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killer2

Permabans, your opinions.

Permabanning  

142 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you think banning people forever is a good idea?

    • Yes.
    • Only in extreme cases. (relentless trolling with multiple "last chances" given and no positive contributions from the person in question)
    • No.
    • Yes, except when the user is actively contributing great projects.


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    Hello. I know I haven't been too active lately (or really ever, if I am to be honest), but I always try to keep an eye on the doom community and my favourite site for discussion is Doomworld. This question has always been on my mind but I never really dared to question the way things are going around here. Still, with the (relatively) recent change of the site layout and revamping certain things (like removing post hell), I feel like changes are more likely to be made now.

    I've never liked the idea of permanent, radical solutions when it comes to human interaction, and there seem to be more negative things to come out of it than positive. Sure, getting rid of the occasional spambot, troll or downright evil person (like that guy that had an obsession with knives) is obviously a good thing, but let's assess the negatives too. 

    Some really entertaining people have gone under the axe, as well as some good modders and just people with downright different (maybe a bit radical) opinions. Is it right to silence people that provide great content or discussion just because we might not like what they say or the way they say it? I don't think so. People like Technician and Darknation always had interesting points to make about the status quo (not to mention Darknation always made had an interesting way of voicing himself), and some great modders were also permabanned (Logan MTM BACK IN 2005)(creator of Legacy of Suffering),Huy Pham (creator of the amazing Deus Vult I and II, who dropped working on a remaster of DVII after being banned) and Sigvatr (who made an account just to post his new project Hell Superior only to be banned again, despite no trolling or flamebait <<yes I am aware ban-evading is not good, but what other option do you really have as someone who is PERMABANNED?>>). Seriously, when you're making mods for free and people repeatedly ban you, what incentive is there to continue? This limits the amount of interaction within the community, the ideas you can safely express without fear as well as the great projects being put out. It's also noteworthy that some of these people had been successfully productive members of the community for years before making a series of mistakes and getting permabanned as a result.

 

    All this being said, what am I proposing? Avoiding bans altogether? Letting the trolls have their way and destroying forum integrity? No, of course not. That would be ludicrous. What I am proposing, however, is giving people repeated chances, no matter how horrible they may have acted in the past. Barring the spambots, evil or mentally deranged, or just overly petty trolls who repeatedly destroyed every thread before getting banned (or inbetween their bans), I think everyone should have a chance. Instead of permabanning people, I suggest having a maximum ban time of either 6 months or a year. If someone comes back a year later and still acts like a douche just ban them for another year and clean up their mess, repeat. This gives everyone a chance to reform while not taking a huge toll on the forums. Let's remember this forum is very old, and people banned mid-way through can be 5 or 10 years older, and people banned close to inception can even be 17 years older! I think a lot can change in that amount of time, don't you?

    Note that I am all for positive discussion and in no way am trying to incite a flamewar or a fight. Please keep it civil, it will be better for all of us.

 

P.S.:I am not sure if all the people I listed have been permabanned or just banned for a very long time, but my point still stands.

 

    I am going to add some context to why I am doing this, as people seem to think I'm trying to be the devil's advocate. I'm not advocating directly for these people, and even though I know little about most of these people's stories, I believe I am not ignorant. I am advocating for this mainly because these people seem to be a reflection of what I used to be most of the time in my early teenage years, and what I still am today, very rarely, when I slip up, when I let my emotions rule me. I used to play a lot of Skulltag and League of Legends (I still play both ocasionally). People who know me from my early days (2007-2010 on ST, maybe even later) (2012-2014 on League) know I was the perfect example of permaban-worthy. I would flame a lot, especially when I lost a duel on ST or blame my team repeatedly on League, or the enemy for being "a brainless retard playing an easy champion" etc. I got multiple masterbans on inportant ST clusters, one of which was 1 month. I had 3 2-week bans on League and multiple chat restrictions, and I was very close to a permaban at points. But I never got banned, and over the years, my behaviour has improved DRASTICALLY. I haven't been a problem on Zandronum in years, and on League I slip up maybe one game out of 30 (it used to be every game, with major slip-ups ocasionally). I'm not saying I think people can change, I know they can. What I am advocating for and basically asking is, do you think it's for the better to see if they've changed, or not.

