New Feature: Thread Bans
 

Moderators and Admins now have the ability to ban troublemaking individuals from viewing a thread. This can help prevent a good thread from being closed and keep annoyances out! =p

How will they know if they're banned from the thread?

If it's invisible, they won't. It should have some notification next to the thread or something along those lines. You know, just in case people begin to wonder.

So does getting banned from a thread still count towards the ban count that leads up to permabans?

You'd think the author of the mod would have that covered, no?

Yes, it'll show a message.

umm well I dunno but I suppose that if you're doing well in getting banned from individual threads, you'll have quite a chance to get permahbannez0red ;)

So if I make a cool thread and there's a guy in it that's flaming and ruining my thread, I can PM a mod or admin to ban that guiy from viewing my thread? Is it possible for the thread poster to do that? It'd be easier just to do it yourself than getting a hold of someone.

Then again, I hardly make any threads, so either way, it wouldn't matter too much.

P.S. I like this idea though.

Well, I really wasn't sure. If a thread suddenly disappears, people would get suspicious. If there's a message, it should explain why.

This wasn't really clear from Miles' post, sorry :/

You guys are talking about this as if it's a good thing. This place is becoming more dictatorial every day. Next they'll be banning people for using annoying catch-phrases and posting in ugly colors.

What consititutes an annoying phrase or ugly color? Only the moderators know.

This doesn't change anything. It's just a useful tool. Now, instead of banning someone for trolling, we can just remove them from a thread.

If it doesn't change anything, then why have it? Why is this better than giving someone a warning that, if they choose to ignore, they'll be banned for? So now we can be kicked out of a thread and we won't even be able to view it? What is this, China?

It seems like a huge power trip to me...and something that could be very easily abused by those moderators who already have a tendency to abuse their powers, but I guess time will tell.

My MY, Alice. Filling my shoes so quickly?

I actually agree with her though. Come on, guys. Stop getting so fucking anal about shit. If someone is being an asshole in a thread WARN THEM. Don't ban them from ONE THREAD, are you kidding.

Thats retarded if you ask me. And I sometimes wonder how UNBIASED some of the members are. Like right now. Can I GET BANNED from this thread because I DISAGREE with the course of action?

I think its unecessary, silly, and not for Gamingforce. Why can't we just CHILL a little bit, dudes.

We are not kidding, Sassafrass. We have taken things too easy for too long. We just declared war.

I'm with Team Overies on this one, passive aggressive and all that! Will thread bans warrent a post in the Banned Members thread? If not, I guess there could be a whole lot of covert bans going on.

I really don't see what you people are so worried about.

I mean, Megalith and LeHah are still around on the boards.

It seems overly....cautious.

I mean, maybe if you gave us examples of how it would be used with examples from the past?

Maybe I just don't know how you'd all use it. THAT kind of what worries me.

I really do like the idea of banning trouble making persons from a thread that they may be causing trouble in. I know for certain people that will help minimize stress in their real life situations.

Well, other than ejecting troublemakers (though I guess we're more likely to stick with the warning system) -- say, an FTP owner in My Stuff who displays login information in his thread wants a particularly persistent leecher (who hasn't broken any board rules otherwise) banned from it.

Arn't warnings and week/month/ever bans enough though? How does one decide if the ban will just be a thread ban or a board wide ban?

Same way one decides whether a spam post earns a deletion or a warning PM.

Discretion <3

Making it up on the spot? =D

People on staff are very good at making things up on the spot!

Also, it's not so covert when you ban someone from a thread and they go to read it, but it says they're banned. Don't act like you people aren't going to go whine in your journals (as soon as they're back) the instant that happens.

I just want to be sure that, you know, if some jackass like, say, o, UNBREAKABLE (since he's banned anyways) walked into a thread, made a bunch of stupid comments in effort to make an argument - I want to ensure that this in itself isn't a thread bannable offense. Because, you know, ITS KIND OF FUN to play with the retards.

Also, Blah, that sounds very reasonable. I would support it wholeheartedly if thats the case, but I have a feeling it will be used against some of our entertainment sources. ^_^

Hey, we need our entertainment sources as well ~

Then wouldn't it be more fun to ban them from posting in a thread, but still let them view it? That way we can taunt and ridicule them without fear of retaliation.

But that's boring Alice, if you're going to hang shit on someone atleast do it so they can respond. It's a bit cowardly otherwise.

p.s. can you thread ban me from here? I want to see what it looks like! =D

Yeah! And then people poking fun at said person will also be banned for derailing! Awesome!

olololol

Of course, Unbreakable was banned FOR THAT VERY SAME REASON!

It must also be fun to ban retards.

Anyways, I think this'll be an alright idea depending on how it's used. It's pretty easy for 1 or 2 retards to ruin a perfectly good thread (for example, the Nintendo Revolution thread has been remade THREE TIMES now because of certain people fucking it up), as opposed to ruining an already awful thread.

