crossposted at MLW.
UPDATE, Sunday, 10:31 AM EST: I have seen a clarification by Hunter over at DKos:
Markos never said everyone would get a warning even in administrative bans. Warnings are what happens when we think someone is just having a bad day, but is almost certainly redeemable.
If people are going to complain about the rules, it’d be great if they at least not freak out over imaginary ones.
by Hunter on Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 10:14:51 PM PST
Thank you for clarifying, Hunter, I understand now – the “new system” as set forth by Kos on Dec 6 really only applies to SOME people. The rules are different depending on who you are. If you’re not a crony of Kos, these new rules don’t apply, except at on alternate Thursdays between 2 and 6 pm.
I apologize for not reading the fine invisible print.
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It has come to my attention that some people are unaware of the stated site policy at DKos regarding warnings and bannings.
Now, we have a warning system in place. If someone steps out of bounds (being an asshole in the comments, copyright violation, etc.), an admin can lock down the user’s account. A warning shows up at the top of the page explaining the transgression. The user has to click a button acknowledging he or she has read the warning before being given access to the site.
On our side, we have a record of the warning. There is no set number of warnings before we’d ban an account. That depends on the severity of the transgressions and other such factors. But now we have a much more efficient way to warn people of bad behavior without it being a choice between “do nothing” and “ban”.
I never received any such warning before being banned. Neither have any of the banned people I’ve talked to, and they were all banned after the new policy was supposedly implemented.
The reason I post this here is that I know some commenters here participate over at DKos too, and they should be aware that the DKos administration does not follow their own rules.
For Booman and the readers here: since you are now in the process of retooling your site rules, I would like to suggest that you bear this in mind: rules and procedures that are applied haphazardly or with favoritism have a deleterious effect on the community.