 

Edited by killer2 : I felt I really needed to show people where I'm coming from, which I made a very poor job of at first.

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I'm a moderator on the Brutal Doom Discord server, and I can honestly say that the few people we have permabanned were some extremely annoying people, and those permabans have indeed made the place a little more tolerable, though the entire moderation team (myself included) is guilty of being too lenient towards regulars.

 

Keyword: "few". We've had to permaban people who were consistently breaking rules after warnings, harassing other users, posting links to warez (i.e. linking to French websites that have download links for all Doom IWADs; our warning system described below also applies to warez, though I personally think linking to warez should be a permanent ban), the list goes on an on. And I don't mean for "harassing" to be seen as "a slight disagreement", I'm using it with the definition of generally being an asshole to other people for the sake of being an asshole to other people and throwing a temper tantrum when someone gives constructive criticism on something they made and then proceeding to be an asshole to that particular person.

(I have to clarify "harassment" because of how the Brutal Doom community is seen in the eyes of other people)

 

I don't want to make it seem like it's a "one hit and you're out" kinda place, because we have a sort of system where we give you a few warnings, then a kick, then a 7-day tempban, and finally, a permaban.

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I was wondering if you'd get to advocating for Sigvatr... and you didn't disappoint. Well.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHA

 

Educate yourself.

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Owners of a service are free to enforce whatever rules they want though..... violate the terms of service and face the consequences. Don't like it, find another forum, simple stuff really.

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    It seems I must make something clear. I am not directly advocating for these people. I'm just saying having a slightly more lenient system could possibly lead to the betterment of all discussion and content. I am not trying to begin a revolution or anything like that, just harmless discussion, I don't understand the need to be overly defensive about this.

    As for the paradox of tolerance comment, I don't see how it applies here. I'm not suggesting giving unlimited tolerance to the intolerant, I'm suggesting giving them a temporary window to change for the better. If they don't, they get banned again.

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59 minutes ago, killer2 said:

All this being said, what am I proposing? Avoiding bans altogether? Letting the trolls have their way and destroying forum integrity? No, of course not. That would be ludicrous. What I am proposing, however, is giving people repeated chances, no matter how horrible they may have acted in the past.

If you think that people reel in a perma ban because they walked a slippery slope once and stumbled while doing so, then I'm gonna have to say that this isn't the case in reality. Most people who get perma banned from somewhere either crossed certain lines on purpose to deliberately piss others off, or they have proven to be problematic for extended periods of time. I'm not in favour of dropping the hammer right away, but in the case of people which can't be arsed to change anything about their behaviour over the course of months or years even, well, how many "second chances" do you think do they deserve, really?

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I say it all comes down to the offenses and the degree of them. Arguing on a forum board, even if heated, I'd say is not bad enough to warrant a permaban. Everyone fights, everyone argues. Let them cool off with a temp ban or warning. If they keep coming back and doing it over and over, that's when you permaban. That's kinda how I see it. Play it by ear so to speak.

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I am very new around here (and with no knowledge of Doomworld's past), but as a former staff member on a gaming community, I have had some experience with such people.

 

But either way, skipping that and going back to the matter at hand, I think permabanning should be only a last resort, for people who have been constantly harassing/mocking other users (with serious offenses), never-ending flaming or trolling, posting dangerous links and material, repeatedly and purposefully breaking the rules, or tried to inflict harm upon the site itself and its users. For anything else of a lower severity, a temporary ban (or another form of punishment, for that matter) should be applied and if the persons return to their bad habits afterwards they should be excluded permanently.

 

A warning system with temporary bans once the maximum limit of active points at once is reached proved efficient on the aforementioned forum. For anything else much more serious, permaban hammer.

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4 minutes ago, killer2 said:

    As for the paradox of tolerance comment, I don't see how it applies here. I'm not suggesting giving unlimited tolerance to the intolerant, I'm suggesting giving them a temporary window to change for the better. If they don't, they get banned again.

