He's been permanently banned at least 3 times before... not sure when 'give the benefit of the doubt' approach should be abandoned, but it in this case it doesn't seem to working.st.byron wrote:markp wrote:Once you get a 'permanent ban' all you just need do is re-register with a new nic, anyway.
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=88562To be clear, the individual is only banned from the forum using that user name.
However if the individual returns to the forum under another user name, the expectation is that they do so without the unacceptable behaviour and hopefully can make a more positive contribution to the forum.
It's bizarre.
Not necessarily.
The decision you're referring to above was the banning of The Redeemer. He'd been skirting a permanent ban for a while, but nearly always for racist posting. His warnings were pretty much all for racism. The mods discussed the options re banning him and considered only banning him from the General Forum, as his posting in the footy forum was nearly always within the rules and he was a relatively regular contributor. However, it's not possible just to ban someone form the General Forum.
So rather than banning him and all of his known IP addresses, the mods chose to ban his nic, giving him a chance to come back to the forum under a new name if he wants to. Any return at all to the racist posting style that saw him banned would result in a permanent ban for all IP addresses.
Matrix will tell us that IP bans are useless as well, because they can be circumvented, but what else can be done?
Basically, there's a 'give people the benefit of the doubt' approach going on. If Redeemer wants to come back with a new nic and without the offensive racism, then good. Con can come back with two weeks reflection under his belt and hopefully he'll think twice before posting abuse again. If he doesn't think twice, then there will be zero further tolerance for it and a permanent ban will surely ensue.
And to bizarre I'd like to add utterly farcical.