Perm ban....

[ele5125]

Personaly I would also like to see a stricter banning system as well. Though at the same time I am also concered about inocent people not being able to join because someone on the same ISP did something to get banned, I am not all that sure how banning works but I would assume that eventualy someone else may be assigned the "banned" ip address.




i was a member of a site which I will not name, I was baned with a IP ban. I do not know why I was banned, but I left and found this site. One day I was logging in and was told that my IP address has been baned. It was unfortunate but I took the point and went somewhere else. My IP is static but I could atempt to use a proxy, but its not worth my time.

I hope that a new banning system can be implemented.

[DarkBot]

Agreed, an account-by-account based ban would be most effective in reducing the amount of innocent people that want to access AO and want to adhere to the rules.

[aeallison]

I am not sure if this is even possible...but how about a "global-ignore" feature that only the moderators could implement in the case of the examples you have already discussed in this thread. If I am correct, an ignored person cannot post to a thread if the thread starter has him/her in his/her ignore list. If this is the case then a moderator could "global-ignore" the offender by adding him/her to every users ignore list, and make this moderated feature permanent or something ( can't find the words to use, bare with me here :-) ) so that no-one can remove them from their individual ignore list.

Am I making any sense here? LOL I am not positively sure how the ignore feature works, or if this could even be implemented. This will not stop the offenders entirely, and may add a bit more responsibility to the moderators, but would give one more option for the moderators to use in extreme cases.

[Ennis]

I get ya, actually its an interesting idea although your putting the power to 'ban' in the hands of moderators. A good idea for discussion anyway.

[Curious_One]

Correct me if I'm wrong on this but isn't it that when a person registers on here, they usually put reference points like their email account, their IM, ICQ, and/or yahoo messenger?

If so, is there any way of referencing these things on a banned person when they try to re-register? Maybe something like having a database of banned user's email addresses/IM/ICQ and running a scan against it on new members. Some people don't think about changing these things.

Just a thought.

[bdhoff]

Curious_One may have an idea here. Use the things that should uniquely identify someone to enforce a ban. I know what everyone will say, that it is easy to get another email address or IM handle, but I was thinking along the lines of what companies like eBay try to do.

A long time ago when you signed up for an eBay account they would require some sort of "proof of identity" if a person tried to sign up with an email address from hotmail or yahoo or something like that. Maybe there is a way to screen for these types of free email addresses and make someone that wants to sign up with one somehow verify who they are.

[Joey_Batch_File]

I personally believe it is fine as is. What about households with multiple people accessing one computer? There are instances in cases like that there may be one bad seed. I would also hate to mess up some how, and never be allowed back on AO. Also that would be really bad if someone has a thing against you, and it turns into their goal to get you off AO forever.

[aeallison]

I had not thought of that possibility, I do remember an instance where a members little brother was logging in with his identity and creating enough havoc that it about got him banned. Again Joey seems to be on his toes and clear headed. I might modify my previous post by adding that this person might be given a sort of amnisty by PM to the moderator and pleading his case. Possibly when using the ignore feature I mentioned it sends the offender a PM with an option to reply, then he will in a sense have a second chance to redeem himself. Just another thought.

<edit>I re-read what I have written and what everyone else has posted and after much thought ( and a PM or two with some of you ), I have to withdraw my suggestions, several reasons.
[list=1][*]This should not be a moderated issue, too much responsibility/control of one person.[*]Using words like: offender, amnesty, and redeem makes it sound like a prison warden memo.[/list=1]
</edit>

[allenb1963]

/me looks around and wonders if John Ashcroft planted the seed for this thread.....

Indiscriminate banning would be a form of censorship, would it not?

[cwk9]

I don't think jp would go for the "proof of identity" idea. Two reasons

1. Lots of people who have accounts here never even touch the forums and don't want to be hassled buy having to identify them selves.

2. Kind of hard to be anonymous if you have to dish out lots of personal info. I'm afraid we would lose some of our more paranoid members.