This is a lengthy reply, so bear with me. There are very few things you can get banned for. You literally have to WANT to be banned. These are the ones I listed in the rules section of the site:Mike DiCenso wrote:Okay. I'am also curious as to what checks and balances you have in place to resolve disputes, particularly should a ban occur, and is challenged.
-Mike
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Threatening the President. Even though I enjoy company, I do NOT want the Secret Service visiting me at my home.
2. Linking to child porn or advocating pedophilia. If you are this kind of sick bastard, I don't want you anywhere NEAR my board. This is your warning. You will NOT get a second one.
3. Threatening lawsuits, legal action etc. Or threatening to damage this board. I don't have any patience for that.
4. Real life threats and harassment. Most people know the difference between flaming and actual threats. If you are making real life threats against another member or their family members, that crosses the line.
5. Real life info. Stalking people and revealing their real life info on the board is also not allowed. People who are dumb enough to have posted their real life info publicly have already done it to themselves. Please be careful with what kind of real life info you post. Including your full name, address, pictures, etc. In other words, people. Just use some common sense.
-------------------------------------------------------------
These things are all public, so it's self evident if someone actually did these things. If someone thinks that a rule is being applied unfairly or too broadly, they can email me privately. However, these rules are so basic, if you break them, it's going to be intentional, and you would know full well what you're doing. As far as rule #4 goes, If the harassment is occurring in PMs, I would ask for copies of the PMs. Basically I would want to hear both sides of things. Also, the only people who can actually ban members are myself and Mirah. Mods can delete threads, move them, modify them, etc.
There are less serious offenses, this is where conflict resolution comes in. These offenses will get you thrown in "The Brig" Which is an area of the site where you will be restricted to if you commit a lesser offense. You will not be able to post elsewhere until you're let out. Here are the ones I posted:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Outing people's sock puppet/dual accounts without their permission.
2. Causing the mods a lot of work by relentlessly spamming/flooding the non-spam forums. (Spamable forums are Ten Forward and The Speakeasy)
3. This isn't a porn site, people. There are other places to find that stuff. Don't post it here. Even though this site is geared toward and adult crowd, that doesn't mean there won't be any kids here. Once again, use some common sense. If something is edgy, mark it as not safe for work.
4. Publicly posting PMs sent to you from other members, IM discussions or any other private communications. This isn't good, and will definitely land you in The Brig.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as personal feuds and fighting goes, if it starts to get personal, the thread is split and moved to the Flame Wars/Vendettas/Misc Butthurt section. There you can fight to your heart's content. If the feuding starts to devolve into the realm of credible threats and RL harassment, then warnings are given out. If it doesn't stop, bans will occur. In other words, it takes a lot to get banned, and for most things, bans can eventually be lifted. Except for rule #2. (In the first section) Anyone who posts that kind of sick stuff will not be given a second chance. It was asked of me, regarding the rule about outing of sock puppet accounts, if the person is banned, is it OK to out their sock puppets? My answer is this. If the person is banned, their sock puppets will be banned as well. Does that answer your questions?
