How to leave a forum without doing a stupidly rule-breaking post to get permabanned

glennmagusharvey

The question is asked: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=kxw22520clx79kkmnvocfdy8&page=139#3472

...and subsequently answered.

MoeDantes

Is the answer "just stop posting," by any chance?

captainbrass

Why do people always regard this as so difficult? If you don't want to just disappear, there's probably some kind of general thread on most forums where you can announce you'll not be posting any more.

AHR

Holy crap her trope page is long.

gentlemanorcus

^^ They have than on the TVTropes forum too, so yeah.

^ Not really, compared to some I have seen.

Kinkajou

I think it's because people are too weak to have any source of self-control.

LouieW

captainbrass/Kinkajou,

I think some people just get sucked into a community and have trouble getting out. Sure, that might be due to a lack of self-control in a number of cases, but I figure that sometimes addiction is part of it too and addictions can be pretty tough to break.

That being said, I feel like banning people upon request is generally not a good idea. While I am okay with doing it in really small forums because it does not seem to have much of an impact, I think it is best if staff imposed punishment tools are only used to punish people for breaking the rules. I believe that helps avoid partiality on the part of mods, makes bans more meaningful, and lets mods focus on using their powers for more important stuff (i.e. their job is normally not to break your internet addiction). I guess that might sound silly though.

On a related note, if one really wanted to be banned on TV Tropes, could one not just make a huge amount of sockpuppets and trigger the automatic ban that way? I would definitely not recommend doing that, but I suppose it is possible.

Nova

No, you can't. There's a limit on the number of accounts you can make on one IP address at the moment.

glennmagusharvey

I don't like how we offer a "let's help you stop your IJBM2 addiction by giving you a tempban on request" service either, actually.

LouieW

Cygan,

Thanks for correcting me on that. It does seem to be more effective (and logical) to just limit the number of accounts people can have rather than automatically ban them.

Glennmagusharvey,

May I ask why you think that?

I tend to believe that if someone asks to be banned, there are probably some other issues that need to be addressed. Either getting banned no longer seems like a punishment to the person in question or the ban request may actually be a call for help about a more serious problem. I generally doubt granting that request is going to solve the latter problem so I cannot say I support it.

Nyktos

Why not just make it so bans on request are permanent? If you refuse to grant them entirely, people are just going to break the rules until you ban them anyway.

glennmagusharvey

Some people will learn self-control (at least for this forum), while a few will go and do crazy shit.

ClockworkUniverse

^^I'd approve of that measure.

All Nines

"If you refuse to grant them entirely, people are just going to break the rules until you ban them anyway."

Or, not quite as bad, come back when they realize they miss the place (a.k.a. fail to demonstrate self-control and bypass their own measures of treatment). Either way, permabanning when a ban is requested doesn't strike me as a terrible idea. It might instill self-control in some people.

glennmagusharvey

@LouieW: My reasoning involves something along the lines of what you said, though more importantly, I think that we as moderators should not be responsible for people's lifestyle/homework/grades/job performance/self-control/etc., because that sets a bad precedent for assessing what we're responsible for.

Myrmidon

You realize Dracosketch came back two days later and trolled the forum, right?

Nova

Myrmidon: More like she tried :P

Anyway, as a general thing, I'd like to say-

I don't think bans themselves are the punishment. Rather, the punishment itself is more the denial of posting that comes with the ban; and it also serves as a preventative measure, to stop them from continuing their behaviour. Permanent bans can also serve as a warning to others, not to do this.

The worth of a ban is in how other people see it. I don't believe that banning people on request means that the bans applied to people in trouble are therefore worth less- as the preventative measure there is still in place, and the denial of posting is still  in effect for them.

As to the reasons people ask for a temporary ban; there are many reasons one could ask for one, including bad circumstances in meatspace that leave you tetchy on the forum (and a tempban here will help them to not spill that frustration onto the forum), no longer wanting to post out of habit, and just purely lacking the self-control necessary to stop posting just like that.

LouieW

Nyktos,
Why not just make it so bans on request are permanent? If you refuse to grant them entirely, people are just going to break the rules until you ban them anyway.

I think you bring up a very good point about people purposely breaking the rules to get banned. I wonder if making all requested bans permanent might be a bit too harsh though. I mean, I agree with glennmagusharvey that moderators really should not be responsible for people's lifestyle, homework, self-control and such, but I think that handing out permanent bans would prevent people from helping users who ask for a ban as a way of calling out for help.

Generally, I think someone probably has a significant problem if he or she is asking for a ban and while I do not think that moderators should be required to deal with it, I do not believe that users should be prevented from helping with it if they so choose. I think permanent bans upon request would give people with problems what they say they want, but stop others from really helping them.

Your mileage may vary on whether it is always preferable to give people what they say they want though.

glennmagusharvey

I'm not unsympathetic to people who request tempbans either.  I know some people may use them to cool off, while others who might be college students struggling with a load of schoolwork and 5 hours of sleep a night would definitely appreciate external aid in avoiding procrastination.

Forzare

But i think there are situations where a temp-ban on request isn't just dodging problems like that.

Say someone is going through a tough time in real life, and they realize that having IJBM as a distraction will only make things more difficult. If they don't have enough self control (and I know I wouldn't), asking to be banned is one way to remove that distraction until you're in a better place in real life.

Or if you know that if you kept posting, you'd let your emotions get the better of you and shit up the fora until you get banned.

I also don't agree that temp-bans on request lessen the threat of a permaban.

And you aren't responsible for their problems. You aren't fixing their problems for them, per se.

Semi-ninja'd.