Are Permanent Bans Unethical?

[Jester Joe]

i get banned all the time for the craziest of things... some of the mods here take things personally and a lot of my opinions conflict with theirs. life is hard

Maybe there's more than just that? I don't think I've gotten a single infraction, although I'm not even sure where to check if I have.

Also, a bit more on topic, I don't think permanent bans are unethical, it's not that hard to follow the rules, I can't recall ever being banned from anything. And most sites bans can be reverted anyway if appealed.

[Glormon]

I think permanent bans are perfectly reasonable.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

The official wow forums are the only place where I believed the moderations were done unethically. Every single other forum or game I've been in whether strict or lax has had rules and the mods follow those rules, every moderation or suspension I've received I have understood and known how to avoid future instances of.

The wow forums? Nope, they are completely and totally arbitrary in their punishments. I once got a ban for "vulgar language" for comparing what I viewed as an unneeded nerf to a kick in the balls. I was an enhancement shaman in ICC, I was pretty upset with how weak we were with almost half the health of the next lowest melee and terrible dps. I posted in a number of shaman threads and let my frustration show but never violated any of the forum rules. But I constantly got banned for "trolling" resulting in a perma ban from the old forums. It was extremely frustrating and unjust from my perspective.

Long story short for the main question of this thread, I don't think permanent bans are unethical as long as the system and people administering those bans are ethical.

There's always more to the story.

[Annoying]

i get banned all the time for the craziest of things... some of the mods here take things personally and a lot of my opinions conflict with theirs. life is hard

I've seen your posts. They have nothing to do with opinions.

Maybe there's more than just that? I don't think I've gotten a single infraction, although I'm not even sure where to check if I have.

Also, a bit more on topic, I don't think permanent bans are unethical, it's not that hard to follow the rules, I can't recall ever being banned from anything. And most sites bans can be reverted anyway if appealed.

Click on your name in the top right. There's an infractions tab.

[Sliske]

I've been banned from this website probably 10-15 times through infraction stacking effect. I doubt you can get perma banned unless you do something like spam forums with gold seller links etc.

Also, the ban isn't really permanent. It takes 10 minutes to make a new email address and then make a new mmo c account with it. If i ever got perma banned i'd just do that.

[Jester Joe]

Click on your name in the top right. There's an infractions tab.

Right along with About Me, Friends, and Post Area? I got nothing there, just those three. Guess it would pop up upon infraction, if that is the right area. Thanks for the info!

[Xeones]

There's always more to the story.

/shrug maybe there is. But when I look at it from my perspective and have done things on every forum I've posted on, including here, and been modded I've understood the reason. I'd say 60-70% of the moderations I've received on the wow forums were done for reasons I couldn't understand, which is why the continued to happen. I honestly can't tell you if there is more to the story or not it has been years since ICC when this ban happened and I continue to think the bans were incorrect because I can understand bans I've gotten everywhere else but not in this one place.

Not sure how I can do it right everywhere but one.

[oxymoronic]

I've seen your posts. They have nothing to do with opinions.



Click on your name in the top right. There's an infractions tab.

well i dont dabble in fact too often as im not here to educate... so yes my posts are either 100% opinion or life stories... you just dont agree and for what reason i dont know. another that cant handle somebody that is different.

[someotherguy]

I think as long as the forum is a private forum, it's reasonable. Plus usually the bans are on posting things, not reading things.
Think about it - imagine you have a website, why shouldn't you ban people at your discretion? what if they post stuff you don't agree with? Or perhaps things that are against your agreement with your internet host - which may result in them banning you.

[Artikality]

People who are permanently banned are banned for a reason. I've been involved in the moderator team in many online communities and I can confirm this to be true. The amount of chances that we have given individuals only to have them thrown back in our faces are ridiculous (permanently banned, unbanned, then banned again and then unbanned again only to be rebanned for a second time). Some people never learn and for the sake of the community, it's best to keep them away.

