Tell me about your bans

[spu 2]

i think i've only ever banned two people. 

 

i was running a post apoc zombie site that specifically lists what to do to avoid being bitten and what happens if you get bitten ( basically, you die lmao ). a player makes a "big bad" and decides to have him taunt the zombies? and when the event account rolls the dice and he gets attacked, he throws a temper tantrum and went ballistic on me, saying i was abusing my staff power. >.o

 

the second was wildly upset when i didn't ban someone for having that someone's character challenge them for a leadership rank? wild

[Shayne 5]

I mostly ban people who demonstrate a persistent failure to adjust to the overall community. These aren't people I "dislike" as much as they are the members that are known to everyone else as obnoxious, irritating, invasive, manipulative, abusive, la la la. I pay for web hosting to enjoy a hobby, with my friends. I'm sure as shit not paying to be around people I hate. 

 

That being said I have only ever banned 3 people from my sites over the last like 12 years or so of administration. I'm a pretty tolerant person. I approach banning more from a security perspective-my job as an admin is to protect my current members, not turn into a yes-man bobblehead for a bunch of strangers, but it does take a lot. I'm very apathetic. 

 

The first guy complained often that no one wrote with him. He played characters that did not fit the setting and made others uncomfortable. I told him that it was his responsibility to engage, and that I could only do so much to integrate him into the larger community. Then he stated I was bullying him because he was autistic. I am literally autistic. The next one was creepy and emotionally manipulative, pretty self-evident. 

 

The last one just happened so I won't go into any details but needless to say, it is possible to cringe so hard you turn inside-out.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Shayne

[Lorelai 6]

I really don't like banning people and admittedly have let people get away with too much before finally putting the hammer down. But the few people who I have banned throughout my years, often have the same things in common such as conversations that are incredibly triggering or uncomfortable. I always offer multiple warnings about these topics, but if it's ignored then I put my members comfort above keeping someone around. 

[KarmaBum 0]

The software I use has the option to include the reason someone is banned, so I have little notes to remind myself.  These have been collected since about 2019 or so.

 

The assassin turned history professor. - This is a creepy creeper that wouldn't leave a friend of mine alone.  When she said she didn't want to RP with him, he created a NEW character, tried to pretend it wasn't him, and pestered her anyway.
 

The person that FLAMED US for not letting them own a bike-shop on GH. - We had too many mechanic shops on our game for a while, so we put a moratorium on them.  This person wanted to own a motorcycle mechanic shop, was told they couldn't, so they went to a forum and lost their minds about it, said they never wanted to play with us anyway, so we put them on ban to make sure it stayed that way.

 

Last known IP of [Gaslighter]. - One of those people that plays both sides, gaslights, all that.  Just did it to me personally.
 

Last known IP of [Enabler]. - So!  It came out that someone on our game was pressuring people into RPing sex scenes, gaslighting, and basically creating a lot of problems.  When it all came out, this guy shows up and says, "Oh, I knew all along, I just never said anything."  So we banned him.  Because don't enable that behavior, people. 😞
 

The one that FREAKED OUT about the dinner party with the salad. - We were RPing a dinner party, and the hostess got really upset when the party went off the rails.  She started bad-mouthing everyone in her RP, being very passive-aggressive, and generally ruining all the fun of everyone else.  So we just showed her the door.

 

Last known IP address of [Predator]. - This is the predator from the story about the [Enabler].  The long and the short of it is: they would try to use their tenure and friendship with some staff members to pressure new players into playing sexual scenarios with them.  It was a huge, unpleasant mess from which I learned a lot.

The whole "[redacted] is an abusive gaslighter" thing. - Two players came over from another game with existing static between them.  They mutually agreed to just stay away from each other, but the one that got banned eventually said a lot of nasty, untrue things about the other player.  When we asked her to please just play nice, she sent a bunch more unpleasant things and basically said she wasn't able to play nice with this person.  So we showed her the door.

 

Some guest that decide to log in and rage about the admins... - There's another game-runner that has static with me.  After the situation with [Predator] above, I shifted my admin philosophy a lot to where I no longer require "proof" of bad behavior.  The person who logged in as a guest was taking pot-shots at the idea that I would ban someone for being a predator on the word of one of my players without making them send me a bunch of proof.  It's easily the dorkiest reason for a ban ever. 😄

 

 

[Lost Boy 18]

My internet stalker, literally the only person I preban on my sites and discords. This is a person that when I was 13 would stalk, dox, harass, steal my codes and content, and actively tell me to *** myself. Also said she'd stop it all if I (remember 13 at the time and they were 20 something) played a specific character with a specific face claim and did the dirty with her character whenever she wanted me to. Her reason for doing all this. 13 year old me called the face claim she was using 'the ugliest thing in the galaxy' and I would 'out lore' her on the fandom we were RPing on. AKA I would use scans from the actual comics and she would use 'facts' from the fandom wikia.

