Clarification for those who are wondering...

[JudoMinja]

Ok, I thoroughly re-read the Site Rules before posting this, just to make sure I wouldn't be breaking any by making this thread, and I hope we can maintain discussion on this without breaking any rules.

I have noticed, in my time here, a number of instances where people bring up questions about those who have been Banned from the site. Threads where this is brought up tend to get closed quickly, because the person who brought it up is usually complaining and failing to make sure they are aware of the rules themselves. You can read those rules by clicking the link in my first paragraph, and they are also easily spotted and readily available. The "Site Rules" button is at the top of the page, third across from the links with blue lettering (After "Home" and "Resources"). There is also usually a sticky thread at the top of most forum pages that can direct you to the rules.

I bring this up because I want to clarify some of the questions and complaints that I have seen frequently, as I find it rather unfair that those complaining usually end up "attacking" the moderators.

First off- when you see "Banned" under someones name that is simply an indication of their status on the site. If you'll notice, it is in the same place where you will see "Member", "Junior Member", "Senior Member", "Moderator", "Head Moderator", or "Suspended". It just lets people know what status the poster currently holds, and like your picture, signature, and other information it is updated and included with every post the person has made, even the old ones.

Often, someone will see the "Banned" label and think the person has been banned for the post they see it on. They get confused if the post seems to be perfectly okay and then start wondering why someone was unfairly banned and why no explanation was given. The reason for the banning could have been anything and most likely is not at all related to the post you are seeing. Possible reasons for banning will all be found in the aforementioned Site Rules, and in many cases the post that resulted in the banning has been deleted. If you read the rules, you will also see that people can be banned for reasons that have nothing to do with posting, so the reason may not even be able to be found on the forum. If you are especially curious about the reason behind a particular person being banned, you can always ask a moderator through PM, but remember that as a third party they may decide there is no need for you to be privy to that information.

You can rest assured that the one who was banned did receive an explanation before action was taken, since, as it states in the rules, moderators give them a warning for their infraction first, and if it isn't major they will go through a two-week suspension first before getting another chance, and if they still break the rules are then banned.

I have seen far too many instances where someone accuses the moderators of being unfair and "ban-happy" just because they've seen someone's post (or several someones) with the "Banned" label under their name. They then assume that the rules must be very stringent or the moderators very uptight. If everyone will just read the rules, I think we could all agree that this isn't the case.

After my own re-reading, I know I can think of many many occassions where the moderators could have taken action against a poster and did not. As far as I can tell, they are very leniant, and those who end up banned have been so for good reason. The moderators work hard to maintain a healthy atmosphere for us to continue posting here on LDS.net, and it just bothers me when I've seen so many instances of people questioning that just because there seem to be a lot of people who've been "Banned" and no explanation is obviously apparent.

[Mahone]

Often, someone will see the "Banned" label and think the person has been banned for the post they see it on. They get confused if the post seems to be perfectly okay and then start wondering why someone was unfairly banned and why no explanation was given.

Thanks for this, I hadn't realised people might see it from this perspective - it helps me understand why some people question it in the way they do.

[JudoMinja]

Thanks for this, I hadn't realised people might see it from this perspective - it helps me understand why some people question it in the way they do.

I know I'm speaking for them when I say that's the thought process going through their head, so I may be incorrect. But that is the impression I get after reading the posts where they are questioning the decision to ban someone. I keep seeing complaints coming off as someone seeking an explanation, because they can't understand why someone was banned, and since the reason is usually not visible the brain tries to fill in the blanks for them.

[Traveler]

I find the internet rather interesting - having been banned from many sites I have developed different ideas. I think in many cases I have been banned from sites because I am LDS. One "Christian" board - I am only allow to post at a place labeled "Unorthodox".

However, even on this forum I try to honestly express my views in a manner that is not offensive - but I have received "messages" from very unhappy people that do not like my opinion. For example I was told by one poster on this forum that they had blocked me because I posted that pets should not be held with the same esteem as people. I believe that we should not value our pets as we would human children.

