Banhappy Extremes -vs- Moderate Approach

[Incognitus]

Has anyone else been noticing that the number/severity of things you have to do to be banned from somewhere, has been steadily dropping over the years?

I always thought the general idea was that, with time, people would grow, become more enlightened, and would become more patient and tolerant as a result. Instead, I hear constantly of people waking up one morning to an unexpected (and unexplained) ban, and since the forum software doesn't give you any way to reach out to the Owner (or appeal the ban), you're just left in limbo forever.

I, too, have felt the sting of being blindsided by a ban following no objectively 'bad' behavior, nor rule-breaking. People don't use their words, they don't say what they're thinking, but you later find out that people have been talking about you, just not to you, and you can't even recognize the person they're describing.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to go about unhyping the "Ban" feature of forums, and causing a reversal of the general attitude that those who can be banned, should be banned?

And, for those of you who might be thinking "wow, what has this guy been up to, that he's been banned so often?",

I am asking for an extra tall heaping dose of introspection from you! What have you seen, have you experienced, that might cause you to become desensitized to people who complain about being banned?

[telh]

I've noticed that it really depends on the site and who's running it. I've been on multiple sites where on one, you can say one thing that you disliked about the staff staffing it and they ban you (i've had that occur to me once) and another, which I had been a member of for 3.5 years until recently when I decided I didn't like the direction it was going, where you were only banned for super serious stuff (i.e. once a member tried to do a video call with an underaged member even after they told the person attempting it no, and members that were being aggressive/harassing members/members of staff).

In my opinion, I think it just depends on the person and age of them running it. Younger people (my generation) tend to be trigger happy and explode on people whilst the other older RPers/staff know that that's not the way to run things.

Personally, I've only ever banned 3 people on my forum, but that's because they've harassed me, said that they wished I would die/be hurt immensely, and spread many lies and rumors about members on the board that wasn't true.

It really just depends on your members and staff really. I really think that staff needs to have a conversation with each other and decide "Do we really need to ban someone for such a little thing?" Because some staff members just take it in their hands to ban someone without speaking their co-administration/team

[Kami]

I'll be honest, I don't really see the big deal about being banned from somewhere unfairly. Like, yeah, it sucks, but why waste the time and effort to try and convince people who don't like you that they should, in fact, like you? I have better uses for my time, and people who aren't jerks that I could be spending my time with. I genuinely just don't understand why it matters to anyone if someone is 'ban happy'. If an admin is so unreasonable as to ban a constructive and kind member arbitrarily, then what's the point in raising a fuss? They're clearly already unreasonable.

As an administrator, I try to be to balance being fair with having a no tolerance attitude for general jerkiness. My rules are laid out in a concise and clear manner, and I have a warning system policy in place that clearly outline general guideliness of how I deal with rule infractions. That said, I'm not going to hesitate to use the ban hammer if someone decides to push me to accept something I've already said no to, uses derogatory language, or just generally acts like a brat for whatever reason. Sometimes people need to be banned so they can get their heads out of their butts and realise they were behaving in an unseemly manner, and for that I have a point of contact available for people to send me a message.

Overall though, I'm actually pretty for admins being liberal with their banning -- it's their forum. Maybe it sucks to be on the receiving end of it, but at the end of the day, they're the ones that have to deal with the forum and its members as a whole. If they don't want to deal with you, even if unfairly*, then I support that. Sometimes I just don't get along with people, and since it's my forum and my free time, I feel it's my right to be able to choose whether or not I interact with them.

* I am excluding people being banned for discriminatory and hateful reasons here, just to be clear. If someone bans you because they don't like black people and you're black, or something to that effect, then they can go jump into a bed of cacti.

[isavarg]

I think it's become more prevalent in recent years, espeaically since the last American election where people get so worked up over tiny things.

- People are more hypersensitive these days. They try to police your opinions and rather than listen to someone else's perspective, or see it from the other side, they take the route that if 'they don't agree with me then they are racist, etc', depending on what you are disagreeing on. You can be quite polite about it too, but they will still take offense over it. It's not just a problem on forums, but across the whole internet, espeaically on facebook and twitter. (Though part of it is probably due to people getting fed up of arguing with, or being bullied by a genuine troll and just blocking/banning something only slightly negative because they've got fed up of having to fight such people.) I've not found this to be a problem so much on forums, but it's a very, very common on social media.

I think as well what has influenced this is the constant use of phones and tablet devices, whereas before people would have a break from their computer. As the internet is quite literally mobile these days people are almost always constantly on the net, so a negative comment is more intrusive that it used to be and if you have loads of these, you can see how it wears people down. On a forum you have more control over who you interact with than on twitter or facebook and people will create them so they can have a space where they feel safe in.

If you've had a bad experience on a forum where you've been banned and you don't know why it could be because a person's been constantly harassed elsewhere and just don't have the energy to deal with something that might turn out to be another round of receiving abuse. This isn't the fault of admin, or the person they've banned, but the result of what they've experienced in the past.

[Incognitus]

telh , that's been by experience as well. Unfortunately, it's not generally easy to gauge the age range of the people you're interacting with.

Kami the problem isn't that people are banning on private forums; it's that people create a public space, they aggressively mass-advertise, they tell everyone "come one, come all", and they let people get really into their stories, pour hours into plotting and RPing....then decide one day "hey, I don't like your face, buh-bye loser Bannhammuh has spokun!111!1!". Or they get immersed in the On-Demand Bans melodrama, which I honestly thought would've died out once we (my generation of RPers) hit our twenties or so.

isavarg I think some confusion over "freedom of speech" is the issue here. There's a quote I like, paraphrased "Everyone likes the idea of Freedom of Speech until they hear something they don't like". To counter it, I like another quote "The only censorship right you have when someone exercises their right to speak, is to exercise your right to not listen". Nowhere does that quote say people should exercise their 'right' to ostracize, alienate, and start online 'witch hunts'.

In an Administrative role, I try and uphold the same values I do in my offline career working with Civil Rights Legislation. My stance is, there is so much legislation prohibiting Employment Discrimination, Housing Discrimination, etc., but there are so many people - often victims of discrimination of some form RL - who come online and engage in the same kind of egregious behavior (passive-aggressively, or outright aggressively) they're unhappy about receiving offline. There are so many Federal Laws against discrimination that students, employees (etc.) don't know about (or they go crazy with labeling things as discrimination), and I think having a strong 'Customer Service ethic' as an Admin is important in handling all types of people, whether they're people who are quick to assume a slight where there is none ("I read in between the line" types), or they're someone with a different way of talking/acting/etc.

We aren't entitled to the guarantee that a community we join is a meritocracy, but we should be safe from predatory behavior, or having to experience backlash because someone is pulling strings with one (or more) Staff behind-the-scenes.

I mean, I've encountered people I can't imagine ever making it in an RPG they don't have Staff permissions in, because they're just so terrible at being fair and behaving kindly towards others.

[Kami]

I never made a distincion between private and "public" forums. I stand by my original statements: ultimately, you joined someone else's sandbox. Whatever their reasons (TOS abiding of course), theyre free to show you the door, at any time, for any reason. You (the general you, not you specifically) are not entitled to anyones time, good will, or ability to be present in their online space.