Sometimes, this has been met with great fanfare by team members and normals alike. At other times, it has lead to an entire fallout/backlash and cascaded down into a total crapstorm that left a bad taste in most peoples' mouths for months on end. Regardless of the situation, the actions carried out by the forum staff can not easily - if at all - be reversed.
Now, for an extremely long time, more often than not when once someone's been shown the door, their account had been stripped clean. Here's an example of what I mean:
Image size reduced, original size: 837 x 238. http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj62/reijidorifuta/strippedpost.jpg~original to view the image in its original dimension.
While the group title "banned" may be a giveaway to the observant, the signature line and lack of avatar eliminate all doubts in anyone's mind where exactly this person stands in regards to their welcome here - or lack thereof.
Now, lower-profile members will get a "final straw" ban and be silenced while the rest of their account remains intact every now and then. Here's an example of such a case:
Image size reduced, original size: 837 x 324. http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj62/reijidorifuta/unstrippedpost.jpg~original to view the image in its original dimension.
As you can see, nothing has changed other than the member group that person is in. There's a few reasons why I find just moving the member to "banned" is unfavorable, and I'm more than glad to break them down:
-It's potentially misleading. [mobile]
I know that most people view this forum through a web browser, but in current mobile skin, the only so much as "hint" that a regular may no longer be with us, sort to speak, comes down to their very own avatar. It's kind of a given at this point in the history of the forums that if you come here a lot, you likely have an icon of sorts to represent yourself.
-It's cluttering up threads. [desktop]
A quick glance reveals the top post easily takes up less on-screen real-estate. When scrolling through a thread, more posts able to fit on screen means less time spent reeling the scroll wheel, mashing the Pg Down button, or worse, dragging your finger up and down the screen.
-It looks lazy.
Yes, I said it. It takes all of 30 seconds to quickly ctrl+a del a handful of fields, click on a couple more things (user title, signature) and be done with it. Under the current forum hierarchy where hours if not days are spent deliberating the fate of a high profile, but highly controversial person, it gives the appearance of a complete and total lack of effort on behalf of the forum staff to completely clean up this mess of a user and eradicate them once and for all from this message board.
-It's electronic blight.
Whether the visual imagery or quotes harken others back to a "better" time, or the image or text just reeks of the discord this person wreaked as they racked up their strikes, these are things that us as members are stuck looking at for the rest of our forum tenure. It gets old.
-It's disrespectful of that members' privacy.
Okay, not everyone here fills in their contact cards, but some of the people who do - and then get banned - don't have the luxury of being able to clear their contact cards out - such as Hotmail/Skype contacts or AIM addresses - sometimes even their own mugshot, which can be Google reverse-image-searched. I believe it is a rule of good morals to do that for them. They no longer have anything to do with these forums, and odds are, https://idforums.net/index.php?showtopic=47786&view=findpost&p=1317507 even the "legends" really just want to put this place behind them - yes, sometimes including everyone here. Odds are more likely than not the people who need their contact info already has it before the banning.
-It's against tradition.
Okay, this one is highly debatable since it was never officially written into the rules and regulations of the staff - to the best of my knowledge at least - but it has sort of been an unwritten law throughout the years to go ahead and leave the simple phrase, "This account has been suspended indefinitely. -The Moderating Team" throughout the years but it's also part of the legacy of these forums and part of what makes us different from every other forum out there - because, from all the places I've been, I've never seen this professional handling of exodus carried out anywhere else. And dammit, that's something to be proud of - and hold on to.
Well, I hope I made a case for this. I would like some honest answers here from members and staff people alike on whether or not to actually make this the case moving forward, and perhaps even https://idforums.net/index.php?showuser=3276
I know something this trivial in process probably doesn't matter all that much to you, but it means a lot to me and I'm hoping I'm not the only person - staff or otherwise - in this camp to feel this way, or any or all of the reasons listed above. If you feel it should or should not be policy moving forward, I welcome your feedback.
Please vote and voice your opinion!