In general - I personally do not worry or concern myself with "rules". I believe everyone has a right to filter what they read on the internet - if anyone is not interested in my opinion they should not read it. There is one poster that sometimes posts on this forum that I do not care to read. I find their opinion so void of intelligence - I see no point.

On the other hand there are posters like PC that I read every post that I see him make. Often I do not agree but then when I think more concerning his view - I find I learn - often come to agree and almost always learn something and come away the better for it.

There is another poster - that I agree with about 99% of the time but I have learned that by calling them out on the 1% I find in question that they have come to despise my responses. Sad because I would really like to drill down into their ideas and explorer their wisdom.

In short - If I have offended anyone here - I have not intended to do so. Therefore, I ask that you forgive me. If you let me know - I will make an effort not to offend you in the future. And perhaps someday we share ideas.

The Traveler

[slamjet]

There is much I would love to add, but I shall not. I would not want to be banned for stating my opinion about why I've been banned.

I shall defer.

[Guest]

There was a ban-happy time not too long ago...

... no, no, my dog made me type that!

[beefche]

Ok, I really am curious. What do ya'll mean by "ban happy?"

[slamjet]

Ok, I really am curious. What do ya'll mean by "ban happy?"

IMHO, There was a sudden switch to a much more strict interpretation and enforcement of the rules than before. Thus, a lot of was passed out.

[Bini]

Wait a second. I thought many of the "bans" were due to members without profiles and had nothing to do with behaviour?

[slamjet]

Wait a second. I thought many of the "bans" were due to members without profiles and had nothing to do with behaviour?

Could be, but I'm a "glass half empty" kind of guy. and that was my experience.

[RMGuy]

Hey, if its your sandbox, you get to make the rules.....if I don't like them I'm always free to go play somewhere else. No worries here.

-RM

[Guest]

Wait a second. I thought many of the "bans" were due to members without profiles and had nothing to do with behaviour?

Nope. It was a ban due to some posts... and even PMs. Yep, you can get banned for PMs too (even when the other party had no objection).

[JudoMinja]

I believe the lack of a profile leads to a deleltion, which I thought was different from a ban, but maybe they are the same?

[Juan_P]

.....and it just bothers me when I've seen so many instances of people questioning that just because there seem to be a lot of people who've been "Banned" and no explanation is obviously apparent.

Sure, but then again if there 'seems to be a lot of people who've been "Banned" and no explanation is obviously apparent', then there is an ongoing problem....be it PR or appearance or perception issue or whatever but there's a problem there.

[slamjet]

It would be cheap if the MODS laid out the dirt on someone's discipline. I personally would have appreciated a warning that things were going to get more strict. But I'm not a MOD and thankfully so.

[Vort]

Sure, but then again if there 'seems to be a lot of people who've been "Banned" and no explanation is obviously apparent', then there is an ongoing problem....be it PR or appearance or perception issue or whatever but there's a problem there.

Do you really think it would be helpful to the list for the mods to announce in a separate thread, "So-and-so has hereby been banned for posting filthy obscenities in another thread, all trace of which has been removed so you can't see it anyway"?

[Juan_P]

Do you really think it would be helpful to the list for the mods to announce in a separate thread, "So-and-so has hereby been banned for posting filthy obscenities in another thread, all trace of which has been removed so you can't see it anyway"?

I think it would be helpful to have less people showing up as banned. Maybe deleting the entry all together would work better.

I've never suggested announcing on a separate thread anything like that, don't know where you got that one from. Maybe you are just making things up? not sure.

[RMGuy]

Nope. It was a ban due to some posts... and even PMs. Yep, you can get banned for PMs too (even when the other party had no objection).

Which does kind of take the "Personal" out of personal message. I will say this is the only site that I am aware of that mod's read "personal" messages WITHOUT having 1st recieved a complaint from an individual regarding content.

