Harsh? Yes.
Necessary? Often.
It is not often necessary. There are many things I've done on Lemmy that would've granted me a permaban had i done them on Reddit. For example, I've made a joke about someone killing themselves on both lemmy and Reddit. I was banned from the sub on Reddit, while my comment was only removed here on Lemmy.
Now i know next time not to make that joke. A permaban wasn't necessary.
Depends on the context.
Bad joke? Yes.
Racial slurs? No.
Bad joke with racial slurs? No.
This is unintentionally revealing of the West's changing linguistic taboos.
As I understand it, a thousand years ago the worst linguistic transgressions were religious, involving words like "God", "Jesus" and "devil". Then, in the premodern period, that became pretty innocuous and the taboo shifted to words concerning disgusting bodily functions, "shit", "piss" and so on. And then in Victorian era it was sex, female virtue, prostitution, all of which remains at the heart of the slang action in the Romance languages. To protect sensitive souls, I will not spell them out.
And in today's post-modern Anglosphere, all of that stuff is now utterly anodyne. The most terrifying words are now all about group identity. And of course here the taboo is now so absolute that the context doesn't even matter, I would be banned for even typing the letters.
Interesting.
Now why would an account created 1 hour ago be asking something like this?
Having moderated a number of online spaces over the years, sort of. It's usually the harshest thing a moderator can do, but it does not have very much real world impact on most people. In many parts of the internet, it isn't even very effective at keeping the same person from coming back with another account, which isn't a big deal if they don't come back with the same behavior.
I'm not particularly shy about reaching for the permanent ban if it seems like someone is being an asshole on purpose. I'm not getting paid for it, and I do not have much patience for dealing with people who don't want to be respectful toward their fellow humans. There's usually a way to appeal if it's a misunderstanding. That's especially true in systems like Lemmy and unlike traditional web forums where one account and UI provides access to many communities, leading to drive-by comments.
I'm also fond of somewhat ambiguous rules like "be excellent to each other" or "don't be an asshole". Without that, if a community gets active enough, someone will show up, act like an asshole, and argue about the rules when they get banned.
Mostly yes: In a sense, doing anything "permanently and forever" is a big deal. People can change and grow, and a full permanent ban without any opportunity for appeal seems harsh. Very few things should warrant a permaban: one example that comes to mind is willfully attempting to circumvent a temporary ban. Posting spam, too.
Also no: Lemmy isn't and shouldn't be a critical part of anyone's life. If you were forever banned from it, maybe it's okay.
While I generally agree with you, I think we have to look at it from the moderators' perspective, too. What are they supposed to do? Deal with the same persons every few weeks until hopefully some of them grow? Moderating a community is already a lot of (often thankless) work. I don't think adding this would help finding and keeping good moderators.
Ultimately it's not only about what is the most fair but about what tools are needed to keep a community running.
Ban them for a year or two.
I think valve game's longest ban length is like 5 years.
Just salty about an askr*ddit ban lol
I always want to spite them by evading but they catch me each time
I got banned permanently because of a horrible mental health episode like really I'm not like that 24/7 and my normal post history showed that. Now if I was brand new and said that stuff I think a warning or one week ban is better
I suppose they have yo deal with a lot of stuff so after a while they just can't differentiate anymore and it's easier to just ban people than. Being considerate takes effort.
Kinda like the idea of incrementally longer bans for each offense.
I used to moderate a forum some years ago, with incremental bans. It was warning, warning, 1d, 3d, 7d, 15d, 1m, permaban.
It does not work well. For good users the system is irrelevant, they drop the behaviour after a single warning; shitty users keep the same behaviour even after the short bans are over, and then evade the larger bans, so you're basically taking multiple mod actions for what could be handled with a single one.
Eventually the forum shifted into a "three warnings and you're permabanned" system, but by then I wasn't a mod there any more so I don't know how well it worked.
That's MUCH BETTER actually. 3 warnings, then 1 day, and increase the amount of days for each offense.
A one-day ban IS a warning.
No
No. But I think that it's often poorly used.
Most users are reasonable and should be treated as such by default; a simple warning goes a long way. Sometimes an overall good user is being really shitty so you ban them for, like, a week? Just to let them chill their head.
Permaban is for the exceptions. It's for users who cannot be reasoned with, will likely behave in a shitty way in the future, and have a negative impact on the community.
Usually yeah. Unless it's something like trying to break a server or posting CP. People can do stupid things if they're having a bad day, mental health issues, etc.
Old forums usually had a system where you only got banned if you got a certain number of warnings within a certain time period. That usually worked well.
People are incredibly ban happy on Reddit, I got banned from the JimmyDore sub Reddit despite never visiting it, I don't even know who Jimmy Dore is.
imo, permaban should be reserved for bots and spam accounts. and people committing crimes using the platform.
everyone else max 30 days, but no limits how many times you can get banned if you keep repeating the bad behaviourPermabans are akin to life sentences or death sentences. They should be reserved for serious "crimes" or multiple repeat offenses and not for breaking a rule or two. Something that Reddit mods can't wrap their heads around.
I was permabanned from r/college for trolling once. Like wtf! I was also permabanned from Reddit as a whole for calling out reverse racism, but that's another story.
I was permabanned there for talking about piracy in /r/movies and then accidently commenting something innocuous in the sub on an alt account. Banned for "ban evasion."
Also the part where your whole household gets banned from Reddit too. What a shitty site that place.
In my approach to it, I'd argue something like this. A misdeed done by a human does not have any infinite qualities because we're not capable of that, so what am I supposed to feel if I issue a ban that does? Unless a ban occurs according to conditions which exist on behalf of someone higher than me, I never "permaban" anyone from anywhere without intention of unbanning them under certain conditions. No clockwork runs on "unconditional" aspects.
On Lemmy? No. Banning is almost pointless here since it would be very hard to track a user across multiple instances.
