I took the decision to ban a member from a forum I help look after yesterday. Sometimes the administrators and moderators of such forums get accused (and sometime it's a correct accusation, but usually not) of being 'trigger happy' ... so for anyone reading this who uses forums, you might be interested at my thoughts out of that particular public eye. I am aware that a member or two from 'that place' may read this - even the banned person, so even here I am showing a little reserve!

I always feel that having to impose a ban is something of a failure ... and it's the first one imposed at xxxx since lsat August [this written the following May].

I don't actually mind people posting things that don't show them up in a very good light (as yyyyyyy was doing) ... and indeed I may turn round to someone who's not aware just how much of a twit (s)he comes across as and gently tell her/him. But where there's a significant risk of messing about with personal messages, spam/flood posting, posting against copyright / privacy / decency or other laws or rules, or significantly mucking up existing threads (which (s)he threatened), then it has to be "ban".

The ban imposed in this case never expires automatically. But - were I to receive an email / explanation / justification / apology / moderator message telling me I have overstepped, it could be reversed. Unlikely in this particular case, but never say "never". But let me tell you a story ...

I am minded of a time I was moderator on another forum - looking after the "Travel and Transport" board on http://talk.uk-yankee.com. One of our posters there displayed a childishness of posting, short sentences, and a bizareness of what she said had happened to her and a strange view of life that made us very wary of her. She said she had come to the UK for a week's holiday, USA passport (so no visa needed) but been turned back at the airport and told to get a Visa before she came back. And we wondered what was going on - certainly there was a less than sympathetic tone on the moderator's board.

Slowly, the story crept out. It turns out that she was blind, and having to use a special input device. And had other health issues too so that she obviously didn't have the mobility the rest of us had. And didn't even admit / want to comment on these things - there was just something in posts that eventually gave us the clue. Perhaps the immigration officer at Gatwick had thought she was coming to the UK to get treated on the NHS - perhaps he thought it odd that she was travelling alone, in that condition, and wasn't well set up to answer the officer's questions - I don't know.

But I do know that we then accepted her postings (which would have driven language pedants wYLde) and offered better, more tuned suggestions too - and that she contributed more. The brave lady went to the Los Angeles Consultate, got her visa, and came back to the UK.

The UK-Yankee forum is a bit of a transient place - people come along when they have "transatlantic issues" and as those issues are resolved, they fade away. I don't know what happened to zzzzz - but I do know that I was amongst a group of people just about to close the door to someone who turned out to be utterly valid, and probably twice as brave as any of the rest of us. And it's a lesson I don't think I'll ever forget.

(written 2009-05-09)

 G903 - Well House Consultants - Running and moderating forums and social media sites
  [22] Falling out over the silliest things - (2004-08-21)
  [29] Silence is Golden - (2004-08-26)
  [115] Expiration dates or times on web pages - (2004-11-12)
  [130] Spelling and grammar - (2004-11-25)
  [204] The confidence to allow public comments - (2005-02-06)
  [231] Feedback as lifeblood - (2005-02-28)
  [248] Use me, but use me effectively - (2005-03-16)
  [424] How not to run a forum - (2005-08-24)
  [516] Open source questions? Anyone can ask. - (2005-12-03)
  [651] Please Register with Opentalk - but just once! - (2006-03-19)
  [806] Check your user is human. Have him retype a word in a graphic - (2006-07-17)
  [828] Freedom of speech and freedom to post - (2006-08-10)
  [841] Forum help - a push in the right direction - (2006-08-21)
  [919] Freedom for X is denial of privacy for Y - (2006-11-09)
  [923] Why shouldn't I spam? - (2006-11-13)
  [948] Running an on line campaign - (2006-11-27)
  [1088] Why use BBC code not HTML? - (2007-02-21)
  [1190] Save the Forum - A regular clean sweep - (2007-05-17)
  [1362] No Thank You - (2007-09-23)
  [1472] The Horse goes on and on - (2007-12-15)
  [1485] Copyright and theft of images, bandwidth and members. - (2007-12-26)
  [1523] Ive just received an email from myself. Should I be worried? - (2008-01-29)
  [1532] Comment spam blocked. Please comment via Forums - (2008-02-05)
  [1539] A forum is not always the best vehicle - (2008-02-14)
  [1563] Guidlines for posting on a forum - (2008-03-04)
  [1569] I dont care - goodbye - (2008-03-09)
  [1578] Please don't shout at me! - (2008-03-16)
  [1595] First Great Western Weekend - (2008-03-30)
  [1678] Software - changes and delays. But courses must run on time! - (2008-06-15)
  [1759] While the world sleeps ... - (2008-08-19)
  [1923] Making it all worthwhile - (2008-12-04)
  [1972] Pettifog and forum boards away from public view - (2009-01-03)
  [2103] Ask the Tutor - Open Source forum - (2009-03-25)
  [2116] Why do we delay new forum members through authorisation? - (2009-04-03)
  [2156] Stopping forum spam - control of the signup process - (2009-05-04)
  [2177] Preventing forum spam - checks at sign up - (2009-05-12)
  [2254] Forum membership - a privilege not a right - (2009-06-22)
  [2386] Computing under the influence of alcohol - (2009-08-29)
  [2526] A reluctance to move from old shoes to new - (2009-12-05)
  [2527] Flying tonight - (2009-12-05)
  [2569] How to run a successful online poll / petition / survey / consultation - (2010-01-10)
  [2781] The 500 pound question to get you started - (2010-05-26)
  [2820] Netiquette for forum newcomers - (2010-06-20)
  [3479] Practical Extraction and Reporting - using Python and Extreme Programming - (2011-10-14)
  [3910] Identifying your real customers and keeping them well informed fast - (2012-11-02)
  [4017] Acceptable User Policy / vexatious interacter - (2013-02-24)
  [4025] Backups, Codebase, Strategy and more - dealing with forum incidents - (2013-03-03)
  [4065] Handling requests to a forum - the background process - (2013-04-17)
  [4234] Change to Libel and Defamation laws from 1st January 2014 - (2013-12-31)
  [4239] Facebook marketing - early experiences - (2014-01-19)
  [4283] Can a legitimate forum post become illegal a year later? - (2014-07-11)
  [4307] Identifying and clearing denial of service attacks on your Apache server - (2014-09-27)
  [4315] Welcoming genuine forum posters quickly - but turning away off topic advertisers - (2014-11-16)
  [4403] The unbalanced relationship between customer and provider - (2015-01-21)
  [4492] Almost so wrong, but perhaps it's right for some? - (2015-05-11)

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