Suggestion for an alternative to banning

NUance

NUance

New member
The Doghouse forum:

Every so often a poster comes along who just doesn't get it. Like jmfb. Or wifi. Or to a lesser extent, Hedley Lamar. Sometimes, as in the case of Hedley, these posters figure out how to have civil conversations and eventually become valued members of HB. Most often, however, they flit from thread to thread pooping on perfectly good conversations until they get banned.

I have a suggestion to put the kibosh on such posters, and possibly help them figure out how to get along with others. I suggest creating a forum that we could temporarily limit misbehaving posters within. A poster who is confined within this doghouse forum could not post any place else on the board. That is, they could post only in the doghouse forum, but not in any other HB forum or thread. All other HB posters would have access to this forum as well.

That way, when someone goes berserk in a bunch of threads like jmfb did last week, we could start a jmfb thread in the doghouse forum and move a bunch of their acerbic posts into their own personal thread within the doghouse forum. If HB posters wanted to continue arguing with him (as I'm sure many would), they could post in that thread. However, the person banished to the doghouse forum could not post in another other forum on HB until such time as the doghouse sanction was lifted from his account (if ever).

Being banished to the doghouse forum could be a penalty that's meted out before banning. We could explain in the initial post in that forum that if the person learns to be civil towards others, there is a possibility, but not a guarantee, that he will have their privileges restored to post as a normal HB poster.

It would prevent the offending poster from crapping on every active thread on HB, as such posters often seem to do when they get out of control. And also it could be fun!
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/just a suggestion

 
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Do mods have amnesty from the dog house
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I kinda meander; not much of a flitter

Good idea though; if it's viable via board software.

 
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My concern is something you noted - that the folks that got into it with the member would continue the conversations in that forum. If they do, and it continues the same course, the member would have to endure a LOT of baiting. Is that the intent? Because if you don't allow the "conversation" to continue, who would visit that forum?

Or am I misunderstanding? Is the idea that we capture the member and the conversation BEFORE it gets too bad (i.e., before any other member goes on the attack)? If that's the case, won't we be pulling topics out of the Football forum or Recruiting forum? If so, that would seem to cause us to end up with threads dying in those forums as the conversation moves to the Doghouse.

Just want to be sure I understand the implications and intent.

 
AR Husker Fan said:
My concern is something you noted - that the folks that got into it with the member would continue the conversations in that forum. If they do, and it continues the same course, the member would have to endure a LOT of baiting. Is that the intent? Because if you don't allow the "conversation" to continue, who would visit that forum?
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Exactly! And that's the point. Instead of letting the berserk poster go off the rails, ruin a bunch of threads, and get banned, he would be banished to his own little private purgatory forum. A place where he could continue his acerbic ways, but others would have the option of participating or not. That way we wouldn't need a Mod to follow him around on the board cleaning up his messes in every thread.

Take the jmfb poster, for example. I think he was actually a fairly knowledgeable Husker fan. But he clearly did not know how to get along with others (and didn't seem interested in making an effort to get along). Several posters enjoyed interacting with him, but it would invariably cause him to break HB rules. How many threads did he derail, calling those who disagreed with him foam fingered fans who lived in their mother's basement? After he got banned the same posters who had been sparring with him questioned why. I think they would have continued to interact with him.

I'm sure there would be some baiting. But it wouldn't derail any legitimate threads. And it might (*might*) help that poster to figure out how to interact with other posters. Either the poster would figure out how to get along, or people would lose interest in squabbling with him and his account would die on the vine.

AR Husker Fan said:
Or am I misunderstanding? Is the idea that we capture the member and the conversation BEFORE it gets too bad (i.e., before any other member goes on the attack)? If that's the case, won't we be pulling topics out of the Football forum or Recruiting forum? If so, that would seem to cause us to end up with threads dying in those forums as the conversation moves to the Doghouse.
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We wouldn't move entire threads into the Doghouse—only the offending posts. We could leave a Mod post pointing to the Doghouse where the squabbling posts had been moved to.

And I guess it would be a judgment call as to when we'd capture a member. If two members were equally guilty in breaking the rules, then perhaps it would be appropriate to put both in the Doghouse, and let them duke it out. We wouldn't need to specify a fixed length of time that a person would be in the Doghouse. It could be just for the evening. Or for a couple of weeks. Or longer, if the guy couldn't figure out how to play well with others.

AR Husker Fan said:
Just want to be sure I understand the implications and intent.
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It would allow Mods to separate out an offending poster so that we wouldn't need to monitor him as he rampages across the board.

It's just a suggested alternative to banning[SIZE=14.6666669845581px]. A[/SIZE] less permanent alternative that would provide the offending poster with a chance to recover and regain his posting privileges. That is, if he chose to straighten up. In the mean time, HB members could still interact with him. Without derailing multiple threads.

 
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So, I'm guessing we'd make this a sub-forum in the Woodshed? Another consideration...to put a member in the restricted group would take an admin. Not a big deal, but wanted to bring that up in the event that this works on the idea of corralling the offender quickly. If an admin isn't available, it could be a while before the member gets reassigned to the "limited" group. Is that an issue?

So, folks, sing out. Thoughts on the idea?

 
Ah. Let's keep it to something all mods can do. But I do like the idea of "ban alternatives", and also keeping it simple. So in order, something like...

1. official warning

2. PM advising

3. suspension

4. indefinite suspension -- effectively a ban, but reversible.

5. permanent ban.

If they don't show interest in being part of the board at all -- as in jmfb's case, where he was just dug in to looking at everybody else as a moron -- then they'll advance to stage 5 pretty quickly. In other cases

But to address the specific case of a user going off the rails in a way that requires action, but it's someone we hope will just calm down someday and go back to being a regular poster, then a lengthy suspension can/should suffice in lieu of a ban. Dunno if that's worth the trouble?

Although: when we warn a member from the ModCP, we can also move them to the "banned" user group. It might be possible to modify that group to be called "suspended" instead and include say, 'shed access. And then to create another admin-only "ban" group for permanent bans.

At the end of the day there's only so much we can do to help a poster "get it." But I do think this is a pretty neat idea, to stick them in a "timeout" lounge, for them to vent and get feedback.

 
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I think being on Mod Preview should be in the list somewhere - probably before or after Suspension in zoogs list. Especially for guys like jmfb and even Polo who aren't really being egregious with their posts but consistently insulting others with their smarter-than-thou persona.

After they've been warned with what needs to change they go on Mod Preview such that they can post things that contribute to discussion but things that are over the line won't be allowed. They'll either change their ways or get mad and leave.

The ones who are way out of line can skip that step.

 
To me I'm afraid some folks may take this as a badge of honor and want to "attain that status" just so they can use it for bragging rights at a later date after they get their selves back together. I don't mind the idea, but we would have to be more specific in the times where we use it. There are some people that are obvious trolls, they need to go, they don't need to be in the "doghouse" area and given another chance. If it's someone who was a good member, but for whatever reason went off the deep end, then I could see it more.

 
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