Forum wide ban.

Omackeral

Hi. This is probably futile to be honest but I'm posting on principle regardless. Last night I was banned for a very light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek remark that I made.

The comment I made was on the thread about a group of Traveller men fighting in Belfast Airport, which was accompanied by a video of the incident. The comment was ''you dirty innocent good-for-nothing rat poison bastard.'' This saying is simply something that's said in one of the more infamous Traveller call-out videos, in similar vain to ''sh*te in the bucket'' ''or ya junkie's bastard''. At no stage was there malice or degradation towards anyone yet I got a ban. Not just a thread ban either but an AH ban from the entirety of the forum. I felt this was very harsh for the following reasons;

N.S.A.Bot wrote:

Dear Omackeral,

You have been banned from After Hours for one day for a breach of the forum charter.

1. The saying was a direct parody.

2. It was said in a light hearted manner which is what The Charter says AH should be all about. Seems quite the opposite here. I don't feel I breached it all.

3. There was no warning, just a group ban. No yellow card or anything. I think a yellow may have been understandable. A complete forum ban not at all.

I did contact the Moderator in question with the following PM this morning.

Omackeral wrote:

Ah come on! Why did I get a ban for that? What rule was broken? All I said was a direct line from one of the infamous call out videos, same as ''sh*te in a bucket!'' It's only directed at the eejits in this video anyway, not anyone else.

I haven't heard anything back all and at this stage it's redundant anyway probably as the ban is nearly up but wanted to put my points across. I feel the mod overstepped it issuing a forum wide ban, really do. Even if it was overturned at this stage, it's served anyway. It's a bit sh*tty to not even fight your corner or explain yourself. I've been on here a good while now and generally contribute to topics. A shame.

Omackeral

Got a PM after appealing to the mod directly and they said they didn't get the reference and thought it was a dig. Lifted the ban. Thought the forum wide ban was very OTT and reactionary. They lifted it though so fair enough.

I'm here a while now and I actually don't know what's grounds for an on-thread mod warning, a yellow card infraction, a thread ban and a forum-wide ban or if it's all just made up as it goes along.

Beasty

I'm marking this as resolved

In answer to your question though

1. Thread bans are just that. They do not appear on your profile, but clearly if you breach a threadban you open yourself up to a harsher penalty
2. Yellows are a (relatively) mild rebuke - However there remains a lot of discretion in whether to apply a red or yellow, or indeed a ban. For example the Rugby forum has a strict "no tolerance" policy through the 6N. They put a warning thread up (stickied) alerting posters that any infringements will result in a red in ban. Soccer on the other hand has set penalties ranging from yellow for a "standard" breach, a red for something that's considered more extreme (such as certain abuse towards other users) and bans for an accumulation of yellows and reds.

Bans are generally the harshest penalty, but, for example, there are 1 day bans in Soccer for breaching a "no-chat" rule. I personally would normally consider that a "technical" breach, and not something to be used to escalate future penalties

Ultimately though there is a lot of discretion across the site, and is some cases (eg Soccer, Radio and indeed Rugby) the charter can be very prescriptive, and in other cases they can be very subjective. Most regulars get a feel for the approach adopted, certainly in forums they frequent regularly. Equally there is always the option of seeking clarification from the local mods