Have you contemplated the possibility of this actually being the status quo and you merely not seeing the bigger picture of unrepentant shitposting and getting away with it?

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People change every day, and the difference between a person today and one year ago is often colossal. I believe I don't even need to talk about 5 or 10 year periods. Now, we are a community of doomers and I assume we want this community to flourish. The key ingredient to that is simply having more Doom lovers in the community, so saying goodbye to some people forever seems counterproductive to me. We should view controversial figures as problem children that need some discipline, not as unwanted criminals to get rid of. And there is no need to be afraid of unbanned people causing more problems: you can always quickly ban them again, there is no way they'll be able to do that much harm. I've seen many cases of people getting second chances and changing for the better (including gggmork!!!), and I believe that we'll see more if the right actions are taken now.

 

Pyrolex is talking about Discord but that thing is like what, a year old perhaps? Not quite the same case as here on Doomworld, so I don't think it's particularly relevant. And the jump from a 7 day ban to a lifetime ban (that time might very well last over 50 years, think about that) is just ridiculous no matter how you look at it.

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1 hour ago, killer2 said:

This limits the amount of interaction within the community, the ideas you can safely express without fear as well as the great projects being put out.

I'm genuinely curious about the ideas you fear you can't express without being permabanned.

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17 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

If you think that people reel in a perma ban because they walked a slippery slope once and stumbled while doing so, then I'm gonna have to say that this isn't the case in reality. Most people who get perma banned from somewhere either crossed certain lines on purpose to deliberately piss others off, or they have proven to be problematic for extended periods of time. I'm not in favour of dropping the hammer right away, but in the case of people which can't be arsed to change anything about their behaviour over the course of months or years even, well, how many "second chances" do you think do they deserve, really?

    That's not really what I've been seeing though. Neither Darknation nor Technician seemed to have changed their behaviour too much from their norm immediately before their bans, and I don't recall mentions of them being banned in the past because of it. From what I saw in their old posts on the old forum, it was just someone randomly deciding "this doesn't fly anymore" and banning them. I could say Sigvatr and Doom Marine are a lot more justified since they did repeatedly break the rules, but it's still a shame we lost two amazing mappers due to their bans. As for Logan MTM, I remember reviewing most of his posting history sometime in the months following the release of LoS and not even finding anything that bad. His English was bad and he got into a few arguments, but nothing egregious. It's the same with Tech and Dark really, they got into a few heated arguments but I don't remember them downright insulting people or trolling.

    And I'm not saying they deserve too many second chances. Is once a year too much? You can add to the period, let's say once in 3 years. Is that really something to be considered "too much"? If you stop giving people a chance, that means you effectively give up on them ever being better. Is that a fair judgement anyone can really make? In my opinion, no.

 

6 minutes ago, Memfis said:

People change every day, and the difference between a person today and one year ago is often colossal. I believe I don't even need to talk about 5 or 10 year periods. Now, we are a community of doomers and I assume we want this community to flourish. The key ingredient to that is simply having more Doom lovers in the community, so saying goodbye to some people forever seems counterproductive to me. We should view controversial figures as problem children that need some discipline, not as unwanted criminals to get rid of. And there is no need to be afraid of unbanned people causing more problems: you can always quickly ban them again, there is no way they'll be able to do that much harm. I've seen many cases of people getting second chances and changing for the better (including gggmork!!!), and I believe that we'll see more if the right actions are taken now.

 

Pyrolex is talking about Discord but that thing is like what, a year old perhaps? Not quite the same case as here on Doomworld, so I don't think it's particularly relevant. And the jump from a 7 day ban to a lifetime ban (that time might very well last over 50 years, think about that) is just ridiculous no matter how you look at it.

 

    Hit the nail on the head, this is exactly what I am talking about!

 

3 minutes ago, Da Werecat said:

I'm genuinely curious about the ideas you fear you can't express without being permabanned.

