Questions tagged [disciplinary-actions]

Questions about how to discipline community members.

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2 answers
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Should disability be a mitigating factor or aggravating factor for code of conduct violation consequences?

This question was suggested in an aside in the question Is it more difficult for autistic people to adhere to a code of conduct (in written communication)? . As the OP of the above question mentioned, ...
Robert Columbia's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
57 views

What is the best way to control trolls and spammers without a profile system?

How do you control a growing community without profile systems (i.e. so users can't be warned, kicked, or banned reliably)? I am making a website that is slowly getting around our school, but I have a ...
ChocolateChara's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
129 views

General Rules of Conduct

This is regarding what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in usual online discussion forums, or social networks. I have a specific question from what happened in another discussion forum. In ...
Jayadevan Vijayan's user avatar
14 votes
3 answers
153 views

How reasonable is it to hold chatbot authors accountable for their bots' behavior?

In a non-Stack Exchange online community, there is a chatbot that runs with the permission of the administrators. The primary purpose of the bot is to analyze the posts of others and suggest helpful ...
Robert Columbia's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
74 views

Banned user status: visible Vs. invisible

When certain users are banned, some online communities do not display their banned status, while others do. What I am not referring to I am not referring to the visibility of the banned user from ...
Dave White's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
95 views

How bad it is to enforce rules "just because", while refusing to even substantiate them?

A relatively popular site, likely to defer trolls (which are likely to flock to this site because of its thematics), enforces a rule that one must be registered there for a week minimum to be able to ...
gaazkam's user avatar
  • 1,409
3 votes
1 answer
62 views

What are the advantages and disadvantages of "no unbans" policy combined with trigger-happy admins, if any?

I have noticed that while most communities that I have seen allow you to appeal your ban sooner or later and are not that quick on banning people, there are some that do not allow any unban appeals ...
R.I.P.30.12.21Baskakov_Dmitriy's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
143 views

User making false claims easily proved wrong, ban or answer?

I am a member of a non-profit organization (bike advocacy group), and deal with community management with a small team of other members. We recently published a Facebook post that caught us a bit by ...
Loufylouf's user avatar
  • 171
16 votes
4 answers
295 views

We caught a pedo. Twice. What to do?

About a year ago we received a report from one of our users that they were getting inappropriate messages from another user. Upon investigation, we found child-grooming behaviour from the offender ...
Concerned's user avatar
  • 161
11 votes
1 answer
135 views

What to do in relation to temporary emails

I believe this is a common issue when we talk about some type of community. I have some users that use temporary emails from sites like yopmail.com and similar. I am not sure if I should block this ...
anvd's user avatar
  • 415
12 votes
3 answers
112 views

Should I display to a user for how long he is being banned?

Right now we have different ban durations but we don't tell the users how long every single one is exactly. We only communicate it very subtle by using words like for "a few days" or "some time". The ...
loiro's user avatar
  • 866
8 votes
1 answer
121 views

How to deal with passive-agressive borderline trolls in an online game community?

As a moderator on a minecraft server (the type of game matters little), several times I had to deal with what I call "cocky passive-agressive borderline trolls": usually a smart, young user, that ...
Mindwin Remember Monica's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
108 views

In a community designed for peaceful discussion, should topics which cause hate and strife be disallowed?

I am the administrator and leader of an online community designed for peaceful discussion of Christianity and other faiths, and any relevant events or topics. The community is a single thread, a wall ...
Zenon's user avatar
  • 212
10 votes
4 answers
1k views

What Is The Point of Temporary Bans

I never understood the use case where it would be preferable to "temporarily ban" a user for a stated period of time. If they've done something bad enough to warrant a ban, I'd think they wouldn't ...
GWR's user avatar
  • 437
15 votes
1 answer
5k views

How to politely tell someone to leave our group?

I'm running a small (< 20) group of people. We organize day-long events every weekend, where new members are also welcome. Anyone can join our Facebook group where we advertise our events. At our ...
Marton's user avatar
  • 253
9 votes
3 answers
177 views

How to appeal to a higher power?

I've been reprimanded on my home site. I believe the action is unjustified and believe I have a valid argument for such an appeal. The moderator that reprimanded me does not believe my arguments and ...
NewKid's user avatar
  • 91
10 votes
4 answers
361 views

How to block an anonymous troll other than by IP(s)?

On our platform, we have the possibility to block registered users by user name or IP, whereas anonymous users can be blocked by IP only. Also, we have some kind of a reputation system such that only ...
just_curious's user avatar
  • 1,490
13 votes
4 answers
3k views

How to deal with an online griefer that I know in real life?

I'm hosting a Minecraft server with 14 friends of mine playing on it. We peacefully build houses and structures, hold events, go kill the enderdragon, stuff like that. All is peaceful. Until one day, ...
54D's user avatar
  • 499
6 votes
3 answers
111 views

what to do with proven moderator preference on supposed open-to-all political forum

At a site for home-based workers in a particular field, there are several forums, and one option is a forum to discuss politics. However, there is a group of 5 to 6 like-minded users who form a ...
user693's user avatar
  • 71
22 votes
8 answers
5k views

I made an official statement in good faith that turned out to be wrong; should I apologize?

