h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What does an expulsion entail exactly? Is the account merely deleted? What's to prevent a banned user from simply creating an new one, on a different computer, with a different email address?

Well, I /think/ they can certainly stop you using the same computer. The computer's unique ID (and we're not just talking IP address, as that can change) is sent along with the other header information in every request for a web page. The h2g2 servers can whittle out this information, and, if it matches with a banned member's info, can disallow them access using an account.
The original account is of course deleted, but I'm not sure what stops them logging on from another system with another e-mail address. Some people (like myself) have their own domain and can use any e-mail address, so simply finding one ending in a certain domain can show it's the same person, but that's not at all consistent.
I also assume that h2g2 can gain information from the person's ISP, but that wouldn't stop them using, say, internet cafés.

Well if they were to do so but decide to behave this time then there isn't really a problem I guess

Hmm... possibly, possibly. But that's another argument altogether.
"The purpose of life banning," yes, that's a whole new kettle of fish.

One could say that banning is to make sure they don't commit the crime again, in which case coming back online somehow and not misbehaving is all very well and fine.
But on the other hand you could say that banning is to punish people and to deprive them of h2g2, in which case returning to h2g2 as a researcher would be a further breach of rules... heigh ho...

My own take on that (as if anyone cared...) is that a life ban *should* be an attempt to prevent recurrences of unacceptable behaviour, rather than a "punishment" per se. In which case, in principle, if a Life Banned person came back and behaved... well, where's the harm? I for one found (many of) the posts that LeKZ made to be erudite, interesting and clearly originating from someone of higher than average intelligence. As such, they were an asset to the community, and if there was any way to get them back while simultaneously guaranteeing 100% that there would not be a repeat of the behaviour that led to the ban, I'd welcome them back.

On the other hand (and this is the kicker), if any person has *repeatedly* ignored warnings to behave (for whatever reason), realistically how likely is it that they would behave on their return? No real answer to that...

If a life ban comes back and behaves, it's not really a life ban, is it?

Yeah, agree totally. It was more of a philosophical observation than anything I expected to be taken seriously, really. I suppose I was really trying to ascribe a motivation to the people responsible for enforcing a ban, and saying that in my mind I'd *hope* the primary motivation is "protection of many" rather than "punishment of one".

CS, you're a fine person. :-) I have put my conversation with LeKZ into this threat so everybody can see for themselves: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F55998?thread=128469

Okay, I'm moving on from this conversation now; it's becoming a very general discussion, which is great. If anyone has any specific questions that they want answered that haven't already been covered here, they're most welcome to post them as a separate topic. So unsubscribing now, everyone. See you out on h2g2. :-) (Oh, BTW, Mark's now checked the database, and it wasn't 21 postings that Petunia made. She originally made 8 spam postings, for which she was suspended for a week, after having been involved in a Conversation in which this specific way of breaking the rules was discussed - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F19585?thread=87957 . These were followed by 2 postings that were 'channelled' through another Researcher account that was solely created to channel those postings; and then she created her other account and posted 6 spam postings from that. That's a total of 16 - sorry for the slight overestimation there. I think 21 spams was someone else...) Peta

Rather cyclical? The link posted by Peta leads back to page 1 of this thread!

x x Fenny

Oops sorry, posted the wrong link. It's fixed now. Thanks Fenny!

Peta

Who was that fellow that insisted on spamming everybody with a 'declaration of rights' and how we were being exploited? I remember that he got really outraged when he heard that he didn't own exclusive rights to his material on this site, and wanted to be paid for his work.

BTW: I am sorry that Arpeggio was banned - I'm not saying the decision wasn't justified, but I am sorry it was necessary. I hope that she's doing well and not too put off by this... She seems to be a very fragile person with a lot of problems.

I vaguely remember seeing that. He ended up provoking more complaints on his petition than signatures in favor of his view. Basically, it seemed like he didn't understand standard copyright agreements. He would have found the same basic rules regarding copyright on most online communities.

That's what aggravated me so much - if he had bothered to read the agreement when he signed up, he wouldn't have a leg to stand on. (and you have to have at least one leg to stand on a soapbox!)

I wasn't arond then (I was on sabbaticl ) but you can read all about it on Peta's link above - the petition is still there (albeit in html)
From what I gather from there it wasn't him that got banned but one of his cronies.

I remember that petition. Yes, I remember thinking at the time: 'Duh, we know very well what rights we have - we read them when we joined up!'
He obviously hadn't read them...

That was Matthew Kershaw, the proud owner of Foxy Manor. Of the times we had... And you are right, he wasn't banned. He just decided that he didn't want to be part of h2g2 anymore.

Foxy Manor -

Now I do remember that How, when I wasn't around?

Was he around long or did it outlast his departure?

well, he's been gone a fair while now, probably near enough a year or so. Foxy Manor has been reactivated, but hidden due to breaking the house rules. I'm not sure which one, as I don't remember anthing offensive about it at all. It did have a lot of photographs in it I think, and was in HTML.
The converstations are gradually returning on it, but they did get quite saucy at times, so not sure how much good the threads will be. My dungeon hasn't resurfaced though.