Anyone ever get banned from a forum?

[twosaturns]

I've been lurking and participating on forums for quite a while now, and like most of us, I've said or done some inflammatory things, but nothing ever got me banned.
so, anyone else?

[derekf]

We've had some contributing members here (and a lot of spammers) get banned... but most of them won't be able to tell you about it here :)

We've only had a couple get unbanned, and one of them went ahead and did the same stuff again.

[twosaturns]

yeah, I kind of figured that, I was just wondering if anyone has experienced it somewhere else:)
I find the whole banning thing kind of silly, since there is nothing preventing a person from registering under a different user name if they wish (and then choose to behave themselves).

[poormans69]

I got banned for trying to "sell my crap" without 50 posts. I guess I was the one responsible for them updating the rules. People got really mad at me like I kicked their dog or something. I got what I deserved. A timeout and a stern talking too. Now I'm back to spread my wealth of knowledge.:bsjerk:

[XLexusTech]

This forum is pretty good about letting folks speak their mind. As long as they stay respectful its all good. The rules are clearly documented so if you break them you should be out.

Also stay clear of the vendors seems like you have to treat them with kid gloves otherwise you could be on the hit list.
This site does not prevent using a proxy server so you can just create a new account. If they ever enable it then they can lock you out by address.

Oh yeah and God forbid you have too many Typo's or misspellings certain Mods here can get downright childish about that...

[derekf]

since there is nothing preventing a person from registering under a different user name if they wish

Actually, we know when that happens. Depending on the initial problem, we may let their new account stick around, or not.


Also stay clear of the vendors seems like you have to treat them with kid gloves otherwise you could be on the hit list. Don't reckon that's entirely accurate. We would ask - in general - that you try to work things out with someone before airing it in public, but pretty sure we've had to fire a couple of vendors for not doing the members right.

[derekf]

Okay, I looked at the list of banned users.
There are 168.

115 of them are spammers.

32 there was no reason listed. It looks like about half of them are also spammers.

5 are for misusing the For Sale forum.

2 are vendors that have been fired.

The rest are duplicate accounts that people have created, vendor staff that no longer represent the vendor, and folks who generally were here to be disruptive.

Nobody banned for disagreeing with a vendor - at least not that it's listed that way - and I don't remember any like that.

[BonzoHansen]

I've been the bann-er, not the bann-ee.

Ignoring spammers and such, on reasonable websites banning is usually when a member is a total tool, starting a lot of trouble and perhaps threats of physical violence. I'd guess 99 out of 100 are habitual offenders.

[Mathius]

I've been banned from 3 boards now, although one of them I have been unbanned from and another one my account was just deleted.

Two of them were related in content. They also seemed to be one of those "nice" message boards where everyone has to compliment everything or its bad. One of them I got banned for criticizing a t.v. show. It caused an argument with other users, which apparently was bad and the administrator basically said that if i wasn't happy with the site I didn't need to post. The other one, was again because of an argument, that lead to a conversation with the site admin. When I told him he was immature because he couldn't handle people with an opposite viewpoint he banned me for life. I did not swear, or insult anyone in either case, except in the second when I called the admin immature.

The first one is the one where my account was deleted after a certain amount of time. I could have created an account again, but I chose to do the honest thing and told the admin that my account was deleted and asked if that was a go ahead to allow me to post again, and one of his moderator lackies responded that no, I was still banned.

The second, I have been banned for well over a year, I have requested to be re-instated and the administrator doesn't bother to answer my e-mails.

The third one was also in a dispute with the administrator of the site. He banned me for my avatar, which was a picture of him that I doctored. He lifted the ban after about 3 weeks. I completely deserve to be banned on the third site on the grounds that I am contemptous of almost everyone who posts there, insulting, and call out the adminstration regularly. But based on the garbage everyone else is posting on that site (they care more about post count than anything else so they can get their sponsor hits), I did not deserve to be banned. Either way I don't post there anymore currently although I am unbanned.

So as you can see most of my problems stem from altercations with site adminstrators. Mostly because I don't believe that just because you chose to pay for a web site it makes you better than someone else or more important. It may not be a democracy, but there should be a certain amount of respect to the posters, since they're the ones who make your site popular and possible. Otherwise you're paying for a web site where you're talking to yourself.

Also, 3 may sound like a lot, but I'm a member of probably 50 forums at least. I just don't post regularly on all of them. It completely depends on my interests at the time, how active they are, and what is going on at the time.

For example, Thirdgen.org is a great site if you need technical help on a third generation f-body issue, but they also have a large stock-nazi base and don't have any creativity when it comes to the hobby. There are very few body mods, and in a lot of cases they are actually discouraged. They rotate pretty much the same questions over and over again and after a while you've seen it all and it's stale. If I still had my 92 camaro I would no doubt use the site for technical information, but since I don't, I find very few things on there that interest me. I try to contribute to their fabrication forum, but it usually consists of someone asking "is this possible?" instead of just picking up a welder or a tool and making something happen.

I don't post much on this site because I don't have excess money to make improvements to my car, which is mainly what this site is about (I don't mean that to sound insulting, I just don't have excess money even for raw materials or paint, let alone to make suspension mods, etc.), and more recently my personal experience on fabrication issues have been met with disdain because they don't come from a major publication or company.

Mathius