An Official Banning Policy?

Appeal forum bans via PM. Blackcat, Fast Eddie and I are the ones who have the forum banhammer. I'd suggest you PM me. If I'm not the one who landed it on you, I'll ask the others who did and why, and go from there.

Yes, you'd need to appeal the forum ban first.

edited 29th Aug '11 9:11:30 AM by Madrugada

Oh no, I don't actually have any bans! Just asking for the official record.

edited 29th Aug '11 10:06:43 AM by revolution11

Since racism was mentioned earlier, would an arc in a forum roleplay where racism is a large factor be grounds for problems.(I want to know this in general, as I don't plan to report this, because it was taken care of already)

Depends on whether all of that is (a) within the story, (b) consensual. In-story racism that isn't at the expense (perceived or otherwise) of the actual players themselves is probably fine.

A is correct.

B was not correct. The GM(of the arc) did not let anybody know beforehand. Okay, now I know what needs to be said, that it should always be asked beforehand.(it caused atleast 3 people to stop playing)

Thank you, Fighteer.

That sounds like a recipe for hurt feelings, which leads to flame wars. Glad to see that it got handled.

Yeah, thankfully. Next time a similar issue comes up, I'll make sure to holler about it.

Let's just say it took a while.

Anyway, may I ask why we don't have a general rule about not allowing racism in regular topics? I know there's flaming as is, but it doesn't directly cover it.(because people would not naturally be offended by a racist remark if they're not from that particular race, but it still should be considered a flammatory remark regardless, same as sexism. Keep in mind, this isn't the same as talking about racism that exists in a particular video game/etc, of course, since you know, that's part of the natural game)

We don't need a rule about everything. That just encourages people to be Rules Lawyers. The primary rule is, "Don't be a dick." Everything else can be extrapolated from that.

I know, I just meant obviously controversial stuff.(well, obvious to some)

But fair enough.

Basically, it boils down to "if someone thinks that racist comments are acceptable, they are being a dick."

It was asked in the ban appeals thread exactly what actions would incur a full bounce?

Well?

• Ban evasion
• Spamming (as in, unsolicited advertising)
• Deliberate vandalism such as page blanking that is clearly done for no purpose other than to be malicious
• Trolling, depending on severity
• Being an insufferable jerk about a wiki or forum suspension
• Pissing off Eddie sufficiently
• Stalking or harassment of other tropers

edited 13th Sep '11 8:38:38 AM by Fighteer

Harassing another troper over PMs can also get you bounced.

Is there a way for mods to look at pms? Do they only do this when requested?

Only Eddie can look at PM's of other users, and yes, he only does it when requested. I'm sure he has better things to do with his time than snoop around our PM's.

Actually, he has be to be convinced to look at someone's P Ms. It's not very easy to do. Convince him to do so, that is.

Phew. I was afraid that "private" messages weren't all that private.

You're on someone else's site and using their stuff... I would think if you really needed privacy you'd take it somewhere else...

Oh, which reminds me. While we're on this subject, what happens to deleted PMs? Does the server still keep a copy of them?

^^ They're private unless there's a very very good reason for one of the admins to look at them. No one else can get to them. If there are accusations of harassment via PM, we'll probably ask that the PMs be copied over to us.

^Not as far as I know.

edited 13th Sep '11 10:44:54 AM by Madrugada

What happens to pages of banned tropers?

Depends on how much of an annoyance they've made of themselves and/or how much trolling their pages attract.

If their pages don't attract much trolling, do those get deleted, or left as they are?

edited 18th Sep '11 11:18:42 AM by ThatHuman

Why are you asking?

Probably because (s)he wonders about banned users keeping their pages even when they are useless after having been banned. I have seen both blank pages and those added to the Permanent Red Link Club being associated with banned tropers. It seems to depend upon the content and the cause of the ban.

Usually it's not worth the bother. The major exception is if the user in question has made a particular ass of themselves or continues to log on with sock puppets to edit their original troper page. Also, some troper pages are clearly trolling.