    Again, the exact circumstances of the bans remain fairly unclear, but it seems some members have been permabanned for expressing overly alt-right or politically incorrect views in manners which, while not entirely civil, at least to me, seemed far off from what I'd consider even remotely permaban-worthy.

Edited by killer2 : Adressing replies made while I was posting my original comment.

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9 minutes ago, Memfis said:

We should view controversial figures as problem children that need some discipline, not as unwanted criminals to get rid of.

Controversial figure profile: capodecima

problem child or unwanted criminal? (33 years old)

notable for:

DDOS'ing servers and websites

Intentionally ruining several leagues

Cheating and spreading cheats

posting his national identity card

https://twitter.com/capoquotes

Ban evasion

stalking

Harassment

 

Are you SURE he isn't an unwanted criminal worthy of permabanning

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I'd say he's quite a special case since AFAIK he was repeatedly banned from many many different Doom communities over the course of several years. Hardly comparable to just about any other figure. But probably even he deserves another chance at least in 3-5 years.

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8 minutes ago, Decay said:

Controversial figure profile: capodecima

problem child or unwanted criminal? (33 years old)

notable for:

DDOS'ing servers and websites

Intentionally ruining several leagues

Cheating and spreading cheats

posting his national identity card

https://twitter.com/capoquotes

Ban evasion

stalking

Harassment

 

Are you SURE he isn't an unwanted criminal worthy of permabanning

    Yes Decay, but DDOSing, cheating and acting like a total dickwad like Capodecima has isn't really what I had in mind when I said giving people a second chance. I'm mostly refering to people who did much more minor offences (like getting overly heated or verbally abusive out of anger rather than malice) or light-trolling out of immaturity. I did state this "Barring the spambots, evil or mentally deranged, or just overly petty trolls who repeatedly destroyed every thread before getting banned (or inbetween their bans), I think everyone should have a chance." in my original post. Capodecima falls under most of this, notably evil, overly petty and potentially mentally deranged.

 

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I think permabans should be only applied when the user in question is breaking super important rules of the place, and that mods and admins (anywhere in the world) shouldn't issue permabans based on bias or ancient kerfuffles only four or five people can remember. Except Korbi it isn't like that allourpermabansarejustifiedundertheintergalacticallawsection6paragraphextradip---

 

I know I know, but what mod/admin in the world did not abuse his power at least once? If any of you guys claim you didn't I am going to call bullshit. I am not calling out on anyone here (and I don't really know anyone who has done that so far) nor I am asking for "that time back in 1997 when a user named PhilSwiftSexTape said something bad about moderator Horus Lupercal" or any of that crap. In the end, I just wanted to say that permabans should be reserved for issues regarding serious and harmful rule-breaking, and that any call-outs and personala vendettas/kerfuffles have to be solved out elsewhere. There had been power-abuses like that since... ever, basically. I would turn the rule "Be nice to mods/admins" into not-a-serious-capitalizing-global-worth-permabanning-offense as well while at it. Yall new admins/mods of the world, you are nothing without your members filling your fanpages/forums/group-chats. Mass perma-banning because you couldn't tolerate a stupid low-level insult will net you a bad rep, especially if its somewhat connected to politics/religion/economy/race/sexual-orientation, which a lot of people freak out about nowadays, on all sides possible, all the time (Kinda learned this the hard way :/)

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I've added some context to my original post, hopefully this will help people understand where I'm coming from with my reasoning.

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12 minutes ago, Memfis said:

I'd say he's quite a special case since AFAIK he was repeatedly banned from many many different Doom communities over the course of several years. Hardly comparable to just about any other figure. But probably even he deserves another chance at least in 3-5 years.

How much for leaking people's unfinished projects via password sharing banmes, oh sage of second chances?

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We all miss "Cool Kids" and his 2 weeks of terror.

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I don't understand the purpose of this thread. Yes, permabans sometimes need to happen. Yes, sometimes these people improve and sometimes they get unbanned on a case-by-case basis. That's how it works. What is there to discuss?

