And trust me, we do have an "Option C" that's much worse than a permanent ban or being put on the global ignore list.
What could be worse than calling their ISP and informing them of what's going on? Or is that "Option C"?
And trust me, we do have an "Option C" that's much worse than a permanent ban or being put on the global ignore list.
What could be worse than calling their ISP and informing them of what's going on? Or is that "Option C"?
...for the sake of keeping "Option C" useable, I can't reveal what it is....
jeez, what are you gonna do, show up at their doorstep and brain them with a baseball bat until they stop posting?
Anyone on said list was talked to extensively by a number of Staff members and refused to cooperate, either from sheer stubbornness or an inability to do so.
In an ideal world, we could talk to these people and they would improve their behavior, or we could just ban them and the problem would go away. But this isn't a perfect world.
People who are banned around here tend to have a real nasty tendency to not stay banned and to repeatedly come back with proxies just to torment the **** out of us.
So what's better?
1) Poor Yoorah getting flustered that he occasionally comes upon a thread that has the wrong number of pages?
2) An entire outraged community constantly flaming and trolling everywhere because of a single problem member, which in turn will result in us having to punish these members repeatedly, perhaps even be forced to ban many of our regulars and constantly have to deal with the flood of havoc wreaked upon the forums every single day.
3) Ban said person. And now, problem #2 is still present except now it happens seemingly randomly from new users with completely different IP's, so we are forced to treat each case separately and fairly, which just increases the length of time said person is still on the forums until we come to a conclusion without a doubt that it is either that member or this person is a problem too, in either of which case, the entire process now repeats itself. #2 again. Ad infinitum.
This is very disrespectful Yoorah. The staff here works hard every single day to keep this place running smoothly, and it's all volunteer work. None of us get paid for this.
And you're delusional if you think we just magically "lack the skills to deal with someone" or that we're all just lazy.
Opposed to what you may believe, some people cannot be swayed or reasoned with. Some people will just inherently be pricks to others or borderline retards, no matter what we say or do, and there's nothing we can do about that. That's just how those people are.
It's a bit like this... Let's think of this person as a chair. A chair is great for sitting. But we don't want a chair, we want a table.
But a chair isn't a table. A chair is a completely different piece of furniture, one which will never be a table because it's something that that it simply isn't.
Do you get mad at a chair for not being a table? No, because it can't do anything about it. That's just how it is.
We want someone to be something that is impossible for them to be. There's nothing that will ever change that.
So, the only solution is to get rid of them in one way or another. Most people tend to not stay gone when they're gotten away with properly. They just keep coming back again and again, and the problem continues as if it had never stopped, except it's now worse because there's no precedent for the person and each time it has to be reanalyzed.
Some people, though, will never even realize that they're globally muted, or it will take them some time to find out. This means that, effectively, the problem has went away.
There is one single person that we have had to ban now well over a hundred times, and they still just keep coming back to torment the community for their own amusement. There's nothing that can be done except banning them when we find them. Their local law enforcement has refused to cooperate on multiple occasions. It's not like we're lazy and don't take these things seriously.
Sometimes, there's just not a better solution.
Also, just because we don't publicly announce every warning and PM doesn't mean our actions don't exist. Bans and global ignore is a last resort, and I'm sure the staff would appreciate it if you guys realized that we don't hand them out on a whim.
Accusing us of being lazy and incompetent is hardly fair, considering you don't see the mass majority of actions taken.
I just have a question...
Why is giving someone a permanent ban, saying bye forever, and never seeing them again okay...But when you call that permanent ban an ignore, say bye forever, and never see them again its not okay.
The page number thing is actually pretty annoying. I tried finding a specific post in the accomplishments thread but it threw me one page ahead.
My viewpoint of things, typed and most likely exactly like other people's replies that I am too lazy to read because of reasons:
Temp Ban - Slap on the wrist.
Perma Ban - Lets people know they did something seriously wrong. Often results in some following drama, as if they were popular, their friends start a general ragestorm on forum staff members without any realization that their friend could have actually done something wrong for once. Depending on how stubborn the user is, they can change IPs and make another account that will only be banned, and this process continues until the banned user caves or the staff members cut the other person a deal (which usually results in letting the user back, who, while agreeing to actually follow the rules now, goes back to doing whatever they were doing, and is banned again, restarting this process.)
