To People Who've Been Banned, and Wish to Know Why

Someone just asked about this. Last week someone asked too.

I honestly do not know why most people are banned. I am not the only one with the banhammer. The cobs have it, and so do some trusted commenters. I am not informed when someone is banned.

If I ban you, I can tell you. But I usually don't know the reason, as I'm just one of fifteen people doing this particular (not fun) duty, and the cobs are nice enough to do most of it for me (so I can actually post and stuff).

This is further complicated by the fact that people often use different nicknames, especially when they're baiting someone else.

Without context, and without knowing when you were banned, in what thread, what names you also use, etc., I have no way to research this to find out why it was done.

Sorry, but people have been really going off the rails lately. I have instituted a ban first, ask questions later policy to stop people from trolling and stirring shit and going after each other personally.

We do not ban for disagreement -- we ban for the things I just mentioned.

If you really want an answer, you have to provide me with specifics giving me the means for trying to figure out the history. You have to tell me what date you think you were banned, in what thread you were banned, who you were arguing with during the ban, what nick or sock you were using, etc.

If you don't know what date you were banned -- at least guess. Tell me the day upon which you were most aggressive and baiting with other commenters.

Only with such information could I even endeavor to pull up an old thread and look at your commenting history and make an independent decisions as to whether the ban was warranted or not.

Just asking me flat out "Why did someone do this?," without giving me even the most basic clues of where I would begin searching for an answer, is not going to get you any resolution. I'm not going to search the entire comments history for your nick -- I don't even believe I have the capability of doing that (not to mention, I definitely do not have the time for such needle-in-a-haystack searches).

If you've gotten banned, and feel it was done wrongly, I understand your frustration. But you cannot just sort of vaguely imply that I'm to search every comment thread in the past month for you nickname to figure out if the ban is justified or excessive.

Help me help you, guys. Help me, help you.

posted by Ace at 02:35 PM

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