People are never banned out of the blue.
It happens with a collective decision taken by moderators, sub Admins and Admin.
The philosophy of the forum is to never ban people because of their opinions or what they write, unless of course they harass other users or are racist.
Banning people is always a very difficult decision because we do know every one of users is a part of a community and other users don't like seeing people being banned.
And we know you know this.
What you do not know is that there is a life behind the scenes, for moderators and Admins and Sub Admins, and of course the people who are banned, that can be very "lively" and contributes to extreme decisions.
Some users will insist, behind the scenes, that other users be banned, because they are "losing a fight". For weeks. For months.
Some users are suggested to stop quarrelling and ignore each other, otherwise they will be banned for polluting the forum, but they do not give a f**k and keep fighting and writing in the background they want to be right and want the other users banned.
Every time there is a ban, and especially a permanent ban, it is because an issue has gone on for weeks if not months, and the "general public" is unaware of it.
Sunchyme will be back in a month. He knows very well why he was banned. It is not for the thread he opened: it is because that, AND the conversation there was before, initiated by him.
Other users will never be back. It is ironic, though, that their ban causes a commotion. One of the reason why they were banned is because they could not stop writing to us, day and night, we should ban other people they did not like.
Good post Roberto. I wish people would do well to remember this or maybe it needs to be a sticky so we don't see the same questions repeatedly. I'm surprised to see some users leave naive comments that certain members were banned over tagging mods. Believe me, it's not easy to get banned. You guys should know being long term members.
As Roberto says, there is a lot happening behind the scenes. That is not limited just to discussions between staff and mods, but also numerous pms are received. Over all this, we make an educated decision about the nature of someone and also what they bring to the forum. In some cases we received over 50 pms from the same person...about nothing but wanting certain action to be taken against someone, when it was just a small problem. Do you think that's normal behaviour? Bear in mind we have other work to do on here, free I may add and other important queries to deal with. People can be selling products over PM too or breaking other serious rules.
Ironic as well some people defending certain banned members, they had wanted some of you banned over PM too as Roberto mentioned. I'm talking generally here. In other words, you don't know what happens, so best not to make assumptions.
Hairblues herself actually understood how the forum works to her credit, yet some of you senior members don't. I remember her making a post saying sometimes we think mods make a decision out of impulse but it never is the case. That they've been assessing the situation over a long long time and are watching certain people. That warnings or pm talks will have happened too, to try and defuse the situation. And that's why certain users don't get banned permanently despite launching attacks on me or others directly - we've deemed they should stay on the forum because it's in the forum's interest.
The ban is nothing personal, it's what we believe is the best course of action and direction of this place.
I'm pretty happy with the response with consideration that you can't just outright tell us every detail of the situation. And more than happy you did make the effort you both came out to clarify what you could.
As you guys know by PM I recently asked a few times why someone was not banned, it's not something I like doing, and feel a bit icky about doing so as I clearly prefer tackling problems head on with people on this forum. And from there either coming to some form of resolution or, simply cutting ties with them for everyone's benefit.
Reading Roberto's post I was thinking "sh*t... I guess I'm one of these people?" Though I don't feel I am (let me know by PM otherwise). I mean I asked, whined a bit, understood you guys considered it and did your thing, realised the outcome wasn't what I wanted and with Roberto I agreed to a resolution that I'm happy to have them post as long as I don't come on to daily nudges and niggles from them. And with that it has been a positive result for everyone and it's smoothed out, eventually. So that appears to be the end of it, and I actually now just realised I genuinely don't even mind that they still post (again, as long as it's not to me).
If you're saying someone for example PM'ed 50 times with the same repetitive argument, finding no resolution or seeming to not even want one, repeating the same issue with you and then also repeating the same sh*t on the forum despite repeated requests to leave it, then that's very different. That shows a sign of someone being intentionally disruptive to the point where they are even harmful to themselves.
I definitely don't hold back in the heat of arguments on here and any regular member has seen it many times (and I really do want to work on this, just for myself) but for me personally, as a rather extreme member, I will say to others that I've always felt the mods treated me fairly and seem to have a certain understanding of why I behave like I do.
From knowing hairblues well and being really disappointed that's the end of her, I will say that I was never outraged by this decision, and that's for a reason. There was clearly a side to her that was relentless (which I like actually) but it worked unfavourably and unproductively for her, and she was even aware of this. So in other words I'm not shocked it came to this, and while previously dubious based more on feelings than facts, I can probably understand why this had to be done. And while I don't know the details it may be the best result for her as well.
If HB does read this then sorry if I've given away some trust by talking about our discussions. I just think it's helpful for other people trying to understand this.
