I realise posting this may just be opening a big ol' can of worms... but my curiousity has gotten the better of me. While reading back through some of the older threads, I noticed that some forum members have the word banned under their name. I have read the rules and understand plagiarism and stuff, but what else is there to watch out for that will get a person banned? I want to know so that I don't get banned
There are plenty of ways to get banned in a forum and most of them aren't even on the specific forum rules. For example, flooding the forum with a link to an ebay offer would get you banned, pasting porn in a non porn forum, posting racial slurs, etc. I've spent years in all kinds of forums and, in my experience, the number of banned people who didn't already know they'd be banned for their behavior is minuscule. For almost every member of the forum the entire rules could be summarized in the the fundamental rule of all social spaces: "Don't be a dick".
The vast majority of users who get banned are spambots. Other than that, plagiarism and excessive troublemaking will get a user banned. Thanshin's right, people know when their behaviour is and isn't acceptable, so if someone is banned, they shouldn't surprised.
There's an interesting rule here, don't do anything you can't do in the forum over PMs. Which I have never seen before but I have been a mod before and am aware mods can see PMs. So remember that.
Mm, as a mod over at another forum myself, I always declined the oppertunity to do that. It seems like an abuse of power to me really.
Actually, they can't here. But there is a little icon in the window now so that you can report the messages you receive, or you simply forward them to a moderator so they can see it. So if someone is 'cyber bullying' you in private, they can get on top of it, hopefully...
We can't see PMs, but if someone is sending you offensive/spam/insulting PMs, then you can report it, which allows the mods to see it's content. I don't see what's so odd about a rule that says "You can't be a dick over PM". The site is based on common courtesy, and we try to keep it courteous so that it's a better environment for improving writing.
I don't think anyone thinks that's odd. Actually, it's a basic human rule that no one likes jackass. Though I do find it odd that ALL the other rules apply in PMs. Unless I'm misinformed or something.
Most sites I've been on actually didn't care what you did over PMs, sadly. I had a friend who people insulted constantly over PMs and they were just like, sorry---too bad. But you can't see them? Ah, most sites I know they can.
PM stands for Private Message, and we take privacy very seriously. However, if the recipient of a message reports a message containing inappropriate content and presents it to us for inspection, we will act upon it. The only person on this site who could inspect private messages at will, is Dabiel, the sight owner and administrator, and he refuses to do so on ethical grounds. I fully agree with him on that. But our rules still apply to all forum communications. That includes PMs and even rep-giving.
Yeah even mid level mods where I was a mod could see them, though it was rare they were looked into unless there was some threat to the site or someone else. I have seen mods be nosy and just snoop around in PMs though and I know this because things were brought up by them and shared with the regular forum by them. It's really wrong and really unethical and it's always made me wary about using PMs for certain things.
I've never been on a site where mods could see pms automatically. A massive invasion of privacy, as I see it.
Well the idea was put there to curb child pornography on the site I worked. But only universal mods could see PMs. I don't think I ever had to do it but most of the time when someone did do it there was discussion and usually the admin went in and if you were to reveal it to the general forum what you had seen you'd be demodded and banned.
Anime forum. But there was an issue where an underaged girl's pic was passed around. You find it a lot of places on the internet though, its scary really.
I've been on quite a few anime forums, but never had a kiddie porn problem on any of them. Maybe I just have good luck with websites. What site was this? Maybe I know it? (Might want to do that in a PM.)
