Bans

[Ryan Beal]

For the most part I've been staying quiet about this to see how things would go. But with vB and the infraction system coming it's a good time to have this discussion.

Each of you bans in your own forum(s) for your own reasons, and you guys generally know what's up where you're assigned. It's safe to say you're all trying to do what you think is best when it matters. What you don't see, though, is the entire picture of exactly how many users are being banned for how long and for what reasons. I could try to spin this, but... some of it is starting to seem ridiculous to me and I hope for better with 2+2.

I'm unhappy with what I perceive to be a rush to use bans. Part of this is probably due to a lack of other available options right now. So my intent here is to start a discussion about what else we could be doing rather than just say, "Ban less."

My ideas involve the infraction system and talking to people. For instance, often I'll see a ban with a personal message from mod to user in the ban reason. In many cases I don't get it. If you're going to take the time, issue that same warning to the member privately without the ban. More often than not you'll find that's appreciated and works better than going to war with them, although I do understand that some forums benefit from more public methods.

The infraction system shouldn't start out like I had planned before. Those auto temp bans would cause more problems than they're worth. So how about we make it all straight points and custom reasons? It would basically be:

infraction for x -- x points -- expires x

Along with that we set a maximum level (50?) that results in an admin permanent ban. Additionally, we could add a level just below which strips you of the ability to start new threads. Not looking to end temp bans entirely. I just think they've become overused.

[Dids]

I don't think there's any way to hammer home to people anything meaningful without bans/suspensions. If you're looking to change behavior, you've gotta have some muscle behind your actions.

Why are they a bad thing?

I wish you would elaborate on "What you don't see, though, is the entire picture of exactly how many users are being banned for how long and for what reasons."

Any kind of system of escalation doesn't help much, because even a perma ban just isn't enough to deter people from coming back. Unless the new software really helps make a ban stick, I don't think warnings stop anybody.

[iron81]

Ryan for some sort of super admin. Perhaps Mason's dad?

Bans are a bad thing because they irritate readers. I held off reading 2+2 for a year because in the other poker forum I read at the time, 2+2 mods were regarded as nitty and power tripping. I don't want to think about how many people we've irritated either directly or through rumor. Few businesses are so eager to "discipline" their customers as 2+2 and it irritates people. Whether justified or not, getting banned irritates people.

Escalation backed by temp bans is fine, but I think we are often skipping the first step: warnings. This is particularly true because often times, users aren't familiar with rules like torrents and profanity filter. Even if the rules were clearly spelled out, I don't think its reasonable to expect users to be familiar with all of them because it would be a long read. We of the 5 figure post counts lose track of what the experience is like for new users, which partially explains my recent crusade against large avatars.

I disagree that warnings stop people. I would guess that less than 20% of the warnings I issue are followed by temp bans. Also, with the trend of not posting when we are issuing a ban, we lose most of the deterrent effect.

[EMc]

It was funny and effective when [censored] did it, but everyone tries to copy him and it just isnt the same.

[Nick B.]

we had the * system and everyone complained.

[*TT*]

IMHO in general the mods here are too ban happy. Perhaps its just a function of the B&M forum, but I would venture to guess I hand out warnings & advice on a 9:1 ration vs bans.

I often wonder why some think it is difficult to talk to the user before handing out a ban. The only time recently that I have banned without a chat with the user first was when a warning was placed in the same thread followed by an infringing post - and even then its usually just a day and we include information for the user how to fly straight when they return from the ban.

[iron81]

For those of you who don't know what Ryan means by "breadth of bans":

[nation]

[ QUOTE ]
It was funny and effective when [censored] did it, but everyone tries to copy him and it just isnt the same.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is exactly how i feel.

obviously a forum like bbv4l are going to have more bans than other forums, but the bans that are handed out for "just sucking" are jokeful.

[citanul]

1) iron, how did you do that (get the ban messages)
2) nation, let's not turn this in to yet another debate about oot ban policy, it's not the time or the place.
3) my comment:

ryan, others,

(apologies at this point, as this is rambly and I'm a touch drunk (lol not eating anything and then drinking margaritas with dinner.))

I was one of the first user mods of these forums (I think). When I started, I didn't ban that much. I did a *whole lot* of moderating in threads, PMing users, or warning them in forum about their actions, and in general "little things" that make the forum work well. I really cared about my forum at that time, and really cared about the user experience in it. There were a lot of people in the forum I enjoyed interacting with, and a lot of people there I counted as friends. Since I was very involved with both the strategy (OMG, we have strategy forums? You'd never know since 99% of all threads in this forum have nothing to do with one...), and the social aspect of the forum, I was at that point a fantastic choice for mod. I was invested in all ways in my forum.