Global Ignore - In my opinion one of the most bittersweet options out there. In concept, it works simply because of the fact that they don't realize they've been Global Ignored and continue to make posts. Users don't notice they've been banned, and it simply seems as if they've quit or disappeared. Prevents most drama from occurring, but does mess with pagination. However, its also one of the worst options. The person continues to put forth effort in posting, and maybe even (in rare cases) tries to improve their posting quality or content. If they find out, then it, in all honesty, would feel worse than a ban. Metaphorically liken it to a social situation. The bans mentioned before are a group of people flat out telling you to your face that they don't want to associate with you. Global ignore is them letting you into their group, but never paying attention to what you have to say and generally ignoring you. (All in all, it feels like a betrayal, even though they deserved it.)
If someone did actually improve how they were posting (funny how nobody on it actually ever tries to improve), then they'd get removed from it. That's another reason why some people are on it, to see if they really will change how they told us they will. But alas, they do not.
Yoorah, you are under the assumption that all problems can be solved. They can't; even bans don't always solve problems.
Global ignore is usually a last resort thing. It happens when someone is annoying as hell, but hasn't broken the limit of getting banned. Not many people fall under that category and similarly, not everyone who falls under that category gets into Global Ignore.
It's just for those special cases of people, or for when someone needs a little break.
Trust the staff here. They know what they're doing.
Don't be simpleminded, people aren't cute and obedient all the time. If they cause a big enough problem to warrant being banned, then there's a very good chance they're not going to go quietly.
You might not know it but a lot of people come back to cause trouble, their friends start having little spats and digs at mods for their "poor decision making", and overall it's just one big infestation of stupidity and needless drama.
You'd be surprised at how well global ignore works.
We're not "holding their hands and monitoring them". They're as good as banned, although if we read their posts and see a significant improvement we'll discuss taking them off global ignore, although only extreme cases have been put on the list, and they really have no hope of changing.
And as said earlier, the people we put on the global ignore list haven't really warranted a ban, and the reason that a majority of the people we put on the global ignore list is to stop fighting. I mean, we can take everyone off the global ignore list if that's what you guys want, but then we'll have to crack down and infract/ban anyone that fights with those said people.
[S]5[/S]
Wrong. You just did it wrong. No matter how obnoxious someone may appear to be, in the vast majority of cases, things can be resolved diplomatically no matter how bad they may seem.
There's 4 accounts on the list, out of those 4 maybe 2 were active until recently.
2 others are the same person.
So "vast majority" is right considering that's maybe 0.25% of the total bans.
Also, xenforo doesn't have a global ignore so pretty soon this whole argument will be pretty pointless.
If you're talking about the person who I think you're talking about who's on global ignore, then that person was talked to by multiple staff members, myself included, and did not alter their behavior. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, said member was even temp banned long before the global ignore, apologized, then reverted back to the behavior that resulted in the original temp ban.
I'm not going to try to refute any other points you've made, since I see where you're coming from, but also because you seem to really just be set in stone that we are not doing what we're supposed to be doing.
If you're talking about the person who I think you think I'm talking about, then I still think that more could have been done. If someone apologized, and then reverted back, it doesn't mean they have malicious intent, but rather need guidance. Or you could flat out tell them that they are not welcome here any more, although I believe the first option would work if done right.
And you may want to look into blacklists and LSOs.
It may have worked if we all told said person to calm the hell down or whatever, but it'd have to be multiple times every single day, I think.
Like Os said, very few people were GI'd, and I've already voiced my opinion in the staff forum, I didn't agree at GI'ing the user I assume you two are talking about, then there's another one I have no idea why he was GI'd. And then one that totally deserved it and is the one who Osay even tried contacting his ISP.
When it comes to ban-dodgers GI is a great tool, instead of just showing them a sign that says "kay, we banned you again, make a new account now". It will take a bit longer for the person to realize he got "banned", and it gives us more breathing room for a while.
I'm not really sure what you mean by blacklists, though.
Telling someone to "calm the hell down" is not a good way to deal with them, when they may have underlying issues. :(