Banned members

[Mike]

I know you would agree that we must, more often than not, make difficult decisions to remain one.

[bassfisher6522]

who to agree and to remain what....I'm so confused...let's talk shop? The man in the car - red shoe in the corner - 124....translate.

[Mike]

Well, keeping the forums operational, as Ross pointed out in his retort about this being a Windows 7 site, sometimes involves difficult decisions to make about members, policies, and procedures at a team, administrative, and sometimes even community level. In other words, in order to prevent people from going off-topic onto subjects that just end in disaster after disaster, with no end in sight, and only to enrage a group of people to gain satisfaction from it, we must be ready to consider enforcing our Terms of Service, and, even, at times, amending it, to prevent such unpredictable human behavior from taking place.

At the end of the day, the website must be about technology, and in off-topic areas, of course, anything else. But to constantly allow a single member or group of members to annoy 90% of the rest of the viewers on the site, almost as a form of attention seeking or trolling, is something that cannot be allowed. In the case of long standing members who start off great, a decision to ban them is often very difficult to make, and involves long conversations about what to do. In my mind, this can be a good thing.

If we did not think before we act, we would cease to care about our users, where the discussions go, or what happens to the site.

[Titanic]

I'm quite sure, I hope, that we all agree that the greatest quality of man is not having the right to express his own opinion but to give that other man the right to express his opinion. Being a technical Forum doesn't make this place invulnerable for disputes or differences of meaning. I've had a few minor ones myself, even if I haven't been here for very long. It doesn't really take more than two persons to start a war, be they peasants or kings - in case they want to make war.

Differences of opinion are one thing, like are the difficulties in giving the good and right advice to people. I remember when I had a MSI Mobo, got into trouble, found a topic very similar with my problems; there was a dozen answers, from some who had 25,000 posts, and ALL advice were different. And that was the official Forum of MSI. Not an easy task to solve problems, eh?

Quite another matter is spamming, trolling, intentional harassment, hate mongering... whatever there may be in that class of behavior. Like I've told people when they get their computer jammed by malware: not all sites are friendly - you need to take care. A bit like cat stevens Wild World - YouTube

It actually took one man to start WWII. In the 90's a computer guru was asked how many persons he would need to control the data traffic in the world, and he answered TWO persons.

I find this Forum very safe. Let's not get paranoid, but alertness is, or may be, a virtue.

[Adamsappleone]

As Mike had mentioned and I feel the bottom line;

we must be ready to consider enforcing our Terms of Service, and, even, at times, amending it, to prevent such unpredictable human behavior from taking place.

There are entirely too many people that join and do not read these rules; these are put into place for our safety and protection as well as the member joining, yet some feel they just don't apply to them as in the case of Andrea, she was banned from a few forums for talking about being banned from another forum and that was against those forums TOS and she even admitted to not reading the rules when she joined, well duh!!
We, as moderators, are hired on voluntarily to enforce these rules and "keep the peace" as they say, I've seen all too many times where members have gone totally off topic, harassed, made personal attacks, etc: and much of the time it's ignored for whatever reason, instead of making the correction right then to prevent it from escalating or just to make the point, "Hey, this is against our TOS and will not be tolerated." It's not a hard decision to make, what's wrong is wrong, period!

FWIW
Don

[Andrea Borman]

Adamsappleone wrote-
There are entirely too many people that join and do not read these rules; these are put into place for our safety and protection as well as the member joining, yet some feel they just don't apply to them as in the case of Andrea, she was banned from a few forums for talking about being banned from another forum and that was against those forums TOS and she even admitted to not reading the rules when she joined, well duh!!

Yes on Neowin forums it is against their TOS to talk about being banned from other forums. And when I posted about my ban from Seven Forums,the moderators changed my thread from public view to private view. Meaning it was not visible on the web and could only be seen by the other forum members. I got a few replies but then a moderator came along and locked the thread. Saying it was against the TOS to talk about other forums.

But what is so shocking about my story about my being wrongly banned from Seven Forums for doing absolutely nothing wrong? That would make a moderator change my thread from public view to private view?And then they locked the thread anyway.

And I was banned from Expert Law forums for posting about my ban from Seven Forums. But they did not like me anyway on Expert Law forums. And the members on there were horrible to me. But the members on that forum like to wind other people up and upset them. It's their thing.

And a lot of people have been banned from Seven Forums not just me. So I am not the only one.

I have had my threads locked and deleted on some other forums. And a lot of forums lock threads or delete them for no real reason. And some forums forbid you to use use your real name or give names of places. I read a post on the web about one person who was treated badly in a department store. But because she named the store,she was banned from the forum. And they deleted her thread.

But she only named the store and the city,New York.She did not name the staff who were rude to her.So where is that identifying anyone?

