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

Following yesterday's discussion about House Rules (see F21551820?thread=8249512), we move on today to a discussion on banning.

The question is this:

Which breaches of the House Rules would justify an immediate and permanent ban from the new h2g2?


Please refer to specific items in the <./>HouseRules</.>. If they're grey areas, then try to be specific in describing the particular types of action which would attract such a ban, as opposed to those which wouldn't.

Oh, a couple of ground rules here:

1. Please don't refer to specific banning incidents, either taking place now or in the past, as this is against the current <./>HouseRules</.>. Please just describe the situation you'd want to see in the new h2g2 (aka. noohootoo). Look forward, not back.

2. Don't get hung up with the mechanics of how people get banned, or who would discuss it and how - that will come in a later discussion. Similarly, if the offence is less serious and would only justify a suspension, say, then bear that in mind and we'll discuss it in another thread.


OK, over to you.



*lights blue touchpaper. retires a safe distance*

*puts thinking cap on*
*starts thinking* ouch... this thinking thing is painful...
*thinks*

Carefully not referring to the past in any way, I suggest that threats of violence would be one cause of an immediate ban.

I also think that deliberately revealing someone else's private contact details - name and physical address for example - might be close.

sprout

OK, I'll kick off with the following lines from the <./>HouseRules</.>:

<... Please note that the BBC reserves the right to terminate accounts immediately at its discretion (in the event of such things as criminal behaviour or personal abuse of BBC staff, for example), or to vary the following process as is appropriate (typically by being more lenient).
...
While suspended, returning to H2G2 by creating another account will constitute a further offence and will extend the suspension to the next period, or will result in your account being closed permanently
...
Similarly, asking other H2G2 Researchers to post on your behalf while suspended will constitute a further offence on your behalf, and may additionally constitute an offence on behalf of those Researchers...>


Also, the Transgressions procedure (aka <./>HouseRules-Transgressions</.&gt states the following:

<...The Transgressions Procedure is a courtesy offered by the H2G2 team. As stated in the Terms of Use [see link at the bottom of this page or at the <./>Terms</.> page], the BBC reserves the right to delete any contribution, or take action against any account, at any time, for any reason.>


So, from that lot, the offences the BBC suggest as bannable are:

criminal behaviour
personal abuse of staff
posting while suspended or soliciting others to do so on your behalf...
...but the BBC retains the right to ban anyone at any time for for any reason.


Do these sound OK? Any more? Any less?

(I wasn't ignoring you, honest!)

>> So, from that lot, the offences the BBC suggest as bannable are:
criminal behaviour
personal abuse of staff
posting while suspended or soliciting others to do so on your behalf...

The rules specify 'immediate termination' i.e. a ban of the account for criminal behaviour and/or personal abuse of staff.
We could add personal attacks on any person, a Researcher or not, for immediate termination.

Further on the rules talk about 'suspension' i.e. temporarely disabling the account and 'the soliciting others...' part opens the door to an aggravatioon of the suspension.

What we are talking about here is Banning i.e. the permanent termination/lockout/disabling of an account.
If an account is banned, what do we do with the posts and Entries associated to that account?

It's certainly a serious one. "deliberately" is the key word, isn't it? I suppose the question is whether someone might do this in the heat of the moment, say during a flame war. Could you foresee a situation whereby they could be rehabilitated having done this?

If the account is locked, all posting and Entries should remain onsite. However, the author will still retain copyright of their Entries.

lil x

We might need to clarify "personal attacks". And do you mean anyone? a politician, for example?

Well, there are non-sinister but ill-considered reasons for it.

For example, if a researcher is ill and someone else decides it would be nice for everyone to send them flowers. Definitely not a good idea, posting their address publically, but is it something for which they ought to be banned?

Re: post #6 ... <>

That would shut down a lot of the god-threads in pretty short order, methinks. And result in a lot of long-time folks being gone, assorted volunteers included. Personal attacks should not be allowed, at all, but perhaps something more like measured times of suspension? 24 hours for the first, 48 hours for a second, ... And of course, a reasonable number before a much longer term of suspension. My two-pence.

Thanks Mala

Yes, I assumed that "deliberately" meant "deliberately provocative".

I imagine the situation you describe would be managed by a yikesed post and an explanatory e-mail.

>> deliberately revealing someone else's private contact details
...
>> "deliberately" is the key word
...
>>> during a flame war

AS always, it's the context of the matter at hand.
Deliberately revealing someone else's private contact details is a Huge No-No and I say subject to immediate Pre-Mod.

A flame war should not take place on h2g2 but in the heat of the moment a small brushfire is possible before the CE's step in. Is it possible that the persons involved be put on Delayed Posting, say only once every 5 minutes, to cool things down and to give the CE's and/or Mods time to respond?
Might be a nice intermediary step before pre-mod.

Nice ideas, Harangai

In that case, I'll leave that one out of the "immediate ban" list for the moment (unless anyone objects).

We will discuss lesser transgressions and methods in future threads.

After considering it for a bit, I think there is no single transgression that warrants an immediate, full ban.

But that's a single transgression. These things tend to come with a history.

A few things, or one thing, that I think might warrent a 'immediate' ban, would be somethign like, on the criminal lines; most particularly say, someone threatening another researcher or memeber of staff, with violence...

Interesting view, Mala

I'm currently thinking it comes down to this: "Would the researcher's continued or future membership damage the community or h2g2's reputation?"

Can we say "not necessarily" in every case?

Posting child pornography warrants an immediate, permanent ban IMO.

But I do agree there is usually history.

Now there are certainly Researchers I feel very uncomfortable with.

And there can be some real nasties - especially the racist or homophobic ones - but those can be dealt with by moderating their posts for the first few offences and then booting them out.

Ok, I suppose that anyone who's here for, say, the purpose of grooming children needs to be dealt with swiftly. But how much weight do threats of violence really carry, when we're all anonymous, anyway? Isn't that something that can slip out in the heat of the moment?

Or is it about the "condoning illegal behaviour"? In that case, we need to be careful about not slipping into a double standard/trying too hard to be PC - I remember being horrified a few years ago at someone bragging about attacking someone with a weapon, and being shouted down because it was "cultural", so it was ok for him to do so...

I'd certainly support that, kea, and I guess others will too.

In terms of the <./>HouseRules</.> we say this on URLs:
"Unsuitable sites would include those with racist material, pornographic or sexually explicit material, potentially defamatory material, anything which encourages illegal activities, material which infringes copyright, sites which purely plug or promote commercial products or services without containing material which enhances the subject matter, or sites which may offend our users."


So, would you add anything else to the "immediate permanent ban" list in terms of those?