Giving A Second Chance

Robust said:

It's a Christian value

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Matt 18:21-35 (KJV).

doubt said:

Temp: Give a criminal a one month sentence in jail.
In two weeks time he'll be out, will offend very soon again.
Give him a life sentence and let him out from the jail in 10 years time with the condition that if he reoffends has to serve the previous term as well.
Most of them would think twice to do it or not.
(I'm not talking about hard crims,)

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With some degree of shock (at the time), early on I realized that probably most of those put on temporary ban could not wait to get back on and pick up where they left off. They didn't give a flip about the scolding or the temp ban - they kind of expected it and took it as a badge of honor.

So, the only way anyone gets back their previous access is if they give me a written statement that they agree to abide by the rules of the forum. Just typing it out in a pm is sufficient. It can be something like "yes I'll follow the rules". Of course a written statement is no more enforceable than anything else. But it has a strong influence on people to have written that themselves, plus it has been a good indicator that they will behave themselves going forward.

They can't just say "ok whatever" or "I agree". They have to write out that they are agreed to abide by the rules. But it doesn't have to be formally worded.

And of course, if they refuse to write that they agree to comply with the rules, that's Clue #1 that this is a hard-core recidivist. So, no hesitation to say Good-Bye Forever. Or in the case of some, just never hear from them again.

A big help has been the "Library Club", a read-only usergroup that I adopted as an alternative to a no-access ban, after reading about it on one of the admin forums. It's much easier to deal with members who have had a good record, but who are having temporary issues, with this less drastic step. They feel less alienated and more inclined to stay on with good participation. And more inclined to move on and forget, rather than telling a big drama story about it behind the scenes to their friends who do not know what really happened.

ozzy47 said:

... Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."

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Yeah, that's what we are trying to find out sooner rather than later. There are some people that can't be fixed by a mod note. It took a very painful year to learn that!

Some people come to the forum with problems that forum mods have no background to solve - nor should they try. I learned that the forum can't cater to everyone. The forum is for those who are able to self-moderate according to the rules. That is all the forum can do. It is not possible to provide a quality place that those people who do play nicely will want to patronize if they have to deal with a lot of problems not of their making. They will eventually stop coming back.

My mod team has voted to give a few second chances over the years, and in fact we just did. But it isn't easy to get a second chance, the majority of banned members haven't gotten one. It is really not hard to follow the forum's few rules and we run the forum for the 99.99% of participating members have not had an issue. As for the rest, the personal issues that caused problems haven't usually been resolved by a forum ban.

Once we learned what NOT to allow back on, second chances have gone well for the most part.

I've also learned that, for me, monitoring all posts of a potential-problem member does not work. It takes too much time, posting appears only after it is out of sequence, and in the end it serves little purpose. Members either interact appropriately as 99.99% of the members do, or it just isn't the forum for them.

The Sandman said:

Perhaps I understand the term "permanent ban" differently than others, but to my mind it does not necessarily mean a never ending ban - it just means a ban that isn't time limited at the outset like a temporary ban is. The forum software developers must see it the same way as I do - there's always a simple way to reverse a "permanent ban" and never a way to irreversibly ban someone for life - that takes deletion. So a permanent ban can be undone whenever it's deemed suitable. I've undone plenty - most often when the person banned contacts me and negotiates an unbanning in return for the promise of good behavior. Other times I'll initiate the contact if I feel that's appropriate. It's worked out plenty of times for me.

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So you think of it as an indefinite ban instead, interesting. I never thought of it that way, really. I've used it if I needed to remove someone for a while (maybe minutes, hours, days) but no real date for an unban, but I always said that explicitly in the ban message.

I used to run a forum that had only one simple rule.

Don't piss Dakota off.

Dakota is an unforgiving bastard that was extremely trigger happy on the ban button. All bans were permanent and never revoked.

It depends. If it's a contributing member who is just going off the deep end for whatever reason, I will normally give a warning, then a short temp ban and work my way up to a perma ban (usually 3 strikes).
If it's someone who clearly joined the forum just to troll and poison the community, I usually perma ban them right away.

As far as second chances, once I perma banned an account, that's it for that account but sometimes the same user will return with a different account. If the same misbehavior occurs, they get banned again, but if they change their behavior and start acting right, I will leave it alone. The way I see it is, whether you stay out or you come back and behave properly, you've been moderated.

billgtr said:

It depends. If it's a contributing member who is just going off the deep end for whatever reason, I will normally give a warning, then a short temp ban and work my way up to a perma ban (usually 3 strikes).
If it's someone who clearly joined the forum just to troll and poison the community, I usually perma ban them right away.

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I think this is the best solution. Everyone can have a bad day on occasion so unless we are talking about a new user who clearly just wants to disrupt the community, they should first get a warning via PM, a temp ban on the second offence then banned permanently if they keep misbehaving.

Some years ago I used to give a second chance. No more. I had a user (he was in the mod team) that just went crazy because I closed a thread of him containing blasphemy. I tried to give him a second chance, trying to discuss with him the problem - I had a rules pages stating that those things were not allowed. In return I was threatened and insulted heavily, and I was asked to remove all content that he had made on the site. Then... no more second chance for me.

ozzy47 said:

Hey Tazmanians,

Have you ever banned someone from your forum and then gave them a second chance later on?

Did it work out for the positive or work out for the negative?

How do you all feel about second chances on a site in general?