The only reference to this in the site rules and agreement is:

"LDS.NET reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, refuse to post or remove any posting (including private messages) by you,...." which doesn't necessarily in my mind lead one to believe that the mods will be reading PM's unless there is a reason to (like most sites), but they can and will.

Again, my thoughts are it is their sandbox, they can do what they want and no one is forcing us to 'play' here. Still it is important to know that your PM's are not "private".

-RM

[Mahone]

I think it would be helpful to have less people showing up as banned. Maybe deleting the entry all together would work better.

You mentioned on another thread that you thought we were taking censorship a little far, I'm not sure how this is resolved by censoring even more, by removing the notification that someone has been banned.

The 'banned' status being publically viewable is a default setting on every vbulletin board, phpbb board and practically every other forum software in popular usage. There is a reason for this - people know that that person isn't going to respond to their messages because they can't log in as a result of being banned.

It's worth bearing in mind that one member of this forum does not necessarily equate one person in reality. People can and do register sock puppets for their own purposes. This is not allowed on this forum, and will result in all accounts being banned - from your perspective, this may appear as two or more people being banned. Things are not always as they seem, but it'd be wrong for us to publicise the reasons why every individual person got banned.

Some people seem to be under the impression that we get some kind of thrill out of being a moderator, that we enjoy clicking on that ban button, that it gives us some kind of powertrip in our online world. In reality, the opposite is the truth. All the moderators on here originated as normal members just like everyone else. None of us asked to become moderators, we were asked to take on that responsibility after a long period of normal membership - none of us expected it, in fact the first question I asked when I was asked to become a moderator was "why me?"

We do this for free, on the side of very busy lives in the real world. I recently got married, work full time, in part time university and am planning a migration to a completely different country in the next couple of years. It would be far more convenient for me not to be a moderator here, as it's a little less responsibility to the load I already have, and gives me that little bit more time to concentrate on things I actually get paid to do, and things that actually benefit me. But I do what little I can here (which isn't that much) primarily because this forum was set up for a good purpose, and one that I agree with.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Mahone

[Vort]

I think it would be helpful to have less people showing up as banned. Maybe deleting the entry all together would work better.

The offending entry typically does get deleted altogether. It's all the other entries, the non-offensive ones, that stay around. Those are the ones you're reading, and those are the ones you're basing your judgment on, wondering "Why did someone who posted non-offensive material like this get banned?"

I've never suggested announcing on a separate thread anything like that, don't know where you got that one from. Maybe you are just making things up? not sure.

Yes, I'm making things up, because I'm trying to see the possible alternatives you're proposing. Let's consider the postings of a hypothetical user who gets banned:

Hypo #1 (Day 1, 3:00 pm): Hi! I'm Hypo, and I'm excited to be a part of this community! [not deleted]

Hypo #2 (Day 2, 10:00 am): That's pretty funny. I had an experience like that, too. [not deleted]

Hypo #3 (Day 2, 2:00 pm): I don't think people should get sent to jail just for saying their opinion. [not deleted]

Hypo #4 (Day 3, 8:00 am): When my Grandma was growing up, she said... [not deleted]

Hypo #5 (Day 3, 11:00 am): You worthless #@&^!(*#!! Why don't you just acknowledge that Joseph Smith was a #*@&!(# and that his "church" is a #*@!@# as well!! Mormons are a pathetic bunch. Wake up, sheeple! [deleted]

Hypo #6 (Day 3, 11:02 am): Yes, Daddy always told us to treat people with tenderness and care. [not deleted]

[Hypo is banned for comment #5, which gets deleted]

Looking at Hypo's remaining posts, you probably think, "Why on earth would this friendly fellow have been banned? For heaven's sake, look at his lovely posts!"

If someone has been banned, you can infer that s/he had one or several comment #5s for which the banning took place. That you don't know what those comments were is evidence only that the mods cleaned up the place when they banned the user. Knowing the reason would require either that you happened to witness the banning offense, or that the moderators make a general announcement detailing why the banned So-and-so.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Vort

[Mahone]

Which does kind of take the "Personal" out of personal message. I will say this is the only site that I am aware of that mod's read "personal" messages WITHOUT having 1st recieved a complaint from an individual regarding content.

