2010-04-23, 02:56 AM
Bacon Wrote:What prompted the change between banning the user and banning the account?
In the old system there was a lot of confusion. When an account was permanently banned, the user could not know if he or she was BoS or if just the account was permanently banned. A user would have to create several new accounts before they finally realized that they were BoS. In the old system, becoming BoS was largely out of the user's control - usually decided by me if I completely tired of dealing with a user or if I felt that bringing the user back would bring no good to SP. This led to a lot of confusion and hurt feelings in the user as there was no real objective measure as to whether a person was BoS or not.
The simplest method of a user knowing if he or she is BoS is if all accounts are BoS upon permanent ban. No confusion there. It saves me time because then I don't have to keep much of a watch out for that user to create new accounts. The user knows what's expected of him and I know exactly which rules to enforce for the user. Furthermore, in the few rare cases when I enforced someone to serve their ban by taking a time off, each one of them expressed an immediate sadness and a desire to reconnect with the community. This feeling, I believe, is only reinforced more during that person's leaving and will result in greater cohesion of the community and an increase in compliance with the rules.