Trouble began to arise when a few obvious trolls arose. While to a point, Mat had dealt with the fact that I was less than nice to a variety of posters, I had little temper or time for people who came to my board looking to do nothing but cause trouble. If you will do me the kindness, consider me a Buzz, but ahead of Buzz's time, and meaner. (To be fair, Buzz seems like an all around good guy, while I can't possibly claim the same of myself.) With the advent of people who weren't just being standard asshats in the forum, but were actively trying to "push the boundaries" or otherwise ruin other users' experiences, I began seeing red, and having problems. Users like Desdia, Megabet, and others suddenly posed a new problem. I wasn't allowed to be comically mean to them, and I really couldn't do anything aside from trash their accounts, wait for another account to emerge, and try again. Maybe in the middle somewhere I was helped out with some IP bans.

At some point, modding strategy forum became less interesting and new. The standard editing of posts, and dropping PMs to people who were stupid became routine. And at the same time, people I used to be friends with became uninterested with the game, as did I, and modding the forum became less fun for a variety of reasons (obviously not the least of which was that I was no longer interested in the subject matter). I started reading the forum mostly when I was alerted to a problem thread, and since I had no idea who most of the new guys were, just dropping a short term (or permanent) ban on them to clean up after the now deleted post.

All this, and I was still the mod of a strategy forum.

2p2 at some point became interested in "off topic" forums for many, many reasons. Business wise, it makes tons of sense to just have as big a forum as you can, and honestly the sloth-like pace at which new forums were rolled out, relative to demand, at times bewildered me. However, the off topic forums meant that we had plenty of people here who never talked about poker, and were just here to talk about things like "what to get for lunch on Friday," or "How much do I tip xxx?" While friendship and allegiance still happened in these forums, the traffic has been higher, and the "value" of one poster over the other has always been debatable.

The personal touch of the moderator began to deteriorate.

Stars with a warning to behave replaced edited posts and a PM.

Then came BBV, then B4L.

Almost none of the posters in these forums provide any value to any forum. To say that they are "good" posters in one or the other provides any worth to the forums, or to mankind, is laughable. And while, as moderators, we can appreciate a good joke, it's too easy when someone posts a picture of poop to just ban them and say "thank you, come again." What kind of personal connection is there to be made with people who think that the most hilarious thing to do 16 hours a day is to keep posting more and more offensive things until there's a moderator response? What to do when the average poster changes from a 30 year old poker hobbyist to a 18 year old who is just starting to learn the wonders of free porn on the internet?

The answer, I think, is that the moderators are alienated from the average user. With over 123,000 registered users (god konws how many are actually active), and something like 100 moderators, it's a wonder we do as well as we do. But to wonder why every infraction, particularly in OOT, B4L, and BBV, isn't preceded by 2 or 3 "chances" via PM or perhaps a phone call to the user, explaining why what they are doing is wrong, is somewhat laughable at this point. The inmates in large part run the asylum. They know where the rules are because we are, in large part, very good about telling them what they are. All the forums have stickies letting the users know what will and won't fly, and people in the off topic forums know exactly where the lines are that we never completely clearly draw out.

The fact that they decide that the whole humor of a forum is seeing how far they can toe that line, and then somehow becoming a martyr for getting punished for their hilarity, is I think at this point out of the control of the moderators, as formulated. If you want the forums to be as they are, you can't go forward without continuing to have bans. And lots of them. If you want to give us more facile ability to completely remove users, or want to cut back on what is, and isn't, in good fun in the off topic forums, then I assure you, we can do better. But with greyed lines that are "well as long as my grandmother, if she were to read it, wouldn't instantly drop dead, it's OK," in spirit, it's really hard to keep pace with the current lineup of users to do anything aside from just ban them and move on.

Do I think, as has been brought up in other threads, that we give too many chances to too many people? Obviously. Do I think that just dropping a couple dozen posters entirely would make the job infinitely easier? Duh. Do I think that either making the rules less stringent or more would clean up the situation? What do you think?

Blah. This has all been entirely too long. Mostly what I meant to say is that we, as moderators, can't possibly care deeply about every single poster around here. In the off topic forums the traffic, user flux, and level of "humor" means that really it makes no sense to do anything but ban early and often. The idea that we should or could be personally invested in the micromanagement on a user level, of keeping tabs and dropping "little notes" to every guy who begins to "go astray" is totally absurd.

Anyway, drunk and in pain, that's my opinion ... somewhere in that.

c

[Nick B.]

citanul, mason is going to need to trim that to fit it the next book.