Banning Protocol

pete

Brassica Oleracea
Staff member
Administrator
We wanted to actually write out what happens when you're banned. Sorry we didn't get this posted before we were "live" live.

* A person gets banned for committing a bannable offense.
* Temporary bans may be placed by a Content Expert, Administrator, Moderator, etc. but bans are reviewed and approved by the Administrators. Do not complain to a Content Expert or Moderator if you're banned. Only Administrators have the power to lift your ban.

The main reason for this set-up is because the WF is a somewhat different kind of forum. Our Content Experts (CEs) aren't really patrolling the 'boards trying to break up fights, like moderators (try to) do. They're trying to help answer questions. So, if they find a poster getting out of hand, we've given them the equivalent of a phaser set on stun: they can zap the poster and hand him over to the Admins for us to decide what to do.

When you're banned, when yo log on here you'll get a message that you're banned, how long you're banned and why you're banned. Further, the Administrators will do their best to send you an e-mail to the address you originally registered with to tell you why you're banned -- except if you're spamming the forum. At this point, you are more than welcome to enter into a polite dialog with the Administrators to further explain your actions.

Several notes:
* The WF Staff will not discuss who is banned and or the reasons why they were banned. Bringing up the subject is unfair to the person who was banned and to the Administrators since we've already told you we won't discuss it.
* If you're going to stage a YAGE -- Yet Another Grand Exit -- consider yourself banned. However, we may grade you on how amusing your YAGE is and invite you back for another to see if you can top yourself. Or, if your attempt was really poor, the invite will be for a do-over.
* The WF will not delete banned posters' posts. In one respect, it's because it's unworkable due to the number of posts involved. In another respect, it's because you're also destroying any other thread that you, the bannee, posted in. That's unfair to other posters.

In the end, please keep in mind that we are a community. We want to provide some sense of how we're going to have things operate so that there's no surprises. As the great movie philosophers Bill and Ted said so many years ago, "Be excellent to each other".
 
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We've had a couple people ask exactly what a YAGE is and why it isn't tolerated. Here's the #1 definition from Google:

http://micechat.com/forums/forums/78611-what-yage.html said:
YAGE = Yet Another Grand Exit. It's when a member publicly announces their departure from a site, and they usually like to do it in a dramatic way.

Here's my expanded explanation:

Meaning, of course, someone posting something in the form of:
I hate you all. You're never going to see me here again. I have 2,437 years experience in the music industry (yes, in addition to everything else, I am the Highlander. There can be only one) and played with John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Sigurd Rascher, Benny Goodman, Adolphe Sax, Adam AND Eve. I helped design the Mark VI, Super 20, Martin Magna, Heckelphone, R13, Fox bassoon, and the Powell flutes!

You won't have me to kick around anymore! Delete my account!
I generally grade YAGEs based on the list of how many people you played with and any music-industry credentials you list in your YAGE. Extra points for saying how much you helped everyone on the forum and/or how the forum's nothing without you.

===============

While I'm obviously having way too much fun with this, it's a serious problem: at SOTW, for instance, I've had to ban people that thought they had the "cult-of-personality" thing goin' and that they were more important than the forum itself. Umm. No. No, you aren't. Very, very few people have both the musical credentials, personality, character, postcount and information to be that essential. If you can't take an e-mail/PM/post from an Admin saying that you need to cool it a bit, a YAGE isn't the best idea.

The only time a "goodbye" is really needed and desired is if there's a staff member leaving for some reason. There's a logical reason for this: you don't want to e-mail someone to do admin tasks if he's no longer an admin and a former CE probably doesn't want to be bothered with Private Messages and e-mails, either.

(Bonus points for getting the Nixon reference, BTB.)

I'll include a link to the expanded discussion, after I create the thread.
 
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