Quote:
Originally Posted by fredzor
You're telling me no one has ever been banned before for just asking for help with one of those sites? I've seen it happen with the ban reason being "This is the forum for the EM, not that site, etc.". I get the fact that you're saying no, that's not the case, everyone has been banned for breaking a rule or acting like an asshole. I'm saying that's not my experience. I recall it happening twice back in 2009 or so, but I don't remember any names, perhaps the threads I could locate.
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Some people may have had temp bans, but for simply requesting help we'd never ban. Redirect, yes. Temp bans are always the first action too if someone is hotheaded when posting about a complaint- they were given between 3 days and two week timeouts depending on how offensive they decided to be. Nowadays with the newer forum software we usually just stick them into read-only mode for a few days, saving the temp bans for when people don't learn after read-only mode and the perma bans for when they REALLY don't learn. Even at that, their issues were always redirected and to the best of my knowledge were resolved.
The only accounts that were banned without infractions were for users that were under 18 (based on the DOB they used when registering or profile info from another source such as deviantArt) due to advice given by a law firm- but they were also told that their accounts would be automatically reactivated on their 18th birthday.
On the story of redirecting, back in the day the video sites had their own separate forums which were basically their dedicated support boards and more closely monitored by the admins who could address any issues. While those were active, EM mods would always redirect people there. We started a policy of locking those threads since a few people felt obligated to complain that they'd got to repost their issue and that we (the mods who don't have any control over anything outside of the EM forums) weren't helping them (in spite of informing them where they could receive help). There were a few bans issued over that before we started locking the threads- once again, some people were unable to voice their issues in a civil manner and were quite hostile towards the mods (who are volunteers). The dedicated video forums got closed due to hackers causing damage on the server through them. It's also why there's no dedicated forums for either of the comic sites- after the hassle with the video forums it was decided not to implement ones to avoid a repeat scenario.