freediver wrote on Apr 17
th, 2017 at 9:58am:
Should the global mods be more strict or less strict on suspending people for personal insults directed at other forum users?
Redmond Neck wrote on Apr 17
th, 2017 at 12:25pm:
Mods would use this to advise bannings and unbannings and reasons why.
I have posted these to clarify the terminology. Some people are using the terms "suspend" and "ban" interchangeably and this is not correct.
IMO, a suspension is distinct from a ban.
Suspensions are temporary. Bans are permanent.Now, in light of that clarification, here is my view on the matter. To clarify, I voted for the more strict option.
There should be a distinction between someone who calls someone some kind of mild insult as a part of an on-topic post, and someone who posts a more substantive personal attack as their entire post. The latter does not advance the topic of discussion and should attract a suspension at the mods' discretion.
The period of suspension should initially be short, say a few days or one week. Further suspensions should be for longer terms, increasing with each suspension. Records need to be kept so the repeat offenders can be identified more easily.
Anyone who is proven to be disruptive by repeatedly posting personal attacks even after multiple suspensions should be upgraded to a ban after receiving one warning that this will occur. The warning would most likely be given when they are suspended for an infraction. This needs to be consistent, but could be as few as two or three (such as a "three strikes" rule).
Anyone whose sole contribution to the forum is personal attacks (with none of their posts making an attempt to address the topic) should receive an immediate ban after 20 posts or some other similar threshold of posts without any substantive contribution, regardless of warning history.
Anyone who is spamming should be banned immediately, without a warning, and all of their posts and threads deleted. The forum does not allow the posting of links for new accounts, but one kind of spam that is sometimes seen is the copying and pasting of text that is obviously posted from elsewhere and is offtopic. A simple internet search can identify such spam. This is posted for completeness; the forum rules are not well defined on this topic.
All bans should include a ban by IP to make it harder for them to create a sockpuppet account so they can continue their disruption.
One final point, these suggested rules are still very lax compared to the rules on some sites. BigFooty (an AFL discussion forum) has very strict rules that sees their mods handing out bans very liberally. Any infraction that would attract a warning or suspension here would attract an immediate ban there. The forum is a popular forum so such bans do not make a material impact on the traffic volume.