question about suggest bans - requesting official policy

Some of us want to know once and for all the answers to the following questions:

1. how long does it take for individual suggest bans to expire?

2. If someone is banned as a result of receiving 51+ suggest bans, then returns, and accumulates another 51+, are they banned temporarily or permanently, and if temporarily, for how long?

it would be nice for it to make it's way into a FAQ at some point, but a non-faq-ified answer nowish or soonish would be much appreciated.

Indeed. There's no hurry to write a full FAQ, as many of the things in it would be kinda obvious, but this whole SB thing has caused so much confusion there should at least be a clear and concise policy on it.

One of the goals of this thread and ideally, the resultant answers is to reduce the likelihood of future clusterfuck threads in which the same questions get asked over and over again. This thread is not intended as yet another place to debate the suggest ban system.

Respectfully submitted.

ffs i know ppl like to post to borad-lawyering and meta threads but if this stuff was written out we wouldn't have to answer the question "when do sb's expire?" for the 900th time and endless facepalming arguments with mods would really be a nonstarter because that's what written policies are for.

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, September 22, 2009 1:04 PM (25 seconds ago)

I think there'd be more of a hurry on this if people didn't feel 100% sure that no matter how clearly the policy was stated, nor how concise the terms framing it were, somebody, not to tuom any names or anything, would still have several questions which in the end could not be answered to his satisfaction, which would be frustrating for the people who'd put time into stating the policy

<3

u write it for the 99% of us who are not dense

i'd be satisfied knowing the answers to the two questions i initially posted - even if there is a certain amount of "at mods' discretion" involved.

"why don't you write a shitty indie policy about it"

it's in the liner notes you freeloading brit

j0hn have u ever written a faq set to music? if not, hop to it

let's have lj write the policy--how many penis metaphors do you think he can work in

guys, this is a serious request you're fucking up with bullshit answers!

well for #2, as far as I remember, it's a permaban

welcome to ilx heaven

lj & I will collaborate on the song, between the two of us we will make people cry over a song about penises whose chorus is an electro delight running roughly as follows

ESSSSSS
BEEEEEE
ESSSSSS
BEEEEEE

to the last syllable of recorded time

xpost sorry sarahel if you sb me for this I deserve it

the outro will feature the sound of a single gunshot and a low moan of 'oh how life's relish stains my cummerbund'

http://www.thenextwave.biz/tnw/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/Dyson.jpg

vacuum drone in the background

xp haha

"Ladies and Gentlemen, it's The Testicle Goats"

http://www.beatlemania.ca/toursworld/Shea_files/Shea13.jpg

guys, this is a serious request you're fucking up with bullshit answers!

― my other display name is a controversial mod edit (sarahel), Tuesday, September 22, 2009 4:13 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm done

use a wiki maker and write one? don't see why you have to wait for the mods to do it

uh, because I don't know the answers?

just make them up!

which is pretty much how its done now

guys, this is a serious request you're fucking up with bullshit answers!

― my other display name is a controversial mod edit (sarahel), Tuesday, September 22, 2009 4:13 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

^ new board descrip for mod request forum plz

Sarahel here's your answer to #2:

The short version is "a 102 means the same thing as a 51, ie the poster returns at the mods' discretion, usually in 30 days".

― sturdy, ultra-light, under-the-pants moneybelt (HI DERE), Wednesday, September 23, 2009 12:01 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

before we jump to conclusions i dont think that the 30 day thing is deadset policy, mod discretion is.

heres the post i made that dan was summarizing:

i think that the mods have been pretty clear on all this actually, weve pretty much said from the beginning that sb reversals are going to be up to moderator discretion, which means that there isnt going to be a hard and fast rule. cankles racked up 49 of his sbs in the past three months, and the posts that got him sbs wouldn't really be very surprising. if someone else gets 102ed but has a bunch of bans for saying that blur sucked or whatever, or it took them far longer to hit the mark, it just isn't the same situation. if yall want a set in stone procedure, we might as well just code it into the system, but i (for one) think that is a pretty bad idea.

speaking for me, not mods in general btw.

also, to quell the raging against secretive conspiratorial mods, i think the reason no one has stepped up to give a concrete answer to the various specifics people are asking for is because a couple of the site wides are busy with other things at the moment, so it wouldnt exactly be accurate or fair to nail this stuff down without all of them having their say.

