Virtual Public Executions for Banned Member?

I'm sure a few gamers here know about this video, where the makers of Guild Wars 2 took over a notorious hackers account and publically executed his character after the ban:



Basically, they made the guy's character jump off a building to his death before being deleted, right in front of everyone in the vicinity.

But what would you think about something similar for banned troublemakers on forums?

Would it be amusing to have a system or mod where admins or moderators could publically execute a banned user's account in full view of the rest of the site?

It'd be extra interesting if you could customise it a bit by site. I'm sure some gaming forum admins would want to see something like a Smash Bros final smash used on a banned user:



And Final Fantasy fans would have no shortage of cool finishing animations to choose from:







So, thoughts? Would it be an amusing way to finish off banned users, or overkill?

I don't understand how this would even work, what exactly would you do to "execute" them?

Guild Wars had bans by Dhuum. Guild Wars 2 is a disgraceful game that shares the same name. Shame on you promoting it.

I'd assume an automated post by the ban user with why they were banned and text that makes them look dumb. If you want to encourage grievers and spammers, then gopher it. I wouldn't post on your forum.

Public shaming you mean ?
I think I saw that in a couple forums, like they create a thread and each time someone banned a bot posts there with the member name and the reason
not sure how this affected other members behaviour though

Publicly displaying negative moderator actions is a bad idea IMO. I want trouble makers to be dealt with quietly and behind the scenes. I am reluctant to have any type of banner for the banned usergroup to indicate that they are banned. I changed the banner from "Banned" to "Persona Non Grata" to try to take away some of the negative connotations with being banned. (In my niche, expat life in a Philippines city, it is common for the government to name expats "persona non grata" for speaking out on political matters....or anything negative about the a city/the Philippines. It's my way of poking fun at the Philippines onion skinned politicians without them declaring me a persona non grata xD )

Not a good idea I think. For a gaming server where a hacker have pissed off tons of players, sure, it should work. But for most forum where open and civilized discussions is being encouraged, that kinda stunt would probably make the forum admin look bad and childish in general.

"Thanks for taking the time to post on our forum. Now that you've ****ed up and been banned - We're going to do our damnedest to publicly shame the living hell out of you. Have a great life and thanks again for your contributions. It's a shame that it's come to this - but we have no class."

[ insert extremely tacky picture of public execution here ]


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^^^
Pretty much sums up my opinion on the topic

J.

PoetJC said:

"Thanks for taking the time to post on our forum. Now that you've ****ed up and been banned - We're going to do our damnedest to publicly shame the living hell out of you. Have a great life and thanks again for your contributions. It's a shame that it's come to this - but we have no class."

[ insert extremely tacky picture of public execution here ]


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^^^
Pretty much sums up my opinion on the topic View attachment 34924

J.

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Couldn't have said it better myself. While, I have to admit, the idea of doing something like that to someone who has really annoyed a community beyond measure does hold some appeal, it's just not worth it. Doing so feeds into their attention seeking grubby little hearts and you'll get people wanting to be banned to get a place on the wall.

Just create a username gamingforums.net and ban him for advertising please, then I'll get to be on the frontpage. Free advertisement

Bad idea though. However you look at it. Making a thread about it, or displaying it in a public ban list with rows and columns, or even some kind of automatic thing where you have a cartoon dead body with their name on. You can't do this well. At the end of the day it just causes more drama, and the permanent ban of a member people know is going to be controversial and dramatic enough, if you did this you'd be adding fuel to the fire. This'd cause members to leave and others to wonder why on earth the forum admin is almost mocking people after they got banned. Bans should be kept discreet, if it's a major member of the community a post in a thread regarding the issue created by a member (which'd usually happen if it was a major member of the community) is viable. Any other scenario I'd avoid any kind of argument, discussion or provoking.

I don't think my post exactly makes sense and displays what I mean, but what I mean is that it's going to piss people off.

With what was said above you could also say that it unprofessional as well depending on the forum.

The talk about public shaming being unprofessional kind of reminds me of the whole 'wall of shame' thing a lot of fan sites used to do. Where those who ended up annoying people too much were listed with a description of their actions and why they were horrible people.

I guess that's got a bit less popular nowadays (although to some degree, it seems to be about 90% of what the big social networks consist of).

I personally do not think this would be a good idea on most forums.