Haha~ some of you got a little too worried over this. These small thread bans won't count in our banning system. They're just a way to get rid of annoyances. They'd work good in the my stuff forum too, like blah said.

and Alice, they can still log out of their account to view the thread if they feel the need to sooo bad. The only problem is they still can't post in it unless they register another account. And of course they'll have to ponder if its worth it or not because doing that would only get them a global ban. So all they can really do is watch in frustration and maybe learn their lesson. :3

I have a great idea, just ban all zero posters from viewing the Requests section of GFF until they make a post, that way we won't have >50% of our members as zero-posing leeches (it's getting really close to being over 50% now).

Is there any difference between a zero-poster and a member with one, or two, or ten useless posts made just for access to the trading forums?

More importantly, what does that idea have to do with this thread?

Ya know, there's such an easy way to do that. Just set up an automatic usergroup promotion from "registered user" to "active user" which kicks in when the member in question makes level 2. It's a very simple thing to do, then set the forum permissions so that "registered users" can't read or post in the trading sections of the forum. I'm astounded you don't do that already.

The only problem with it is that you might get people spamming their way to level 2, but dang if that doesn't happen anyway. On forums that implement the reputation system, it's also possible to downgrade members back to "registered user" if their rep drops too low. However, the rep system is of questionable value, as coded in stock vBulletin 3.5.x forums.

What I've been wondering is just how hard it would be to hack a new kind of promotion/demotion into the codebase. What I see as being the ideal solution is to look at how many posts a user made in the last month. If that ever drops below about fifteen, then I'd say it's fair to downgrade them to "registered user" and lock them out of the good stuff.

Put simply, there are ways to keep non-contributory leechers from gaining access to the good stuff. The vBulletin promotion system has the potential to be very useful, if a few extra bits were added. Of course, I'm just a noob around here. What do I know?

If you actually want an answer, I'd say that this thread has to do with a proposed method for improving the quality of discourse. So does sega.co.jp's suggestion. I think that it's a great idea. The people who establish FTP sites and other trades have limited bandwidth. Why should it be sucked dry by people who don't contribute?

I don't get why people are speaking against this. Do staff seem that fickle to you? :(

Personally, this is a godsend for the gaming forums. Instead of wasting pages and pages of derailing posts consisting of "Stop being an ass" "I'm not" "Yes you are" "Ok, I am, but so is he" "No, he's not" "Yes, he is", the pesky one can simply be removed from that particular thread without a hassle. They can then take the hint and go elsewhere, or take the hint and take it to PMs with the moderator, which is fine too.

There is a distinction between "troublemaker" and "zero-poster", and the subject both of you are bringing up isn't quite relevant to the main purpose of the new feature. Many FTP owners are perfectly fine with having leechers use their bandwidth -- after all the objective is to share. The "persistant leecher" I'm talking about is someone who sits on the server all day and selfishly hogs available slots. We've had a member like that before (his name escapes me at the moment) who was banned along with his subsequent dupe accounts.

But while we're on the subject, this issue has been discussed many times in the past, with the overall consensus being that restricting access by postcount is simply not a viable solution. There are people who actively do trades, but don't post on the forums. Setting up postcount/activity barriers won't really serve to deter "non-contributory" leechers -- it's not really that hard to come up with useless, redundant and boring posts that manage to clear the spam threshold -- yet it will likely drive away honest traders who simply don't want to participate outside the trading forums (and we don't have a policy against that, either).

One possible solution to this is to employ a points system much like phpWind which rewards the user based on actual contribution rather than postcount, but that'll open a whole new can of worms. We'll have to carefully think this through.

What is it with you and your obsession with postcount equating to quality? Are you really that miserable a user, sega?



As for you, less crimethink plz.

Great idea, then you'll have a cluster of leechers posting Welcome threads just to get into the Request forum.

Except that Welcome, Welcome threads don't count to the post count.

Well then, you'll have random leechers heading to places like General Discussion or somewhere where itt does count, cluttering up the forum just to get themselves into My Stuff.

I know it sounds negative, but that would probably end up happening if users were required to post at least a single comment before they're allowed in.

Yeah. I did say "if you want an answer". I was proposing a specific solution to a stated problem. I do recognise that the problem that was raised is not the actual problem. It's my own belief that contributing to the quality of discourse on a forum is more important than using that forum as a platform from which to trade music, but I recognise that this does not reflect the opinion of the administration.

Interesting feature. Do thread creators get to ban people from threads they made? :D

No. Thread creators have no choice but to watch as www.sega.co.jp/spam goes to work on their threads, all in the name of respectability.

I heard the report button actually works now, though.

How often do you see people banned from servers come back to a thread and spam it to death? In the 2+ years I ran my server, that never happened to me.

To build upon this, should the thread creators have the ability to ban members from viewing their threads?

Well I would definately love to see it possible in the MyStuff forum and select other forums (like Community Commons).

Why arn't you reading this.