I have been active on this board for not quite a year, and it's become a daily must-visit site for me. (Addiction? Obsession?) I enjoy this forum immensely, and have great respect for the intelligence of many members here. This board is a great (nay, vital!) enhancement to my community experience with this wonderful game! And of course as a result, I can't help but feel a certain kind of sadness when someone gets banned. Now I'm curious as to the likely causes and results of moderators banning members.

Obviously, gross breaches of etiquette and politeness and basic human decency can get you banned anywhere.

But are there unique factors to this board, especially as it relates to spoilers, corporate parentage and the like, that can get you banned as well?

And do the moderators of this board treat banning as a temporary punishment, or is it likely permanent?

I am purposefully posting this topic in a generalized way, so as not to call out any particular members or embarrass anyone or risk the airing of individuals' dirty laundry. I hope any discussion on this thread will maintain that respect for other members' (or former members') privacy and not shame anyone unnecessarily. Of course, if you have personal experience you'd like to share, feel free to do so if you are able.

Thanks.

Only time I recall seeing any bannings was around the lead of the new core set.

99% of the time, no one misses the person who was banned here. It takes a fair amount to get banned, and in the time it takes for a poster to build up to that level, no one will miss them.

99% of the time, no one misses the person who was banned here. It takes a fair amount to get banned, and in the time it takes for a poster to build up to that level, no one will miss them.

Cheers for that Sithborg; I've been banned twice.

What did you do to warrant that?

99% of the time, no one misses the person who was banned here. It takes a fair amount to get banned, and in the time it takes for a poster to build up to that level, no one will miss them.

Cheers for that Sithborg; I've been banned twice.

That's odd, I don't remember missing you ...

99% of the time, no one misses the person who was banned here. It takes a fair amount to get banned, and in the time it takes for a poster to build up to that level, no one will miss them.

Cheers for that Sithborg; I've been banned twice.

Well, clearly you haven't been perma banned.

I think there were temp bands for the TFA core stuff. As far as I know there's only been one person I think that was permabanned, and absolutely no one missed him. Because he was the stereotype of a forms troll.

He's created a few new accounts, but those got banned too fairly quickly I think.

Cheers for that Sithborg; I've been banned twice.

Guess that makes you a 1%'er.

Wait, there're moderators?

The thing about this is that no one perm banned can answer the question here

I've got a grand total of one warning point (which to be fair I earned, the comment was pretty inappropriate).

So yeah, really curious on how you did it Gecko.

Wait, there're moderators?

Yep... mostly they close out threads that have devolved into personal attacks. And they all work for FFG... no community moderators here...

Mostly that's a good thing, though it would be nice to have someone clean up some of the threads and move them to the right spot, but they will disappear in a couple of hours anyway so it's not a big deal.

Oh... wait... /sarcasmfont/... you got me...

The first ban was for innuendo shortly after I joined. Apparently some double entendres didn't go down too well or were lost in translation (admittedly it was a second offence). Two week ban, what was most amusing is about a month later the forum had an actual "innuendo thread" on the front page.

Second two week ban was in the middle of the "Fat Han Crisis". There were a hell of a lot of anti-YT1300 and anti-Phantom threads rocking around, and a lot of them were getting fairly heated. I posted a "Who Will Be The Forum's Next Whipping Boy?" thread, and due to the heated comments elsewhere it didn't go down very well from the start. Thread locked, a temp ban and a "you've got previous" warning.

To be fair, I don't think the mods on the forum are heavy handed or anything like that at all; generally they leave the forum to manage itself. I got the feeling it was more because things were being repeatedly called to their attention at the time that they took action.

On the whole this is a pretty calm area. Occasionally buttons get pushed and things get heated but we have some very passionate players of X-wing here.

One thing I have noted is the proliferation of threads on the same subject. There are at least 5 running now on the tractor beam and another 6 running on the defender titles. Is this really necessary?

I moderate an expat forum that is constantly plagued by trolls and spammers. On average I ban a spammer a day and a troll a week. Keeping a persistent troll off a board is a matter of attrition. They can keep coming back using VPNs or Cloud network IP addresses as long as they like, but they get tired of being continually shut down and banned eventually.

This forum does a pretty solid job of self policing too. Lots of posters call you out if you're outta line. I like it but need people to push the report button just a little more often.

I've found that there are posters who can handle a vigorous exchange, and those who can't. (The latter are the sorts who are unable to see the logical distinction between "that's a dumb idea" and "you're a dumb person." That is, unfortunately, a sizable percentage of any population.) The ones who can't make that distinction also (not coincidentally) are the ones who whine. Whiners, pretty much axiomatically, get more attention than non-whiners, and moderators aren't immune to that (even if it's -- as it really must be, sometimes, right? -- with an eye-roll).

So, really, it just comes down to "don't engage with the people who aren't worth engaging with anyway." It takes a while to sort out who that is, but a surprisingly short while ... and lurking on a forum for a bit is rarely a bad idea anyway.

One thing I have noted is the proliferation of threads on the same subject. There are at least 5 running now on the tractor beam and another 6 running on the defender titles. Is this really necessary?

It's not necessary ( ... obviously?), but I've never really understood why it's a problem, either. A few extra mouse-clicks? It's not that big a deal. I've easily spent more time reading people complaining about redundant threads and repeated questions than I have wasted on the threads themselves.

I solve the problem by only reading one thread on the topic, whichever one has the most posts on it.

This forum does a pretty solid job of self policing too. Lots of posters call you out if you're outta line. I like it but need people to push the report button just a little more often.

It would help if the moderators took a bit more of an active interest as well. Being a visible part of the community goes a long way to not having to actually use the mod powers more than a well timed "Hello :)".

When i was in discussion with the mods about us having sub forums i did try and push for 'player mods' with limited powers

Namely those to freeze/lock a thread until a mod could see it, move stuff to the right area and potentially to be able to merge duplicates but for probably very good reasons FFG were not up for it.

I suggested about five or six long standing, quality posting users who i thought would have been ideal, some of them i didnt personally agree with at times but i thought they were decent posters with strong arguments and no likelihood of abusing any priveliges.... obviously i didnt suggest myself as the power would go to my head and i'd be a total Div of a mod

I think i'd have to start making some quality posts before listing myself as a contender lol!

It does seem though that there is a line you have to cross and that line is quite wide but when you do you get a bit of a slap.

I got a warning once for taking the micky out of all the 'the game is broken' threads with a parody 'breakfast is overpowered' thread which some people thought was an attack on them rather than an oblique appeal for everyone to stop whinging

Oddly the thread i got a slap for was well received by most people and i think my first 'popular' starred post.

Over the years I've seen way more people stop posting than get banned. It doesn't happen often.

99% of the time, no one misses the person who was banned here. It takes a fair amount to get banned, and in the time it takes for a poster to build up to that level, no one will miss them.

Cheers for that Sithborg; I've been banned twice.

That's odd, I don't remember missing you ...

Maybe that was what Sithborg was talking about? xD

Well, I can honestly say you can find exactly what will at the least get you a temp ban in a recent OP on the front page of these boards. I'd bet money that that poster will be taking a bit of a break from the boards within the next few days.

I was banned once. Mostly because I have a point where I just up and tell somebody that I think they suck.

Appealed it though.