Some forums are just stupid. But I have noticed on this forum and on your other one,Windows 8 Forums. You never lock a thread unless you have to. And you never delete threads unless you have to. And that is a good policy. Andrea Borman.

[Titanic]

I was a moderator on another Forum for two and a half years, I gave a couple of warnings and two temporary bans. I can assure it's not an easy matter to decide, warnings and bans. Unless you're a psycho, thus knowing precisely right and wrong. Editing replies or deleting them, or interfering with topics even harshly, is like rowing a boat in comparison with Normandy.

Quite generally, I think most disputes are unnecessary, and could be avoided through communication, and by using the sapiens part of our species' name more often and more strictly. Unfortunately all history and experience clearly prove that [wo]men like to fight.

Go figure? John Lennon - Imagine (official video) - YouTube

[Drew]

Heard a nasty rumour, what's sad & shocking is to see it's true. Geeeesh! @ least there are other forums. OMG! WOW!

[Andrea Borman]

Well on some forums it's not the moderator who bans the person,it is the admin. But it depends on the forum. I got banned from Seven Forums for doing nothing. What happened was that a member posted my You Tube video on a thread that was about Windows Movie Maker 6 on Windows 7.

And he commented on the same thread that he liked my video. And I replied back to him on the same thread thanking him.But he was off topic for commenting on my video on the thread and so was I. But he was not banned, but I was banned.

But not only did Seven Forums ban me,they deleted all of my posts. And every time I log in I get this horrible ban message.

Seven Forums ban message.
You have been banned for the following reason:
Persona non grata.
Date the ban will be lifted: Never.

I looked it up on Wikipedia,and persona non grata means,person not welcome.
If that's not being nasty I don't know what is.And I have been banned for life from Seven Forums.

But the video that that member posted on the thread on Seven Forums was one I made a few months before.About how I got treated badly on Linux Mint forums. And how they threatened to ban me.

But I can only guess the reason why Seven Forums banned me as they never respond to my emails. And my guess is that it could have been my video more than anything that might have upset them.

After all if they see a video with me talking about my ban from another forum and also pointing out how stupid some forum rules are. That could put some forums off and so Seven Forums thought I was going to be a problem on their forum. And that could be why they banned me.

But I never posted the video on the forum,that member did. And I did not tell him to post it.But on some forums that does not make any difference. Because some forums do not allow anyone who has been banned from another forum on their forum.

So the fact that I post under my real name-Andrea Borman, and my username is in fact my real name. And the name I use on my websites and on You Tube does not help. Because forums see my posts and videos about my ban from other forums.And I also point out how stupid some of their rules are.

So I am not surprised that some forums don't like it and ban me from that forum as well.If I used a different name or username from my real name on my websites and video channels.Other forums would not know anything about my ban or being treated badly on other forums.

But I don't see why I should hide my identity when I have not done anything wrong. And I was banned because of the forums ignorance or stupidity. I am talking about some forums not all. That is I have never insulted anybody or posted offensive content. I was banned for a stupid reason,for doing nothing. As was the case of Seven Forums and the other forums I had problems with.

But other people have been banned from Seven Forums not just me. And I recently took part in a thread on Techspot forums. Where a long time member of Seven Forums,who had written some really good tutorials,was very upset. Because he had just been banned for life from Seven Forums for doing nothings. And they even banned his IP address.
See here-Banned by administrator from Windows 7 & 8 forums - TechSpot Forums

And there is another thread I took part in over at Sysnative Forums here-Banned from z3r010's sites

Where several members have been banned for life from Seven Forums just for being members of Sysnative Forums.

And that's the story.

As for my ban from this forum and Windows 8 Forums,which is part of this forum,that was the only time I may have deserved it. To be honest I was banned from here because I was being stupid in my posts about Windows 8. A joke is a joke, but it went to far.And upset some other members and it turned into an argument. And 3 other members were banned along with me. But one of them has been reinstated on the forum,but the other 2 are still banned. But I have learned my lesson about that.Andrea Borman.

[Titanic]

I don't know the whole story, but I don't really think it's all that wise to make it a public laundry. I think communicating with moderators and administrators would be the best solution. In these cases, publicity may be more bad than good. Simply because members reading the posts don't really know all facts. Eh?

There's always a difficulty when civilians use authority and power; the problem is, they are all equal. To mention, I'm a Captain and Battalion Commander in the Finnish Army, and we don't have these problems because "the more metal you have in your collars", the more you have to say, and the less you need to ask.

The structure of an organization may not be perfect, nor the persons running or guiding or leading it BUT: I respect those persons, and I'm quite certain they act for the best of that organization / Forum. There are times when one has to keep one's tail between one's legs. Not selling one's values, I've never done that, but accepting a bit of flexibility.

I hate this kind of dispute. No value, only ache.