Banning Friendly?

Candy317 · 06-18-2008, 02:49 AM

Do these people get warnings? I never put in my 2 cents, because I feel like what if this is pushing it? On others forums they really don't,,,well I've never seen them ban anyone before, and we are allowed to have heated dicussions. If someone pushes it, the thread gets closed, end of story. People move on and agree to disagree.

Hate to see these people go, they give great contribution to the forum on advice and informtion, have cute dogs....but now if I ever want to ask them something.......I can't because they're gone and never see they're cute dogs ever again.

Umm I don't get how we have to refrain from quoting a post that might get deleted? I'm just really new to all these restrictions. Never had these problems on other forums and they seem to run very well. I see lots of DF members going on other forums....do you guys think maybe its becuse of the whole not being able to express their opinions thing? In the heat of the moment, people might not notice right away that they're ''pushing it''.......heck on this forum I have no idea what is 'pushing it'......seems like everything really. Were humans, sometimes we let our feelings get the best of us.

This seems like a nice community, its sad its gotten such a bad representation elsewhere from people saying they're not allowed to say much of anything. Heck I thought the new people we were getting on the forum were trolls looking to cause havoc from another forum, but they seem pretty civil to me. This banning left and right seems odd & sometimes I think in most cases its not needed.

Is there any other alternative/compromise mods & members can make other than getting banned when things turn for the worst? I'm new & I see lots of people leaving/getting banned....not a good outlook.

RonE · 06-18-2008, 06:35 AM

A seven-day ban IS a warning.

So banned members join other forums and bad-mouth dogforums.com? Do you think that should dictate policy here?

Edit: Since you're somewhat new here, maybe some clarification is in order.

Opinions, even strong and strange ones, are not discouraged here. Dog-man (and I don't think he'll object to me using him as an example) is someone who expresses frequently unpopular opinions. A few (gratefully, very few) members begged us to "do something about dog-man," but there was no reason to do anything. He was able to express his opinions without resorting to profanity or personal attacks, despite being the target of both. He was mostly cool under fire, so he's still here.

Personal attacks, with or without the profanity, are never acceptable. If someone tells you you're wrong, that's an opinion. If someone tells you you're a dumb-ass, that's an opinion, too, but not one the moderators are going to let slide. For people that enjoy that, there are, as you've already pointed out, other forums out there.

With regard to quoting passages that are going to be deleted by moderators: Of course, you can't always predict that. But if the passage is so blatantly offensive that you feel compelled to respond in like manner, my suggestion would be to report it - not quote it.

I hope that helps clear things up a little. Moderators, at least THIS moderator, are a little touchy about being second-guessed about all the behind-the-scenes activity that eats up our limited forum time, so I trust we've heard the last of this.

Edit2 - yet more detail:

If it were up to me, banned users would not say "Banned" under their names. You have no way of knowing, just looking at that, whether it's a one-week ban, a lifetime ban or something in-between and, frankly, it's nobody's business but the banee.

britishbandit · 06-18-2008, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Candy317

Never had these problems on other forums and they seem to run very well. I see lots of DF members going on other forums....do you guys think maybe its becuse of the whole not being able to express their opinions thing?(

I am also a member of a few different forums, not that I prefer any one more than the other, I just like the variety of members, but as you say, there are recognizable people usually at each forum you choose to go to.

If you've never noticed a problem, maybe you joined after the people were banned. But there's a few members that have been banned here, that have also been banned (either temporarily or permanently) on other forums too. I think that only goes to show that in some cases (not all), it is the person's inability to refrain from doing something that they know will get them banned, not that the forum is being unfair to them. You think they'd learn from it the first time, it's just not the case. A first time offense is one thing, but after that it's inexcusable, and they should know better.

I myself and not immune to getting upset at times, some statements or people just rub us the wrong way. And i've blown up before, but I've learned from it. Usually just not responding right away, and thinking things over, wording what I have to say appropriately is enough to prevent me from saying something I'll regret or that will get me banned. Sometimes I feel I have to refrain from responding to a post that has really upset me, and I'll do that rather than make a distasteful post. A little self control goes a long way.

JenTN · 06-18-2008, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonE

A seven-day ban IS a warning.

So banned members join other forums and bad-mouth dogforums.com? Do you think that should dictate policy here?

Edit: Since you're somewhat new here, maybe some clarification is in order.

Opinions, even strong and starnge ones, are not discouraged here. Dog-man (and I don't think he'll object to me using him as an example) is someone who expresses frequently unpopular opinions. A few (gratefully, very few) members begged us to "do something about dog-man," but there was no reason to do anything. He was able to express his opinions without resorting to profanity or personal attacks, despite being the target of both. He was mostly cool under fire, so he's still here.

Personal attacks, with or without the profanity, are never acceptable. If someone tells you you're wrong, that's an opinion. If someone tells you you're a dumb-ass, that's an opinion, too, but not one the moderators are going to let slide. For people that enjoy that, there are, as you've already pointed out, other forums out there.

With regard to quoting passages that are going to be deleted by moderators: Of course, you can't always predict that. But if the passage is so blatantly offensive that you feel compelled to respond in like manner, my suggestion would be to report it - not quote it.

I hope that helps clear things up a little. Moderators, at least THIS moderator, are a little touchy about being second-guessed about all the behind-the-scenes activity that eats up our limited forum time, so I trust we've heard the last of this.

Edit2 - yet more detail:

If it were up to me, banned users would not say "Banned" under their names. You have no way of knowing, just looking at that, whether it's a one-week ban, a lifetime ban or something in-between and, frankly, it's nobody's business but the banee.

On another dog forum I am a member of, if it's a "time out" ban, it says "in da dog house"

ACampbell · 06-18-2008, 11:01 AM

I agree, several of the folks I regularly converse with are getting banned...I'm not exactly thrilled with this so I'll make sure in the future to get some other way of correspondence with them - I don't particularly agree with how banning works...a week to start with is kind of harsh.
Some of these "debates" between a couple of the folks recently banned have been going on for weeks and the people involved haven't just been rude to each other either. However, nothing was done previously to rectify this situation so it's not very pro-active, the fire was never quashed while it was only a campfire and now they've burned the forest down - when things were obviously rather heated in the first place.
I'm not knocking the moderators, but I think this could have been done differently resulting in a more efficient end plan.
So now I've spoken my piece on it (and might get banned for it considering the recent actions that have gone on here) and I'll resign it at that.

trumpetjock · 06-18-2008, 12:03 PM

You could create another user group that has the title "On vacation" or some such that doesn't have any posting privs, and just move them to that group instead of actually using the ban button. I've been mod on many different forums that were more poorly set up than this one, so I would assume it would be a simple task to add that type of user group.

Now, if you guys are doing a full IP ban, it's a different story.