All Questions
Tagged with hellban or disciplinary-actions
39 questions
41
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, ...
- 455
24
votes
4
answers
436
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 ...
- 788
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 ...
- 1,543
20
votes
4
answers
478
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 ...
- 1,116
17
votes
1
answer
254
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 ...
- 1,783
16
votes
4
answers
305
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 ...
- 161
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 ...
- 655
16
votes
5
answers
535
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 ...
- 263
15
votes
3
answers
136
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 ...
user35
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 ...
- 253
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.
...
- 955
14
votes
3
answers
231
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 ...
- 6,900
14
votes
3
answers
156
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 ...
- 461
13
votes
5
answers
338
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 ...
- 407
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, ...
- 499
13
votes
5
answers
226
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?
- 1,034
12
votes
6
answers
721
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 ...
- 1,356
12
votes
3
answers
116
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 ...
- 866
11
votes
1
answer
148
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 ...
- 415
11
votes
2
answers
109
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 ...
- 212
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 ...
- 955
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 ...
- 437
10
votes
4
answers
363
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 ...
- 1,470
9
votes
3
answers
324
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 ...
- 213
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 ...
- 1,429
8
votes
5
answers
274
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 ...
user142
8
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 ...
- 81
8
votes
1
answer
124
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 ...
8
votes
1
answer
60
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 ...
user6060
7
votes
2
answers
144
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 ...
- 171
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 ...
- 668
7
votes
3
answers
101
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 ...
user12
6
votes
3
answers
112
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 ...
- 71
6
votes
2
answers
78
views
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, ...
- 461
6
votes
3
answers
131
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 ...
5
votes
1
answer
75
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 ...
- 153
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 ...
- 489
4
votes
2
answers
97
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, ...
- 668
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 ...
