years ago and never used it until recently when I tried to log on to be told I was banned.
Went to 'prison' (so ashamed!) and one of the mods was very helpful and told me I was banned for recommending a grinds site way back.
Now I understand this was spam and whatnot although it certainly wasn't intentional. I also understand the mods are there to weed out the rubbish so to speak from the boards.
I do think it is a *little* unfair just to wipe someone off like that. For instance, I have used other forums and if someone is out of line, the mod will post a warning before taking any action on their account.
I would have thought from reading some of the posts in Prison while awaiting release that this would be easier and fairer considering the many posters who obviously made an error in recommending a site, link etc and weren't spewing e.g. racist or bigoted language.
I know this is a private site and you can choose your own rules but perhaps a second chance policy in doubtful/less serious cases could be considered?
Love the site anyway; glad to be back.

sceptre

Your first three posts all looked like they were heavily pimping this grinds school. That almost always indicates someone who's signed up just to promote a business. We've had thousands of spammers come here to pimp their wares and unfortunately, your post looked just like theirs.

The Prison forum is designed as the second chance where people can plead their case, like you did recently. You could have done that two years ago and probably would have had the exact same result in the exact same time:)

siobhank

sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I appreciate I was wrong, although I wasn't pimping any business, I was just a student.
My point is - why can't a second chance be given instead of being so harsh? e.g. other forums' mods would post - 'post removed for spamming' or whatever. If oyu did it again you would be banned. This seems fair to all concerned.
Just a suggestion, although I appreciate it probably won't fly with anyone.

sceptre

Oh we do that, believe me. Especially if someone's actually contributed non-spammy stuff before that. When that happens there's often a strong write slap or maybe a temporary ban depending but positive history is definitely taken into account.

When there's nothing else to go on apart from what looks like pure spam, the account is essentially put into lock down. There's nothing in the way of positive history and else to be taken into consideration apart from what the user has to say. So they're restricted from posting everywhere except one place so we can all have a chat. There was a time when the forum software didn't allow us to do that.

To be honest, it really seems harsh (I reckon) because all of the actual troublemakers are in the same place as those that didn't read the rules properly or made a big opening booboo. That opening booboo would prett much have to be something like what appears to be obvious spam or blatant abuse for someone to get sitebanned as early as that. No-one's sitebanned willy-nilly or lightly. In your case there was no other history to go on, that's why your account entered that lockdown status.