Signature gets me a ban-hammerin'

[Amanita]

I also remember a very young mod (age twelve) at this forum I go on who was awful; she kept locking threads for no reason other than not agreeing with what people were saying, deleting topics for the same reason and telling people off quite nastily for spamming when they weren't.

On that forum, mods under sixteen are no longer appointed. All cuz of her.

Who the hell ever thought a 12 year old would make a good moderator? I'm sorry, but unless we're dealing with another species that matures far faster than humans do, there's no freaking way that a 12 year old has the maturity to do that job. Hell, I've seen people almost 30 who have no business with such power.

[Lace Neil Singer]

It was a public vote for who should be appointed as a mod, and she was an ok forum member til she became drunk with power.

[Rapscallion]

Public elections are notoriously bad ways to select officers/leaders.

Rapscallion

[HYHYBT]

What's that about democracy being the worst kind except for all the others?

Theoretically, a benevolent, well-informed dictator is best... which works great in practice for a forum, but of course doesn't for government because that's not the kind you're going to get.

[Bloodsoul]

I can't imagine myself completely nuking someone's account.. then again, my present forum doesn't even have a set-up for banning people (I haven't gotten around to writing the code, yet).

At the very least, I'd probably go the GameFAQs route and just add a bit of code that replaced their posts with "This post was deleted" without actually changing the hard info in the database.

[Lace Neil Singer]

The board where I admin, I don't think I've banned anyone in around a year, save spambots and a few people who signed up with offensive usernames, which is clearly marked in the terms of service as not being allowed.

Yet some noobs still think that I'm crazy with power and wield the banhammer without mercy.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

I know you're okay with being gone (don't blame you), but do you feel better to have vented a bit? That tends to help me.

Much.

As I said, their kicking me off the forum caused me to find a much better forum with people who are actually knowledgeable and have already given me good tips on how to go ahead with my build. Either directly answering a question of mine, or by my lurking and skulking through the past posts.

And that site led me to the local branch of a teardrop camping club called "Tear Jerkers".

So feel better for venting and found a better resource. Good day all around.

[Akasa]

Last election cycle I was banned for a forum for speaking out against Sarah Palin, pointing out her lies etc. Heaven forbid I disagree with people.

I made friends with someone who was a board member before that happened and she was like "yeah any disagreements with the collective and they ban you. That's why I don't post there too often."

[Rapscallion]

Interesting - we get around that by a blanket ban on politics and the like, but operate this place to let people vent steam. I think it a fair option.

Rapscallion

[RedRoseSpiral]

When I was 13 or so I got banned from a forum for posting a poem that I wrote and had previously been published (totally in line with the rules). They banned me because someone found a semi-similar poem so I totally had to have ripped that person off. I went as far as sending them a scan of the magazine that showed my poem was written and published before the one I supposedly ripped off. Ended up finding GaiaOnline shortly after that to waste my time on.

[RayvenQ]

At a site I used to moderate, I would hand out dozens upon dozens of bans daily, sometimes even reachign triple digits. But don't worry, it wasn't as draconian as it seemed, with a average active user base of 30,000+ and usually a constant of 2000+ members online, the way we used bans was different, no ban, except for a permanent ban was a punishment, instead they were warnings, bans ranged from 1 hour, to 1 day, 3 days and 7, the idea being that people would pay more attention to a slap to the face, that the bans were, than just being told off with a warning. Usually it worked, we also had a system in place where we had a place especially for banned users, where they could make threads and post (but not see others threads) to either appeal their bans, or explain themselves, quite often, if a user was calm, polite and rational, they'd get the ban reduced.

Anyway, the silliest ban I saw was this: A certain game started becoming popular (said game rhymes with Rhyme Daft) so, the Head Admin, made a new section of the forum, without consulting the owner, so that threads for that game didn't clutter up the whole forum (because the owner usually had nothing to with the forums besides posting and occasionally telling us we're doing moderating wrong, without actually telling us how he wanted it doing, it was mostly left up to the Head Admin and us moderators) Suddenly, this was a terrible crime against humanity and the Owner demoderated and permanantly banend the head admin, who had been the head admin ona free volounteer basis for 5 years! Naturally, a lot of us moderators didn't like it, so we argued with the owner, especially since we considered the head admin the best of us. Then I dropped this bomb "Hey, maybe you should use some of the ton of money you made from <thing owner is famous for> on some personel management skills since you've just got rid of one of the best members of staff you ever had" He took offence to what was my well intentioned suggestion, and demodded me, later on, when I'm debating the whole ban of the admin with him, he then removed my custom sized avatar that i had had and been allowed to keep from being a moderator.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Sounds like the admin of an RP board I used to belong to. Basically, the admin got drunk with power and started putting in some really stupid and unfair rules; such as having to post a giant paragraph as a disclaimer if your RP was based on a movie, book, game etc; having to allow everyone to join your RP (private RPs were banned, so were one on one); the admin having veto power on every RP. Basically, she'd delete an RP that she didn't like, giving no warning, which was irritating when you'd just spent an hour typing out a first post and intro. -.-

Everyone hated these new rules; the entire mod staff were demoted cuz they sided with the users, and eventually, there was a mass forum exodus as we all left for new RPing sites. I and a few others used to check back there as guests just to see what went on; the site was basically deserted, save for the admin and a couple of arselickers. Eventually, I got bored with checking up on it and concentrated on other sites; I only went back there to gloat when someone told me that the site was closed.

You see, the site was a paid domain, and survived cuz we users would donate small amounts to keep it going. The admin really shot herself in the foot when she drove everyone off the site, cuz after that, she could no longer afford to keep the domain and therefore had to close the site. It was a shame, cuz before she got swelled head, it was a good place to go and RP.

[Android Kaeli]

A few years ago I'd gone to this one forum and had lurked for a bit before deciding to register there. My first post hadn't even been up for more then a minute before I was banned. Why? Because apparently my username was similar to someone who had been previously banned.

Never went back.