― A DOG, A BARREL... RIDICULOUS! (jjjusten), Wednesday, September 23, 2009 3:35 AM (49 minutes ago)

yeah basically when in doubt: mod discretion prevails. so. sorry guys.

I thought the idea of the SB system was it was supposed to be "democratic". But if the mods still decide when/if the banned person can get back, it's hardly democratic. As long as it's up to mod discretion, were going to keep having these arguments, because someone will always disagree with the mods' views. So essentially the SB system hasn't made any improvement over the old system; if anything, it's made things worse, because with the old system people at least knew why someone got banned.

As for someone getting 102ed because he thinks Blur sucks, I thought the mods were gonna stop people getting banned for unpopular opinions before the ban actually happens?

Anyway, what about Sarahel's other question: when do invidual SBs expire?

you sure do have a lot of questions, tuomas!!!

Just to make it clear: I have nothing against mod discretion, but I thought the old system where all bans were up to mod discretion, and where people only got banned for specific reasons explicitly stated in the ILX guidelines worked better than this weird hybrid we have know, where no one really knows what's gonna happen next.

http://phoenix.fanster.com/suns/files/2009/03/groundhogday.gif

ignore tuomas, current system is fine - keeps everybody on their toes.

I thought the mods were gonna stop people getting banned for unpopular opinions before the ban actually happens?

where the hell did you get this impression?

When people complained that folks shouldn't get SBed just because they say they don't like Radiohead or something, someone said that mods will remove those kind of SBs. If they don't, at least they should.

someone?

I think it was Stet, I might misremember tough.

though

http://i.testfreaks.co.uk/images/products/600x400/253/102-dalmatians.366589.jpg

it was someone in the crowd at the clusterfuck harvest festival.

Clusterfuck Harvest is one of those cereal bars that idiots eat instead of breakfast, right?

it's full of empty calories

i think the idea was that if it was completely obvious someone got an individual suggest ban because of a relatively innocuous opinion, a mod might choose to remove that 1 suggest ban. this doesn't mean that each and every 52 suggest bans gets poured over to determine if a system-generated ban/52 should stay in effect.

so tuomas would you be happier if we removed the whole mod discretion and instead went with 102 getting people a permaban?

Clusterfuck Harvest: half-baked, not toasted!

like most of tuomas' arguments on these threads

Er, how can it be "completely obvious someone got an individual suggest ban because of a relatively innocuous opinion" if someone doesn't review the SBs people get?

(because he's a mod, and suggest bans don't affect mods)

they affect me deep in my heart

do they actually not affect mods, or is it just made irrelevant by mods' abilities to unban themselves?

hats off to n/a--explicating my posts. kudos, sir!

I just realized that this is because of cankles getting SB'd, isn't it?

mods can not be sbed. this should be relatively self-explanatory if you think about it tho. xxposts

does it still keep track of their sb total?

alex: yes. it's brought up in the 'missing u' thread

Yes, the system keeps track of mod sb totals.

in that case i am sbing all of you just to register my protest

kick ass

was going to put an exclamation point at the end of that but i couldnt muster up the enthusiasm

It's an imperative.

i want mods to post as mods more often. we need these threads.

oh see i didnt mean it as an imperative, i meant it as a cry of enthusiasm, maybe with a bit of horn-throwing in there for good measure

^sassy dude who knows he can't get SB'd^

i want mods to post as mods more often. we need these threads.

what is it you need about them? (serious question) They're just the same tired old thing over and over.

these threads are the ILX equivalent of squeezing blackheads.

it wasn't a serious comment, btw

x-post - But squeezing blackheads is awesome and satisfying!

plz do it in private (aka chatz) -- nobody needs a mod to stand around and admire blackhead squeezing technique

xp yes, yes it is. but it also leaves you feeling a little dirty, and someone has to clean the mirror afterwards. and i think that someone is mods.

plz do it in private (aka chatz) -- nobody needs a mod to stand around and admire blackhead squeezing technique

this thread sort of disproves that statement...?

hmmm

new official mod policy: "use clearasil, for fuck's sake. look at the state of that glass. honestly."

the problem, sarah, is that once something is said, people will come back to it time and again when they disagree with a decision, regardless of whether you or i understand that it is not necessarily official/engraved in stone.

