Quoting Ken Cole:

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When we noticed someone bypassing their ban, we corrected so the setting is read on every post.

I read that as they were knowingly ignoring their ban. If so...wow.

Quoting Ken Cole:

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Our policy has always been to never comment on user admin actions, but I am willing to reconsider that if necessary.

I think that's a necessity at this point, as it shows the forum members that you are doing something about it. I have never been on a forum where bans and/or suspensions were not labeled under the user's name somewhere. I will tell you now that if my jackassery gets me suspended and/or banned, I would expect some sort of notation under my name.

In addition to showing that Invelos cares about the forum attitude, it will also be a deterrent. I know that if I'm on a forum that I'm not a mod of and I see someone is banned, I click their previous posts to see why they got banned and I know where the line is. This is, of course, assuming you would do something about the way posts are moderated because currently the way it's done is a cop out. If someone is out of line, don't delete the post with the "Forum Moderator: No personal attacks", publicly call them out on it. Have your mods quote the post with a warning (unless, of course, it's something way over the line). That way everyone can see what, exactly, was out of line. I'm not saying the way it's done is not normal, but I'm a member of quite a few boards, and I've never seen posts completely erased with a generic reply from the mod. It's always been public and open. If someone, including myself, is going to act like a clown on a public forum, they take the risk of being called out publicly.

This may be just my opinion, but I've seen it work on all the other boards I've been part of and the moderation does not work here. (Note, I do completely acknowledge that you (Ken) are seemingly open to discussing it now with your responses, so if it's moving in a better direction, then rock on.)

Personally I do not thing that twenty four hours is an adequate length of time for a first offense. But, if this is Ken's decision, so be it. The ban for subsequent offenses should increase in duration. That being said how and why someone should be banned is a concern I have. 

Some thoughts on this issue:

Does the forum community have any input into the banning process? If so, in what way?

How do we insure that the banning system is fair and equally applied?

Should guidelines be developed outlining what is unacceptable? How to we go about this process?

Should a committee be formed to address these types of issues? If acceptable to Ken and Gerri, how do we implement this?

I'm also in favor of showing bad reputation as well as banned status.  I appreciate that you try not to embarrass people by showing that.  But I also think that if someone is in that situation, they put themselves there.  And showing who is banned would be helpful to see that something is being done.  Right now it's too transparent and it seems like nothing is being done.  I think part of the problem is the perception that no one cares.

Ken, I know you're taking quite a beating today. So thanks for coming out of the cave long enough to take your medicine and show us that you care enough to listen.  I for one appreciate it.

Ken I know that it isn't your favorite subject, but you must understand that the forum is the public window of your company for every potential new owner and this window is really dirty and since a long time. You must use real moderation, not just say I will do that and that and doing very little since it doesn't sound serious : the problematic users know that and profit of this to say whatever they want because nothing happen.

When the moderation had started I said that 24 hours was not enough and my idea is always the same. The banning processus must be more strict (start with a week and no more than 3 chances before the definitive bye!). The moderator must act fast to lock the thread (10 pages argument about frivolity aren't normal in a forum). The moderator must tell why a post is warning worthy (not only writing personal attack or stay on-topic) and not erase a post completly (but I'm not sure if he always does this). The ban temporary or permanent must be seen on screen under the member name (just like his/her bad reputation must be also).

This isn't that different than what I see in the other forums I'm a member of and I don't think it's too much to ask.

It's your chance Ken to clean your company window don't miss it. Maybe it will be too late later and you will loose other plugin developper, important contributor or translation maker. They are the one who make your product better...

I just hope that I haven't written all that for nothing...

Jimmy

Quoting Ken Cole:

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Our policy has always been to never comment on user admin actions, but I am willing to reconsider that if necessary.

Noone is asking you to comment on actions, only provide an indication of users currently banned. It could be as simple as a by the users picture in the forum - maybe where the reputation is now?

Quoting Ken Cole:

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Perhaps you missed this part:

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It used to be that authorizations were only read at the time of login, which could cause this and also cause someone who never logged out to bypass the ban.  When we noticed someone bypassing their ban, we corrected so the setting is read on every post.

In other words, because the other user never logged out, he had bypassed the ban.  Even though he was technically banned, the system didn't recognized it and allowed him to post.  Glad you got that fixed.

Quoting TheMadMartian:

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Just a little FYI on this.  A twentyfour hour ban is pretty standard for a first offense...at least it was for every company I worked for...GeoCities, Yahoo and MAXIS, just to name three.  A second offense would get you three days, and a third would get you a week.  If you managed a fourth offense, within a specified time period, you were gone for thirty days.  Permanent bans were fairly rare as the average user got the message by ban number two.

This system sounds very promising.
Now all that's needed is a definition for punishable offenses.
What we would have then is a comprehensible and reproducible system.

At least I would like this.