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It honestly depends on what the forum is about I'd have to say. Gaming forums, I've had many cases where people were banned and later wanted unbanned. We'd unban them, but after a few weeks their behavior would return to how it was when we banned them originally. Ultimately most would be banned again. Some though made it through.

Dakoom said:

Some years ago I used to give a second chance. No more. I had a user (he was in the mod team) that just went crazy because I closed a thread of him containing blasphemy. I tried to give him a second chance, trying to discuss with him the problem - I had a rules pages stating that those things were not allowed. In return I was threatened and insulted heavily, and I was asked to remove all content that he had made on the site. Then... no more second chance for me.

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I've seen this scenario too many times. People that had contributed a lot to a forum getting banned at the end of the day. NEVER contribute to any forum without understanding that the content you posted may never be removed and that your hard work may amount to nothing in the end. I only posted content in forums where I have commercial interest, or where I am paid to do, or in a very rare instance - a forum that I really like personally.

I'm not blaming you for the moderator's action but you do have a strange rule. Unless your forum is strictly commercial or religious in nature then I can understand it.

VICE said:

I'm not blaming you for the moderator's action but you do have a strange rule. Unless your forum is strictly commercial or religious in nature then I can understand it.

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I think that as a moderator you, first, have to follow the general rules. If you don't do that as a mod how can we expect that the normal users do folow the guidelines?

Dakoom said:

I think that as a moderator you, first, have to follow the general rules. If you don't do that as a mod how can we expect that the normal users do folow the guidelines?

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Agree, it's his fault.
He should have not contribute in the first place.
Now all his hard work amount to nothing.
The forum got all his content and he's cut off from the all the action.

Like I said before, NEVER contribute to any forum without understanding the risk involved.

We let banned members back if a long time has passed and they seem more mature now. Our site is over ten years old; the young teen who mouthed off at everyone could have finished university and be married with kids by now. However, if they were banned for scamming or dishonesty, it's not likely they'd ever be allowed back.

I generally unban everyone. People generally don't return after a while. I guess in a way that's a second chance...?

Now if an account was made solely to disrupt and doesn't have any normal content then I might remove their account.

I have a process that happens when someone gets permanently banned but wants their account back; they need to appeal the ban directly via email to me and stay away from forums until the appeal is handled. We strictly forbid multiple accounts, so if someone gets banned but then makes another account, yeah... they're gone for good. However generally unless their appeal email is something like "Bitch give me back my access", I allow it for the first time. Them appealing the ban in any sort of mature manner warrants for me letting them come back... and mostly it works out fine. When it doesn't, and when it does as a matter of fact, once a person has been perma banned and let back, their account is on a one strike and you're out condition. Even as much as a warning in the next 2 years results in a permanent ban which can't be appealed anymore.

For me it depends on a lot of things, including the size of the board. At the moment, with my tiny memberbase, I think it would be madness to permanently ban somebody who is contributing well, unless 50+% of their posts are complete rubbish. Over time though, as things grow, I have a feeling that the time and effort vs reward of allowing a troublemaker to stay around will come into play and may lead me to write off some members.

Well written apologies and plans to salvage their behaviour though will, I think, go a long way with me. That said, my board shouldn't be too dramatic, we aren't a gaming community and I hope people can be professional on a board orientated towards professional people.

I think a system of making banned members pay a 'fine' to get there accounts back would be worth looking in to.
Start it off at like $5 and increase it each time they get banned.

Interesting thought, though I wonder if people would get miffed when they get their account taken off them again and start demanding refunds

There is repeated bad behavior, and then there are one-time or very short-term incidents that were an uncharacteristic response to some particular irritation (on or off the boards.

Someone who is a consistent violator, especially if they are argumentative when they are contacted and the rules explained, there is no negotiation. It isn't that hard to participate acceptably and the forum is for those who do so without a nanny.

If someone who has been a good contributor, or at least no trouble for a long period of time, suddenly loses it and becomes a problem, that's a different path. We'll try a cooling off period in the read-only usergroup, or for second violations and more serious violations perhaps a temporary suspension with no visibility to the forum. They must state their agreement to abide by the rules to come back. We will work with these folks until they show they just can't be the member they need to be to stay.

One of the most difficult moderating situations was actually a minor violation, but the member would NOT stop with repeated violations. The member posts alot. We don't allow posts offering things for sale in the main forums; there is a special place for those. This member just. couldn't. remember that. Not after 4 years of repeated violations and one-week suspensions - in the middle of any thread she'd be overcome with enthusiasm and, once more, announce "I'm selling mine, PM me if you are interested!"

After the 5th time in two years, I suspended her outright for a month, and told her the next time she would be banned indefinitely, due to a long history of repeated moderation. THAT she would not forget. In emails she was very, very upset, insisting there was no way she could remember the rule. But everyone else does! I had already decided I was ready to do without her if she couldn't do better because I was so tired of monitoring her posts - if the moderating wasn't done, other members would follow her lead with the violation. The result was that she has not infracted again and she has also cut down her posting on the forum. In her case, both of these changes were for the better.

I had given second chances twice before only to have it thrown back and blow up in my face. Now Banned = LIFE!

Have other temporay solutions ie temporary suspensions, suspension from extra's and posting etc.

No matter how little a membership is or how high for me if a user has caused themselves to be banned then good ridance.
This policy is alos extended to our game servers and linked to website.