 

Now, if there are particular issues with Doomworld's policy/practice of the above, or if there are certain banned users that deserve an appeal, those are topics with substance. As-is, this thread's central topic is so nonspecific that it's just noise.

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>Yes, except when the user is actively contributing great projects.

 

This seems like a fine way to let jackasses run amok and most likely was in the case of Huy. Being able to make something pretty shouldn't give someone carte blanche to act as they wish: whatever wonders they produce, in the end they are members of this forum and should follow the rules like everyone else.

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49 minutes ago, killer2 said:

Again, the exact circumstances of the bans remain fairly unclear, but it seems some members have been permabanned for expressing overly alt-right or politically incorrect views in manners which, while not entirely civil, at least to me, seemed far off from what I'd consider even remotely permaban-worthy.

I mean like, it's not this is remotely the same thing as being banned for, say, expressing far-right views. I'll pretty much always disagree with those, but it's pretty hard to say that that alone is even remotely reason for punishment, unless we're talking about some ridiculous far-far-far-right views that are straight out of a dystopia novel.

 

But with alt-right? That's a hugely different thing - that's giving white supremacists and neo-Nazis the ability to voice their inhumane belief without punishment. Allowing that in itself is a debatably immoral act, since it gives those people the chance to re-affirm and spread their genocidal beliefs without, well, fear of punishment and exclusion.

 

Like, if Skeletor was real and competent enough to actually kill and oppress people, would you let him go around and try to convince others to not oppose evil overlord? Because that's not even much of an exaggeration of what the alt-right is.

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Sorry for being indiferent and impartial to that but........if people gets banned is for a good reason and if that person gets banned over and over, then that person is a lost case. Some people WON'T change. 

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57 minutes ago, dew said:

How much for leaking people's unfinished projects via password sharing banmes, oh sage of second chances?

Yeah, I don't know why I'm not banned yet.

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11 minutes ago, esselfortium said:

After Huy Pham was banned for the first time, he showed up on IRC to boast in great detail about the ways he planned to dick around with the admins as a final fuck-you if he could ever convince them to let him back in. Getting banned again was always his plan, it just happened sooner than he expected and without the blaze of glory he was looking forward to.

 

Sigvatr is a known troll whose exploits are well-known around the net. He was given a second chance here, but even when knowing he was on thin ice, his interest in shocking and hurting people continued to take precedence over any interest he had in following the rules here or being a decent person.

 

As for the alt-right, nazis and nazi sympathizers are not tolerated on Doomworld and never will be.

 

    That does sound pretty irredeemable to be honest. I didn't really know the extent of their malice. I will concede in those cases it was justified. What about the others though?

    However, perhaps some contact could be maintained with these people. Some way to acknowledge their work without giving them a way to talk. Perhaps whenever they want to post a project they could talk to a moderator or another member of the community and have them post it on their behalf or something or letting them post directly but with all their posts needing moderator approval before being visible.. That way, we wouldn't have to deal with their antics and we can still enjoy the great mods they produce, and they would still be interested in it for the popularity it gives them.

    As for my alt-right comment, that was a mistake. I didn't realize the alt-right was inherently racist, but I did a quick search and I was wrong. I meant far-right comments.

 

39 minutes ago, Xaser said:

I don't understand the purpose of this thread. Yes, permabans sometimes need to happen. Yes, sometimes these people improve and sometimes they get unbanned on a case-by-case basis. That's how it works. What is there to discuss?

 

Now, if there are particular issues with Doomworld's policy/practice of the above, or if there are certain banned users that deserve an appeal, those are topics with substance. As-is, this thread's central topic is so nonspecific that it's just noise.

    I just wanted to share some of the thoughts I've had from time to time back when I was lurking old posts in either EE or the old Post Hell. I remember often times I would go through people's comments and think to myself "did they really deserve to be banned for that?" or "this was so long ago, what if they changed for the better?".

Edited by killer2

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The forum staff here don't have an obligation to maintain contact with users who have behaved with malice and disrespect, but if someone manages to make enough of a nuisance of themselves to be ousted from the forum, they're still free to use the idgames archive to upload their work for posterity.

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