I have an official role moderating an online community that is open to the public. I exercise my best judgment in interpreting the rules, but: I don't make the rules, I only enforce them. I am only ...
Air's user avatar
  • 1,553
8 votes
5 answers
264 views

Permanent bans vs account deletion

A permanent ban and an account deletion done by a moderator achieve the same effect: the user can never access the site anymore from that account; a moderator could use either when they really don't ...
ProgramFOX's user avatar
  • 1,323
42 votes
7 answers
6k views

Is permanent banning worth it?

First, some perspective: I was a member of a community about 5 years ago. At that time, I violated community rules and was issued a permanent ban. When this occurred, it took some time to get over, ...
StillBanned's user avatar
10 votes
4 answers
259 views

User complains that their freedom of speech is violated

I recently deleted a post of a user because I considered it off-topic and driving a discussion into an unconstructive direction. When the user reposted the same post a few minutes later, I deleted it ...
Philipp's user avatar
  • 955
14 votes
2 answers
1k views

What to do when I as a moderator feel abused by a member?

Usually when a user complains about getting insulted by another user, a moderator reviews the claim, and when they feel that the complaint is warranted, they punish the insulting user as appropriate. ...
Philipp's user avatar
  • 955
5 votes
0 answers
51 views

Is being punative to new users a bad thing? How can it be avoided? [duplicate]

I've noticed that on Stack Exchange especially, new users will often will often have their posts closed and downvoted, at I think, a higher level/severity than users with more reputation. Often this ...
dwjohnston's user avatar
16 votes
5 answers
530 views

How should one handle a foreign user with a desire to be constructive, but a severe inability to communicate?

I moderate a gameserver that revolves around a community-built virtual world, in the style of games such as Minecraft (but a FOSS clone). We have a fairly basic common-sense ruleset regarding ...
nanofarad's user avatar
  • 263
12 votes
6 answers
719 views

How to handle a user reposting a deleted message?

Per our forum rules, profanity is deleted and, in extreme cases, the user receives warnings or cumulative infractions which then trigger repercussions for the account. Publicly discussing a moderator ...
user98085's user avatar
  • 1,356
4 votes
2 answers
96 views

Judging the effectiveness of disciplinary actions, moderation principles and rules

Is there a magic ratio of Player Loss to New Players (or Active Players) that I should be looking for in a MMO Browser Game? How else could I gauge the effectiveness of Moderation Principles, ...
Malachi's user avatar
  • 668
7 votes
2 answers
156 views

Disciplinary action guideline for a game with chat

Given a basic set of rules for a MMO Text-based browser(& Android) game (attacks can be made every so many seconds and players can also buy auto attacks using both in-game currency or donate to ...
Malachi's user avatar
  • 668
17 votes
1 answer
251 views

What are caveats and risks of hellban system?

I understand the idea behind 'hellban' - 'hellbanning' a user is quite equivalent to adding them to ignore list of all users except own; no posts are ever displayed to anyone but the offender (and ...
SF.'s user avatar
  • 1,813
9 votes
3 answers
319 views

Are implicit rules bad at all, or should the rules be explicit?

The short question is: What factors do you take into account when you decide on rules for a community? I live in a puzzling community for 5 years. It has an entry test. It is simple enough, but it ...
klm123's user avatar
  • 213
20 votes
4 answers
471 views

The community is calling for a specific user to be suspended, but I don't feel they deserve the suspension. How do I handle the situation?

Recently, a particular user has been causing a lot of flak within the community. They've been posting a lot of things that don't necessarily break any rules, but the community at large has not been ...
animuson's user avatar
  • 1,116
15 votes
3 answers
229 views

Methods of suspending users?

Most online community software supports banning a user by username, login address or IP. These are all relatively trivial to evade. Other methods include the hellban, shadowban, and slowing down ...
Andy's user avatar
  • 6,970
7 votes
3 answers
100 views

What can be done about chat ban evading users?

I moderate a chat system that has a rudimentary ban application. Problem is, it is incredibly simple for a user to create a new account and start chatting right away again. It is hard to create some ...
user avatar
12 votes
4 answers
205 views

Is it okay for me to not accept users or contributions which originate from specific countries?

My forum has been getting lots of abuse and low quality content from Bananastan. Is it reasonable for me to decide that I don't want any users or contributions from Bananastan anymore?
Madara's Ghost's user avatar
25 votes
4 answers
416 views

Should punishment be recursive?

I have seen it happen a few times: a user is contacted and suspended for rude or offensive behavior and they respond to the moderator message with even more rude or offensive language. Example: Mod ...
JohnB's user avatar
  • 798
16 votes
8 answers
222 views

Is it always necessary to punish the user?

People make mistakes - things happen. The goal of punishing users is to prevent them from doing it again, so they can learn from it. But, if a user breaks a rule and has demonstrated that it was an ...
Tanner's user avatar
  • 655
13 votes
5 answers
334 views

Moderator bans user in the course of an on-topic argument

Let's say Bob (User) and Jake (Moderator) are in a discussion. Things get heated, and Jake starts calling Bob names, and threatens to ban him. Bob is not doing anything he shouldn't be doing, but when ...
Dozer789's user avatar
  • 397
15 votes
3 answers
133 views

How can I restore the focus of a community without driving away the userbase?

I'm a moderator for an IRC channel that has recently devolved into much off-topic chatter. I'd like to guide the focus of the community back to the topic of the channel, but don't want to be harsh to ...
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