Ban report: Do your part to help the site

Question

PLEASE CLICK THIS LINK TO SUBMIT YOUR REPORT INSTEAD OF POSTING BELOW.

A staff member will check and address your report. In the interest of limiting drama, please do not discuss or make mention of who you reported or why outside of this form. Matters should remain between you and the relevant staff members only.

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The form above serves as a means of reporting any serious wrongdoings -- such as rule breaking -- so that the user in question can be reviewed by moderators for a formal warning or potential ban. If you are not reporting someone, don't comment on this page or fill out the form at all.

Please follow the guidelines listed below when completing your report.

• Explain the situation and the user's exact wrongdoing; without thorough explanation and proper context, your report will not be considered. As outlined in the form, we ask that these explanations be submitted through Pastebin to prevent clutter.
• Include raw evidence of the user's wrongdoing, such as text dumps or screenshots. Screenshots in particular will improve the credibility of your report. Again, these are best submitted through a Pastebin or Imgur link.
• Add profile links as opposed to just the person's username; special characters or abstract symbols in usernames can make it difficult to locate the reported user's account page, so it is best to submit the direct web address.
• Do not make joke reports or submissions for any purpose other than to report problematic users.

A moderator will consider each report, and act based on what they determine is fair. Decisions are final, and will not be discussed or debated so as not to stir unnecessary drama.

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Useful links:

• Why were you banned?
• Profile Clean-Up
• How do I avoid getting banned?
• How do I avoid being kicked?

Comments

Sure. StarDoge is blocked now.

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Should we report for mentioning drugs? (In chat)

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Not unless it's spamming stuff like "smoking weed" or "420blazeit" repeatedly, or if it's actual serious talk about drug deals and stuff. But if it's used as a joke from time to time, not anything serious, or people are talking about Schwartzenneger, it should be fine. Anything above a joke is not, though.


(I have no idea how to spell Arnold's name.)

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(Seraph made up this "Smoke the Smoke Bear" thing)

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Smokey the Snowbear is real!...

Answer 1

General protocol:

• If a person has a duplicate account, then first check the siblings post. The account has absolutely no issues if they post there. If there's no post made there, ask both users in question if they know each other. If they say yes, they are instructed to post on the siblings watch page, and if they claim to not know each other, they are temporarily banned (see situation below).
• When a user is un-banned, post on their wall saying so.
• For registered users, recall that a kick is not a ban. Banning means you can't use the Q&A portion of the site or the chat. A kick means you are not able to use the chat for 10 minutes. It's not a bullet to the head so depending on the situation (especially in the case of repeat offenders), it does not require a warning.
• Don't use inside terminology to new users that might not know what it means. "Mini modding" is an example. It makes sense when you have context, but newer users might not know what that is, so it just saves time to say "enforcing rules when an Editor+ is present" and able to handle it instead.
• If you want to report a user you see in the chat or somewhere else, use take a print screen on your computer and take screenshots as proof for a report. Most people choose to upload their images onto imgur. It does no good to report someone without any proof unless it's just a suspicion. If this is just a suspicion, then identify it as such. This also applies to people like editors or moderators. Even if you know somebody did something, please leave proof anyway if another Editor/moderator has to handle something and needs context. If you believe someone is being unfair, please do not go to another person of the same rank and complain.
• Take screenshots, have proof, and post a report like you would anyone else if you believe a staff user (expert, editor, moderator...Pokemaster?) is acting unfairly. Without proof suggesting otherwise, we're going to assume the person was justified in their actions. Again, take screenshots, not testimonies from other people there. If there are multiple people that witnessed it, that's all the more reason to have screenshots because there were more people that could have gotten them.

Banning

• Calling each other racial slurs or other such language-1 kick, no warning. Repeats result in 1 day ban a second time and a permanent ban the third.

• Posting pornographic content--Permanent ban, no warnings.

• Making a duplicate account without posting on the siblings watch: 2 days if there was no usage for the duplicate account ( upvotes and downvotes), week if it has been used for upvotes. Permanent if either one happens again. The duplicate account is always banned permanently in either situation. If a person confesses to having a duplicate account, they will not be banned for it. That said, if there's a repeat offense, it's totally fair game.

• Being an obvious spam account or one of the lovely new users we've gotten that swear and throw tantrums about their posts without actually reading the rules- A brand new user yelling about them not understanding the rules get 1 warning and are informed of the rules that got their posts hidden. After that, it's a permanent ban.

• Continual all caps-1 warning in chat, followed by kicking after warning. If it's a continual problem, 1 day ban. Additional calls made from there.

• Backseat driving and enforcing rules when other users are there to handle it- 1 warning given, followed by a kick. Only in rare cases like this guy would it warrant a ban, but 1 day for first time and permanent from there.

• Creating a duplicate account after being banned for another punishment -In addition to whatever the first punishment is, an additional 5 days are tacked on.

Answer 2

Hello everyone. Kind of funny my first post back here is a report but there you have it. (if anyone's curious about how active I'll be, post to my wall)

Anyway, I entered the chat and found someone I believe to be a troll.
User XxSansxX posted a racial slur and what I think was intended to be a sexual comment, then left, and the account was made an hour ago. If the mods want to just warn them I understand but I doubt this is someone who wants to be an actual user on the site.
Screenshot contains uncensored racial slur
Screenshot

Comments

Aren't you supposed to report this using the Google form and not by answering here?

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Apparently so. I don't know when the hell that changed. I like seeing bans publicly announced. Plus, couldn't someone just make a bunch of fake ban reports?

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I'm pretty sure the only differences between these public announcements and ban reports is that public announcements are public (obviously) and make this page take longer to load. Otherwise, I don't see any differences. Someone can just as easily make a bunch of fake public announcements.

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We implemented a form at DT’s suggestion. This thread used to be the source of a bunch of unnecessary drama and point whoring over reports, so we opted for this solution. I do check the replies regularly, so you can rest assured of that.
I don’t think either system is that great. I don’t think it’s good practise to basically name and shame people publicly, and the form requires a lot of coordination we could do without. I don’t mind what we do now, since we’re pretty collected nowadays. A ‘mod mail’ button would be nice.
Anyway, this person is awful. Ban hammer, if they didn’t want that they should have known better.

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Thanks for the correction Fizz!
When I was a frequent user, we used comments for small incidents and answers for full reports. Since the comments were a little full with people discussing something I decided to use the answers since I didn't fully understand the post and thought maybe we were just supposed to implement the form in the answer or comment itself. I just did whatever seemed to be best at the time. :)
If the replies are checked regularly then I have no problem moving to the comments if I make reports in the future. Thanks for taking care of it.
Edit: Somehow I missed the form at the top entirely. I was having trouble earlier and I see it now. Will use it in the future. Apologies!