About banning.

This post is a complaint of the banning of Nefarious, aka Ferenan, aka Greg.

For those who don't know, his IP was banned from EOFF, preventing him from ever reregistering.

He was banned because he broke a recently made rule. That is if you ask to be banned, it's permenant. You can't reregister, or take this ban back. He wasn't told he could never come back. He just wanted to get rid of his past and start fresh.
But he was banned. No questions asked, and no warnings made. Just IP banned.

Greg asked to be banned on about October 25th. He made his second account November 1st. This rule that he broke came out just a few days ago, after both his registering a new account, and his asking to be banned. It's also come to my attention that there's been exceptions to these rules. People taking back their request to be banned and coming back, some just a couple days ago. Also, TK was allowed to keep his new account.

This rule isn't anywhere in the FAQ or anything.

So Greg got banned for a rule he didn't know existed, and couldn't have known about, since it didn't exist when he asked to be banned? Interesting.

I don't think this is very right.

Note: Greg said he doesn't want to be unbanned. I just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention. I think it's a rule that shouldn't be in effect. And that you should post rules, especially ones that get you IP banned, no warnings made. And that you shouldn't ban someone for a rule made AFTER the action that would break it.

Quote:

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That is if you ask to be banned, it's permenant. You can't reregister, or take this ban back. He wasn't told he could never come back.

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I, myself, never heard of that rule. It certainly doesn't seem particularly fair.

In any case, I'm not entirely sure his actions as Nefarious were even remotely without reproach. He'd been doing some pretty nasty things, from what I'd observed, though I wasn't paying close attention.

Peace
Aaron

He was banned because he made a second account without asking us and pretty clearly intended that account to be kept secret from us, which is against the rules, but more importantly because he used that account to harrass other members. Making another account isn't itself something we'd IP ban someone over, no. I'd love to know who told you that it's staff policy that if you ask to be banned, you can never be un-banned, because that's wrong.

For the record, it was foolish of us to indulge people with "Please ban me so I don't post any more and I'll be back someday". We won't be doing that any longer, so we won't have this problem. A mistake on our part, yes. But yeah, Ferenan isn't coming back here.

TK's second account is deleted now.

In that case you'd better bump off the EoFF Sniper and Lesbian Seagull...

I'm guessing Award Guy gets outta this one since he serves a purpose...

And is Award Guy deleted? No, don't bother answering. EDIT: Apparently he beat me to that one.

Unne, if you're curious about the actual conversation about this, it's on his LJ.

So you can interpret it as you wish.

Well, I'm the one who banned him, and it wasn't just because he made a second account. It's not like we have a rule that making a second account = automatic banning. A lot of people in the past have made second accounts because they didn't know they weren't allowed to, for example, or because they couldn't post and wanted to tell us, or something. We didn't ban those people.

Award Guy is for running contests run by the staff. It's not like BoB is pretending to be Award Guy. It's completely different. The EoFF Sniper account made 50 posts total, and it wasn't used for devious purposes, and we generally knew who it was the entire time, and we DID tell everyone back then that making new accounts = bad, because lots of people were starting to do it. If I remember correctly. If the Sniper started posting regularly all of a sudden, that account would be banned of course. As for Lesbian Seagull, I don't know why Bleys did that except he thought it'd be funny. And it was. In a nice sort of way. But that kind of thing is looked down upon and I don't think any of the staff would do that kind of thing again, because people would probably get the wrong idea and interpret it as "I guess EVERYONE can make new accounts now, so let's go do it".

So in summary, making new accounts = bad, but not nearly so bad as to make us ban you. Acting like a jerk = ban-worthy, so don't act like a jerk and everything is fine.

I have very little else to say on this subject.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Dr Unne
Well, I'm the one who banned him, and it wasn't just because he made a second account.

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Then what was he banned for?

He didn't know about the account rule. Which Scottie -did- say was a rule, made in effect a couple days ago. I mean, since people in the past have made 2nd accounts in the past, and there's no rule saying you can't.. Under the circumstances I don't see how that's ban worthy.

And if by being a jerk you mean the instance in the Solo Theif thread, yes, he deserved the warning he got. But he stopped after that. So again, why did he get banned?

Even a combination of those wouldn't make sense, since he didn't even know about the account thing. He couldn't have.

I don't think anything Greg did should be enough to ban him without even warning him.

Edit: I can't defend Greg's actions in the Solo Theif thread, but he did NOT make that account to harass anyone. He asked to be banned because he wanted to let his past go and start new. Not to harass people and hide things from the staff.

He was warned though. I can't count how many times I've warned him in the past not to cause problems, and he was warned yet again this time by c_l. Obviously he either doesn't care what the staff thinks, or he's unable to control himself, or he just likes to cause trouble, or whatever, either way, I couldn't care less.