The only reference to this in the site rules and agreement is:

"LDS.NET reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, refuse to post or remove any posting (including private messages) by you,...." which doesn't necessarily in my mind lead one to believe that the mods will be reading PM's unless there is a reason to (like most sites), but they can and will.

Again, my thoughts are it is their sandbox, they can do what they want and no one is forcing us to 'play' here. Still it is important to know that your PM's are not "private".

-RM

What you mean is, we're the only site that you are aware of where we tell people that we do monitor private messages. Unless specified otherwise, it's always best to assume they are being monitored, because the messages are the property of the forum you post them on. We've never tried to hide this fact. Not all moderators can read them either, only three people that I'm aware of have access to them.

We do this for many different reasons, one of which is the safety of the membership here.

Scenario: A 50 year old man gets a 12 year old girl to meet up with him, using the PM feature on this site as an initial medium. 50 year old man rapes 12 year old girl, then gets arrested by police. 50 year old man has his computer searched, and finds that he used the PM feature on a mormon messages board to initiate chatting to the girl, and encouraging her to start using other methods to talk to him. He only got away with this because people were sensitive about their "private" messages being read, so the moderators stopped reading them. If the moderators did read them, this would immediately have been flagged as potentially suspicious.

These kind of things happen more often than you might think, and forums are a great place for people to pretend to be someone they are not.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Mahone

[JudoMinja]

Sure, but then again if there 'seems to be a lot of people who've been "Banned" and no explanation is obviously apparent', then there is an ongoing problem....be it PR or appearance or perception issue or whatever but there's a problem there.

Others have already replied with the basics of what I was going to say, but I want to touch on what I bolded. I think the problem is probably the "perception", which is why I started this thread. In all the posts I've read where someone is trying to understand bans, it seems to me like there's some "between the lines" message between the complainee and the moderator that is getting lost somewhere. The two seem to be talking past each other, with something like this happening:

Complainee: Why was so-and-so banned? That seems rediculous?

Moderator: Any ban was for a violation of the Site Rules. Please read them.

Complainee: Gosh the rules must be awfully strict, and no warning? This seems like a really unfair site, and the mods are kinda trigger-happy.

Moderator: If you have a problem with a mod, please address it through PM, as complaints on the forum are a violation of Rule #6. Please read the rules.

Complainee: (snark) Ha! So, I have to talk to the mods privately about a problem with the mods? Like that will ever get resolved. I'll probably get banned now too since breaking the rules gets people banned and I just broke the rules which I couldn't even find and haven't read. Thanks!

Moderator: (closes thread)

I've seen this basic format over and over again and it was starting to bug me. I started thinking- if the complainee is unobservant enough to not see the link to the Site Rules at the top of every page, then said complainee is also probably unobservant enough to realize that any offensive posts or reason behind the ban has been cleaned up so they won't see it, and that the "Banned" label remains on the okay posts that weren't deleted so that we know the member who left that post is no longer on the site. Hence, this thread. I wanted to try to clear up the misperception and get out the message that was being left unsaid on both sides:

On the side of the complainee- I'm just trying to understand what leads to a ban, because it looks to me like this site is oppressive and I'm worried that I might end up banned for something silly.

On the side of the moderators- Every ban has been for a good reason and is just not visible because we've cleaned up the offensive material. If you want to know the reason, you can go over the rules yourself to get an idea of what may have happened, and if you are still unsatisfied can ask us in PM.

Edited February 9, 2012 by JudoMinja
readability

[RMGuy]

What you mean is, we're the only site that you are aware of where we tell people that we do monitor private messages. Unless specified otherwise, it's always best to assume they are being monitored, because the messages are the property of the forum you post them on. We've never tried to hide this fact. Not all moderators can read them either, only three people that I'm aware of have access to them.

