We should finally get around to codifying the rules regarding bans to avoid future disagreements. I suggest that any ban that is longer than a set amount of time (eg. 14 days) should be automatically reviewed by the community via poll. This includes permanent bans.
Rule suggestion 1: Mods are allowed to ban anyone at their discretion for any amount of time including permanently.
Rule suggestion 2: If a ban exceeds a to be determined minimum amount of time then it‘s the banning mods responsibility to open a thread in About Unstuck with a poll that with a simple yes/no question like „should (username)‘s ban until (date) be reversed?“. If that poll meets a certain treshold (eg. simple majority) then that ban is ended immediately.
I think this is fair. I also think with our rotating mod schedule, no mod should issue a ban that extends beyond the end of their term. If needed, it should be done by another mod. If permanent, it should be voted on by the community.
For example, Riverman just banned a poster for a month beyond the end of his term. Without commenting on the validity of the reason for the ban, this seems like a bad precedent to set.
Churchill is a uniquely awful poster who has been pulling bannable nonsense for literally years, a perma is the only thing that makes sense, 6 weeks is a gift. At some point if you go years trolling people with highly personal bullshit you lose the right to post here.
Take Churchill out of it. The only thing I’m arguing is that it’s bad precedent in general. If that length was warranted, it’s better handled by a mod whose term extends beyond the next two weeks. Or by a community vote if it’s decided bans longer than X days deserve community vote.
I personally think there’s no point for any length between 7 days and permanent, but that’s just my opinion and others should weigh in.
That‘s what Mat Sklansky‘s philosophy was on 2+2. He said that if someone is a bad enough poster to get banned for more than a week then they probably should be permabanned. I thought that made sense.
And the context is Churchill previously trolling Wookie and others about vaccinating their kids and about not testing when he was presumed positive and was isolated anyway. The context matters.
This really isn’t the thread to argue about Churchill. That can go in about moderation. This is for discussion of if there should be rules regarding length of bans and if there should be rules regarding how a longer/permanent ban can be enforced.
So then when I become a mod, I can ban you for 24 months because there’s no rule that says otherwise? See how it might benefit everyone to create some rules around this?
Actually, if we don’t put rules around this, I will run for mod every nomination period going forward with the explicit promise to ban everyone who annoys me on this site for 10 years.
I’m not worried. The idea that there’s rampant mod abuse here is laughable.
Creating strict rules with a maximum of 2 weeks for a ban does nothing but allow bad faith actors to work within and abuse. Creating poll requirements simply allows more drama, which is what the bad faith actors want.