― tehresa, Wednesday, September 23, 2009 12:43 AM (9 hours ago)

tbh that's not a reason for not writing something out.

i was just reposting it because of the direction this thread took since the last time i posted.

1. how long does it take for individual suggest bans to expire?

I'm on holiday right now so can't actually check the code, but do remember Keith talking about putting it in, and half-remember he was talking about six months. Mods do look at all the SBs that have led to a banning though, so any weird anomalies are going to get picked up, automatic expiry or no.

Whether or not it's in, I don't think this suits itself to a hard and fast figure. eg: If someone only posts once a month but gets SBd every time they do, then surely those SBs should last longer than those for a daily poster who racked up 48 six months ago and then hasn't got a single one since. These sort of unknowns are also part of the problem giving a clear answer to:

2. If someone is banned as a result of receiving 51+ suggest bans, then returns, and accumulates another 51+, are they banned temporarily or permanently, and if temporarily, for how long?

Getting 51 SBs gets you banned permanently and automatically. Everything and anything else beyond that is subject to mod review.

In general, people get back in after a month, but if they keep getting SB'd, that's going to stop happening for them. So far we're dealing with this case-by-case. It's pretty hard to write a hard-and-fast policy beyond this, because this system is pretty new, and has resulted in bans for so few posters that I think virtually anything we write is going to pretty quickly hit a case that doesn't fit.

We're still feeling our way, and I realise that can be frustratingly ambiguous, but I genuinely think setting hard-and-fast limits when it's still so new would be likely to force us into doing things that are more unfair than keeping our options on this open.

(btw: My net access is patchy as I'm travelling, so I might not be able to answer any Qs for a couple of days)

Tuomas, I like you and wish you to keep posting, and asked for you to be allowed back after a period of reflection when you got SBed the first time, but so help me if you keep restating and restating endless "but what if?" tiny fractional quibbles with the SB system, I will SB YOU WITH THE FINN-HATING FRENZY OF NRQ HIMSELF

ahhh

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41GP9R1750L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

fuk u

Geir: banned? What did I miss?

This is only going to end with the most active posters being banned eventually, isn't it? (posting a lot -> more risk of offending people -> destruction of 1. enjoyment 2. community)

http://phoenix.fanster.com/suns/files/2009/03/groundhogday.gif

nowadays 51s almost always seem to = 30 day vacations...I think ilm can survive 30 days without geir

For as long as it keeps feeling wrong when someone gets banned because of some arbitrary rule someone pulled out of a hat, yes, indeed. (xpost)

it kind of adds variety to the community. we get to see what ILX would be like without [x poster] temporarily. I'm sure most ILXors will rack up 51 eventually.

I'm pretty sure geir got 51 from this: I think the 2010's will be dominated musically by...

not from some arbitrary rule someone pulled out of a hat

Dammit, what we should've done for Halloween was held an ILX Seance thread where we got in touch with the spirits of the departed.

ugh geir typed the word "boner"

ffs surely you should be close to 51 now geir

― "i find your antics mirthful and infectious" (King Boy Pato), Friday, 23 October 2009 01:13 (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

KBP needs to make more use of his terrifying psychic powers imo

My kingdom for an edit button:

"... arbitrary rule someone pulled out of a TRUCKER hat ..."

I'm sure most ILXors will rack up 51 eventually.

Not if old SBs are discarded (they are, aren't they?). Only those with the vigour to rack them up faster than they lose them are going to reach Banhalla.

still think you should only get to suggest 51 bans at a time. when your first one 'times out' then you get another, etc.

BOOMING THREAD

2. If someone is banned as a result of receiving 51+ suggest bans, then returns, and accumulates another 51+, are they banned temporarily or permanently, and if temporarily, for how long?

― my other display name is a controversial mod edit (sarahel), Tuesday, September 22, 2009 8:36 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

can't remember who this covers

oh hey

the original post was about LJ, but it covers/covered at this point in time: gabbneb, cankles, and kate

oh and Whiney too, i guess

like comin across a nice bottle you forgot about on the top shelf, this one

add taking the first sip and realizing your teenager has been pissing in it to keep the level from going down and i agree with you

all ahead of u man