I know people hate when I say this, but we don't even need a reason to ban anyone. Posting is a priviledge, and I for one sometimes get tired of people taking advantage of our very VERY lenient nature when it comes to giving some people a bajillion second chances. I also get tired of people trying to play games. Oh well.

Knowing not to make a new account and to try purposefully to keep it secret and using it to harrass people is something everyone should know. It's common courtesy. I never posted a rule called "Don't post pornography in the FF6 forum" either, but people don't do it because most people have common sense and decency, and if someone did do it, even though the rule isn't stated anywhere, they'd be justifiably banned. Claiming ignorance is not an excuse.

You're free to disagree with our decision I guess, but that's the way it is. I can only use my own judgment.

I'd say PMing him or something would've been more appropriate than banning him on the spot, with no explanation whatsover. He was warned not to cause trouble after the Shiroi incident and he didn't.

And why did Scottie and Daniel say it was because of his second account, yet you say people can't be banned for that? And what of this rule Scottie justified his banning with?

Posting porn is hardly comparable to making another account. I don't see why what Greg did is so bad. Him making the second account was to leave his past behind (on unrelated matters to your warnings, I should point out.). It had NOTHING to do with his harassing Shiroi.

Overall, you're perfectly right. You don't need any reason at all to ban people. But I'm not demanding anything, I'm just asking you to justify your actions. You can choose not to if you want.

I mean, I've never questioned the staff's decision before. Just if you stand back and look at things, they just don't add up.

Edit: Auch, typos. >_>

I think that Greg's past actions, accompanied with harassing Shiroi, is enough to warrant him being banned. He's one of those people who seems to think that being rude to others is okay around here, and it's not, and so he can't be here anymore. I mean, no one seems to care that in his going away thread he blatantly said "It's all Tokki-ru's fault." Doesn't anyone care about her?

I think that that comment, along with leaving, is enough to warrant a banning. I banned his first account under the impression that he was leaving EoFF, LJ, and all of this "online drama" and not coming back, yet less then a week later, he came right back under another account.

And if Scottie and Daniel said he was banned for making a second account, they're mostly wrong. If Unne thought Greg was rude enough that he shouldn't be allowed to be here, then I think that should be good enough. Besides, Greg doesn't want to be here, so who cares.

Please don't think I'm excusing Greg's behaviour. It was innapropriate. I just think he should've been given more reaons, and.. what I've previously said. He shouldn't have been mislead by the other admins.

I'll drop it though. I just wanted some clarification. I hope there's no hard feelings, because there's none on my part. ^^ Though I'll be glad to hear any more explanations.

Nah, no hard feelings. I don't really feel that people always deserve to have things explained to them when they've been banned. I only posted at all because you wanted to know. All I know is that I'm the one who did the banning, and it was for the reasons I stated.

*points to what ShlupQuack said* She's right.

I hope everyone understands. I know that Greg never will, no matter how many reasons he's given or how many times he's told, but that's just the way he is. He'll swear up and down for the rest of his life the Unne is wrong and just hates him, but Unne has at least my support, even though I do talk to Greg almost everyday and am friends with him.

Sometimes so many little reasons build up it's just that there really is no one big reason that everyone can go and see. He wanted to clear his reputation and start of with a clean slate, and he failed, getting himself easliy pegged as a definate trouble-maker.

Just to clear something up... ever since EoFF Sniper, I believe that second accounts need to have the approval of Staff. I actually asked them if I could use Award Guy.

What do you do in the real world when someone does lots of small things? Don't get me wrong, I think that he's a great guy, but rules are rules, and he did get his warnings. Doesn't matter how small the offence is, if you get warned multiple occasions over a long period of time, something has got to be done eventually.

Just to clear up the "Lesbian Seagull" issue.

A long time ago, when I was still one of Cid's Knights, I posted a thread in staff saying "Just for fun, we should ban my account and I can come in under a second account and see what everybody says about a Knight being banned all of the sudden"

Lesbian Seagull was the new account, and I hung around the boards on that account for a while. (*laughs at the memory of Cid posting "...unless you do something like Bleys did, you're not likely to get banned" and then having everybody wonder what the [expletive deleted] I did*)

During my time as Lesbian Seagull, I started the Miss EoFF contest and ran it to completion. We dumped hosts/boards a couple of times, so for the last Miss EoFF, I re-created Lesbian Seagull for nostalgia purposes in order to run the contest. Of course, I took my LOA before it was over, and Daryl took over the contest, but that's the reason why this incarnation of the Lesbian Seagull account was created.

And I'm pretty sure I've already deleted that account, but I'll double-check.