There's also those users who post content that are obviously unacceptable for posting on online communities such as spamming porn or gore or keylogger/phishing links.

[Xargoth6634]

I'm pretty sure all of my 5 or 6 infractions on this site came from calling out Jayburner in one of his stupid threads for being an idiot troll.

I was only banned from a site once, good old magic online trading league back in the day. There was a jackass admin there who would always throw his weight around and fuck with people, so one day I called him out for it and he gave me a warning. I then flamed him until he or another admin banned me. He was a jackass, but it wasn't particularly mature of me.

I don't really have a problem with permanent bans. I don't always agree with admin actions on this site, but I don't think I've ever seen egregious abuses of power; and as one of the admins earlier in the thread posted, you'd have to do something pretty awful to get banned for life. At the end of the day it's a website. If I ever got myself banned from posting on mmo-champ I'd probably just avoid the gen ot forums and use what time I spent on the site on reading news and checking out video games and other forums without feeling the desire to post.

- - - Updated - - -

in particular the concept of a "Hellban" where a user is banned but doesn't know they are banned; that is, they can post to their heart's content but only they can see their posts, so it looks as though people are just ignoring them.

That's actually really funny.

[Yvaelle]

Right along with About Me, Friends, and Post Area? I got nothing there, just those three. Guess it would pop up upon infraction, if that is the right area. Thanks for the info!

You have never been infracted

[Skroe]

I think it depends on the specific spot within the forum. I think someone being disruptive in General WoW (or anything like it in any forum), for example, should get banned, infracted or however it works at whatever forum. Lots of boards have something like OT here, and my feeling on that has always been, if you have an OT or participate in an OT, you're signing up for everything that goes with it. It's an informed decision to have one and trying to moderate it fairly is like trying to get a wolf to behave like a beagle. Specifically with politics... it isn't called a blood sport for nothing, and that's in a realm where people actually see each other's faces. I think forums that have a place where people discuss issues of the day like that, moderation should pretty much be spam, advertising and porn control.

My 2 cents.

[Deleted]

Permanent bans can only be given with the thought that the person infracted will never change.
If you get a ban for saying something retarded caus ur a dumb teen, its pretty unethical to blame that teen 10 years later when hes an adult.

[PACOX]

You do the crime, you do the time. I have no issue with permabans.

[MoanaLisa]

But since the mod/admins/etc. in most cases dont do a full review of the argument at hand and just judge the reported post text, the end result is flawed decision, that doesnt contribute to the making of the wanted community.

You might be surprised to find out that this is largely untrue. We often review context within a thread, particularly on infractions that are borderline. Clear cut cases, of which there are many, don't require this but it's not uncommon at all that we look at more than just the infracted post.

[TrumpIsPresident]

How many infractions does it take to earn a Perm Ban anyway? I mean were they not smart enough to get it after the 5+ temp bans they got before?

I rack up a lot of infractions, you can see some of my favorite ones in my sig.

Most of those infractions lead to bans, but a few have been successfully appealed.

And its not that I'm not "smart enough" to learn after earning several bans, its that I choose to stand by my position and that position is opposite of that which the majority of OT posters+moderators have.

[Chelly]

XKCD isn't one of the most famous comic strips in the world because it has good drawing. It's incredibly famous and well known because of it's political and social commentary. They just use stick figures to help get the point across and to be able to be saved in .jpg format. Who'd want to read a few paragraphs of rambling? Much easier with word bubbles and something to go along with it.

Whompcomics has the best social commentary.


OT: Perma bans are very rare, and only reserved for the most obnoxious and idiotic posters. You'd have to post some very vile and toxic shit to get yourself a perma ban - so no, it's not unethical.

[klogaroth]

OT: Perma bans are very rare, and only reserved for the most obnoxious and idiotic posters. You'd have to post some very vile and toxic shit to get yourself a perma ban - so no, it's not unethical.

Indeed. Far from questioning the ethics of the permaban, I'd question "is it ethical to be so obnoxious to people that forum mods never want you to use their website again?"