We do this for many different reasons, one of which is the safety of the membership here.

Scenario: A 50 year old man gets a 12 year old girl to meet up with him, using the PM feature on this site as an initial medium. 50 year old man rapes 12 year old girl, then gets arrested by police. 50 year old man has his computer searched, and finds that he used the PM feature on a mormon messages board to initiate chatting to the girl, and encouraging her to start using other methods to talk to him. He only got away with this because people were sensitive about their "private" messages being read, so the moderators stopped reading them. If the moderators did read them, this would immediately have been flagged as potentially suspicious.

These kind of things happen more often than you might think, and forums are a great place for people to pretend to be someone they are not.

Not disagreeing at all Mahone. I was made aware that mods were reading PM's after an exchange I had with another member of the site. Again, this is moregoodfoundation's area. I firmly support their ability to monitor and regulate it any way they see fit.

-RM

[Dravin]

I started thinking- if the complainee is unobservant enough to not see the link to the Site Rules at the top of every page

It should be noted that during registration one certifies they've read and agreed to the rules , this is standard operating procedure for a lot of sites. Now I realize it's also standard operating procedure for a lot of people to simply click yes and move on when encountering requirements to read and agree to terms of service, but if you are posting here you have asserted you have read the rules. Now it is understandable to not have the rules memorized but thus the link you reference. Ultimately when coming to a place like this it is your responsibility to be familiar with the rules. Some things can be boarder line or not extremely obvious and thus the warnings and reminders.

[beefche]

Here's how the moderators usually determine a ban.

If the post is offensive, meaning use of vulgar language, pictures, or completely anti-Mormon (more than just disagreeing with our beliefs), it is usually an automatic ban and the offending posts are removed. You would be surprised at how many pornographic posts happen and we do try to get to those as quickly as possible. We get a lot of spammers and they are automatically banned/deleted. We often get people setting up more than one account for nefarious reasons and they are automatically banned.

If the mods see a post that is questionable, then we report it (any poster can report a post and we ask that you please do so when seeing something that is offensive or questionable). Once it is reported, it is posted in a special thread for only the mods. The other mods can then comment on that post. Most of the time, unless the post is obviously egregious, we discuss the post--does it truly violate the rules? does it warrant a warning, infraction, or outright ban? do we post a warning in the thread? do we let the posters try to resolve the issue themselves?

Most of the time, we try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Especially when we are dealing with a long time member, if the post seems unusual or not their usual type of response, we will often try to PM them to ask them to tone it down or take a break or something.

PMs are monitored. The same rules apply to PMs as well. I know many people find that disagreeable--that "personal messages" aren't personal. However, this site is owned and operated by the More Good Foundation and as such they are responsible for what is posted on this site--seen and unseen. Therefore, PMs will be monitored and consequences given as a result.

We will not provide reasons to the public why someone was banned or deleted. Sometimes, people ask that their account be deleted. We don't always know the reason why. When someone is given a warning or infraction, they are provided with the specific reason and the violated site rule.

The moderators do try to be reasonable. Despite our moderator status, we are not perfect, we do make mistakes, and we do falter in our duties. I can say that I have recused myself from opining on a post because I feel that I am too biased (if I participate alot in a thread, I usually will not be part of the decision to infract a poster from that thread). Other moderators have done the same. We recognized that since we participate in threads, that we can get biased. In that case, we rely on the other moderators to make the decisions in the thread.

And yes, I've been taken to task for posts I've made. Pam and john doe are not shy to slap moderators down if needed. The moderators, as a whole, are not shy to express opinions, even if it isn't a popular one. Each of us will offer an opinion or let a moderator know that he/she may be viewing the issue with a bias.

Now, having said all that, I enjoy this site. After seeing the behind the scenes that I've seen, I can tell you that I truly appreciate the service that all the mods do to keep this site as positive as it can be. Yes, people get into squabbles. But, for the most part, this is a pleasant forum in which to participate.