Can we talk about the elephant in the room - Permanent Bans from the Official Forums

[Sebazy]

It's a fair point, and frankly some of the rules on these forums are rather dated.

I got banned from here at the start of HW over a SCH guide I made demonstrating how to do 1K DPS in the first two dungeons. In fairness, I showed a parse window in it to validate the numbers I was showing but given the manner of the discussion I should really have been warned and told to redo my post without it. Mercifully they made it a temp ban in the end, a luxury a number of my FC mates and co raiders weren't afforded.

[Tint]

i got temporary banned because i was criticizing the average player skill >.> and no, i didn't used bad words for that.

i don't think they even have deleted or edited that bad post i made, but not sure if i get perma banned when i quote it here :x

[KageTokage]

It's a little frustrating that they'll just purge topics and posts without making so much as a peep about why

A topic about the whole botting situation I made ended up getting purged without so much as a word, but I'm assuming it's because someone started calling out someone on my server for botting directly. It would've been more proper to just delete the offending posts instead of the entire topic.

[Rogatum]

While not a popular opinion, I have always been of the mindset forums should not ban players outside of extreme cases. Just leads to an echo chamber being created and defeats the purpose of having a forum. In my eyes.

[Theodric]

I hold the firm belief that permanent bans should only be handed out in the most extreme of circumstances. Everybody has 'off' days. Sometimes people endure months of the same poster carefully skirting the established rules to cause trouble, often following them across different threads in an attempt to rile them up. All it takes is for the target to snap and call their stalker an idiot and they risk a ban. I know a lot of people who do not post on this forum due to being banned and more often than not the things they have said are hardly worthy of stifling them permanently.

[SaitoHikari]

What was she even banned for anyway?

Going off of memory, she got perma'd for offensive language when she quoted someone and agreeing with said person she was quoting in the Tales from the Duty Finder thread, and she wasn't even attacking anyone in said post. It happened in such a way that it brings to mind a certain myth that is often said about these forums - that if someone is mass reported enough by a group of people with a grudge, something may stick and spiral into a ban.

Another prolific forumer, Ashkendor, got perma'd when she flew off at someone making racist remarks about EU players and how SE should have never given EU players their own data center (concern trolling about how it was a waste of resources that should be reinvested into content instead). It was like, worded in an unbelievably racist way. Almost everyone who fought said person got banned in some way, and as said earlier, Ashkendor got perma'd for it. Meanwhile, I believe I saw the offender still posting as of a month ago.

A bunch of guide writers got perma'd towards the start of HW for including videos/images in their guides with parsers in the background.

That said, it appears that the moderation has been very much relaxed in recent times, but it's far too late to help the public image of this forum. It would take a mass reversal of many bans from the early ages for that image to disappear.

[Kallistra]

What was she even banned for anyway?

She received a 12-day suspension when Heavensward dropped for saying "fan-****ing-tastic". That was her whole post. It was intended to be a joke. It wasn't a very successful joke.

From what I understand, 12 days is the maximum punishment you can get for a suspension. Even though it was her first offence, it meant that her forum account would be permanently banned on her next offence.

About a year later she was replying in the massive Duty Finder thread to a SCH who had a really unfortunate encounter in ARF with some real cruel pugs. She left a strongly worded post that can be tl;dr'd into, "The way those people treated you was absolutely disgusting. I hope they are ashamed in themselves and I hope you reported them for this extreme harassment". This landed her another 12-day suspension and thus the termination of her forum account.

She also had several spam reports filed against her for starting the "Please separate the Au Ra horns and faces" thread. If I remember correctly, the conversation she had with the GM said they weren't actually pinged against her account, but were taken into consideration when she tried to have the ban appealed.

Even though she can't post, believe me, she still lurks this place. Every night she's on her phone reading posts. She likes the FFXIV community very much.

(edit)I forgot to throw in that I'm her boyfriend in there somewhere just for those who don't know, so I don't come off sounding creepy for knowing all these things.

[Rockette]

While not a popular opinion, I have always been of the mindset forums should not ban players outside of extreme cases. Just leads to an echo chamber being created and defeats the purpose of having a forum. In my eyes.

I actually agree with this but many won't. SE does have to uphold a reputation after all. Unfortunately the one that this forum already has is pretty bad.

[Camiie]

Back on the FFXI forums, from which I was eventually banned (I wonder if saying that will get me banned here), we had serial reporters who would report everyone who dared to disagree with them. That's not to say I was as pure as the driven snow. I certainly engaged in some heated discussions, but the most vitriolic of posters always seemed to be spared which leads me to believe they were reporting on those of us who disagreed with them but we weren't responding in kind.

[Zyneste]

When Rawrz got Perma banned for posting a picture of a graph of his MP over the course of a fight as a RDM showing he'd done 8 raises he appealed with support.

They told him to make a post on the forums to resolve the issue. He asked if creating a second account to post on the forums was against ToS. They agreed that, that was illegal.

.________.

You can literally be banned for anything as long as they can accredit to

"Intentionally having a negative impact on the community," whether it was actually intentional or not.