[Narrator 7]

I had to ban a couple staff members once. First time ever in my life as a forum owner that I've had to do that.

 

They teamed up and began asserting their ooc authority and forcing their in-game narratives on others. I had an abundance of complaints about their behaviour, so I issued them each a warning but their behaviour worsened instead of improving. I was forced to take action (again, these were not regular players but staff so it was important to act swiftly) with the bans and oh boy, did they not take it well. They proceeded to blast myself and our forum on Tumblr.

 

I was called a number of names from "fat cow" to "racist" and "ablest" online thereafter. Meanwhile, I am of mixed heritage/race (white passing with Hungarian-Jewish and Japanese backgrounds) and I live with chronic pain (and bouts of depression) because of an injury that never healed right.

 

One of the individuals was especially hypocritical in that she also used social media to tear down our muses thereafter, when she previously scolded another staffer for doing that prior.

 

I took it all in stride, though, because that level of nastiness simply validated my reason for banning these bullies in the first place.

 

Fandom roleplaying games are full of very passionate people, many of whom hold strong to their own personal head canons and can get carried away when things don't play out the way they hoped.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Hanamene

[Xochiquetzal 9]

The only time I was ever banned, I was able to successfully repeal it.

The charges were incredibly serious and the girl threatened to press charges on me.

It not only ruined my experience on the site, but it cost a lot of friendships, my relationship and a lot of personal drama and toxicity which ultimately resulted in me to stop supporting and attending the site. It happened so suddenly, that I wasn't even warned. I was just unceremoniously ejected from the Discord server and when I logged onto the site, it said I was permanently banned. I was shook.

 

The charges were: Cybersexual Harassment, Revenge Porn, and Stalking a minor.

 

Then I was really shook.

 

The long and skinny of it is that it was born from personal drama that I had exposed, and the person made up allegations to get back at me for it, even though it was someone else that actually did the thing to her.

 

It was pure insanity all around. It didn't help that she was dating a Moderator.

 

The girl was eventually exposed and left of her own accord, but. It really, truly destroyed a lot of bonds and the trust I had in users I joined the site with and staff. 

 

I tried not to let it feel personal that the staff simply acted to act, but. I later learned the staff in general don't really have the best practices and that further solidified my decision not to follow them to their new RP forum. As I go on a journey to be Admin and work with staff, I'm sure I'll face a similar situation (hopefully not that to extreme degree). I am an empathetic creature in general, and I have conflict with the "shoot first, ask questions later." mindset, but I am hoping to learn to contain a situation and not isolate someone the way I felt.

 

I was banned for two months, but it felt like a lifetime. I was on probation for like a year or something like that. It just felt crazy to me. Having never had prior issues with staff, members, or anything of that nature, I really felt cut off and shamed for something I hadn't done and even tried to prevent. There was a pitchfork mob mentality that never fully went away.

 

It was a teaching moment both as the type of community I want to be involved with, the type of staff member I want to be, and what to stay away from.

 

[Lost Boy 18]

The last time i got banned from a forum was around this March.  I was charged with ... *checks notes* ..... nothing, no charges what so ever. 
 

My stalker had gotten me suspended from a popular resource forum with lies and doctored screen shots. After a month, I returned with evidence against her and her claims. Provided screen shots, time stamps, and other receipts showing her own members openly stating and themselves providing that actually evidence that proved the opposite of what she was claiming. As well as the history when I was a minor and this person tried to groom me and successfully doxxed, harassed, and trolled me. Even screen shots from that very forum from years back. Even provided a screen shot of one of the admins at that time stating she was going to let it all go and just tell both of us to 'knock it off'. Also asked them to reconsider just out right suspending someone that gets claims against them without actually getting both sides as people can and do make things up out of petty reasons and my stalker has a known history of it on that very forum itself with me and MANY other people. 

 

That account got banned within the hour but I still have access to my like ten others from way back when that I made so I can pose as different people so my stalker wouldn't harass me every time I posted on there.  But I have no desire to return even to that forum if they openly defend and support someone that has that kind of history and whose motivation for it all was ....smut.

 

[AETU 0]

The only people I can recall banning were "smut writers". People who joined the board, but they ONLY ever roleplayed smut and never did much of anything else  (usually with friends they brought to the site). It gets to the point that enough is enough. 

[Guest Anonymous]

Originally, this person was a Staff Admin. However, too many red flags were popping up about them. To start, things were going well with the new staff that we called the Dream Team. But them the main Admin started to get ahead of themselves, and they started to verbally abuse another staff member because she dared to go against their word. 

 

Things came to a head, and it was decided that it would better if they were no longer staff. Wish we had none this, but they literally told us before leaving that in order for them to be on a site...they had to be a part of Staff. Who the hell says that? Major red flag right?

 

That was a few months ago.

 

Fast-foward to now...and we find out that they stole money from the site's PayPal. A month and some change before we had to pay to maintain our domain name and services. We had to create a new PayPal and post-ban them.

 

Fool us once...