While some might find it amusing, others would likely find it objectionable. You could also have a situation where the banned member has a number of 'friends' who are members, who might not agree with the ban, while they may not leave because of their friends ban, they may do so if you publicly execute him/her.

In a game, and on a forum - while the principle may not seem very different - are two very different things; and what they did in the game seems like a good way to ban, on a forum, IMO it's too far.

Why would ANYONE want to create that much more drama?

PurpleSparkles said:

Why would ANYONE want to create that much more drama?

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Utterly bored out of their skulls with not much else to do...?

There is one thing I must admit though. On my poetry forum - we do have members that have been banned. They are noted as such with the rank badge of a banned member. Their avatar is also replaced with a banned user avatar, with their profiles no longer viewable except by staff. I implemented this system back in 2010 and haven't given it much any additional thought until now. I think even what I've done - is a bit .... much. So - I'm going to be revisiting the policy once I get started on the forum redesign.

Sure folks may have been banned for whatever reason. But is it completely necessary to brand them with the Scarlet B-for-ban???
I think not. It's so dramatic. No need for that drama imo...

J.

cheat_master30 said:

The talk about public shaming being unprofessional kind of reminds me of the whole 'wall of shame' thing a lot of fan sites used to do. Where those who ended up annoying people too much were listed with a description of their actions and why they were horrible people.

I guess that's got a bit less popular nowadays (although to some degree, it seems to be about 90% of what the big social networks consist of).

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Indeed, reason why I brought it up was because it wouldn't be a good look if say IPS banned a developer and shamed then in public because of what they done.

I can't help feeling that the action taken by the game developer could come back to bite them if they persist in that sort of behaviour. People spend a lot of hours over many years developing in-game characters. As stupid as it might sound it wouldn't surprise me to hear that it ended badly in the real world for people that have had their characters killed off in such a way. It's also very unprofessional.

Yeah... How about no?

Danielx64 said:

With what was said above you could also say that it unprofessional as well depending on the forum.

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Very much agree. We keep bans only among staff; forum members will only notice that a member is no longer participating. Sure, we play piñata with a banned member behind the scenes, but that is for our stress relief only.

One of our forums actually has a "hate" forum that is perpetuated by banned members, ones who don't have the cojones to man up and admit they were wrong and be reinstated. Instead, they microanalyze every post made (they must use RSS feeds), capture some bad posts prior to deletion to save for posterity, hold tournaments for the dumbest posts of the year (in their eyes), use crude avatars and usernames based on members they hate...you name it. And it's a badge of honor if they can try to sneak in under a stealth account and not have it banned before long. A former staffer of ours has done a lot of research on who these individuals are, even going so far as to get names, current home and work addresses, you name it. So we ultimately do hold the upper hand, at least enough to get their board taken down (and the admin sued) if it gets too out of hand. The rest of just just pity their pathetic existences, and wonder when they will ever grow up out of adolescence...

Oh what a PR nightmare this could of turned out to be. I'm honestly surprised the community didn't make a bigger deal about this. I work on gaming forums and we even discussed this in a meeting as part of our responsibility is to be prepared for staff members making terrible decisions and posting or sharing content to the public that could reputably harm the community; Similar to the time when Jeff Woods, a Sony Online Developer posted a rant thread telling the community to "suck him".

I honestly can't believe they did this because it can be taken so many ways. Even the mere idea of suicide is one of the primary factors that concerns me because of all the legal repercussions that could have come from it. Sure, I've dealt with players and community members I wouldn't mind pushing off a bridge but that's just totally unacceptable to me. One thing I've always found interesting is the idea of pointing out in the community those that break rules. I've ran a board where I had a "Play Nice Policy" and when you broke certain board rules, you'd get a warning and that point would be publicly notated in the users profile. This was for things like harassment or cheating etc. It was modeled after Valve's VAC Anti-Cheat Policy which posts on a users Steam Profile "VAC Bans On Record: #".

My main problem I've had with sharing information like this is the very very fine line between user privacy and what the public feels they have a right to know. I've conducted polling on it before; In some ways, you want to know who the cheaters and rule breakers are in your community. Gaming wise, it can be a factor to consider on if you let the user into your Guild or not. But at the same time, I know if I get in trouble- as someone who tries not to break the rules, I wouldn't want anyone else knowing about it. It's just one of those ethical guidelines you have to look at and tinker with very carefully.