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by JulianMorrison 5223 days ago
Honestly I have no idea why they didn't just ban him and say "don't hack us". It really should be that simple.
2 comments

The straight up ban is a great short term solution, but in the long run being easy to work with on security issues and not alienating your users is a better road. As they stated, this user wasn't malicious so banning him only causes grief and could turn him from an ally into an enemy.

There was a great post a couple of days back that in effect said: It's not a matter of _if_ your security will be compromised but _when_. By being open to your users disclosing this information you're helping to keep your product secure. IMHO 37signals does a good job of this by linking and giving credit to those that have discovered security flaws in their apps (http://37signals.com/security-response).

There's a very good reason not to do that. I'm a Wikipedia admin, and we have a policy on blocking and banning that sort of makes sense. A block is done to "prevent damage or disruption". That might be short term or indefinitely, but not permanently. You put in a block when there's an issue. But a ban is a formal statement that you are no longer allowed in. You only do that after some thought and consultation.

Github is actually pretty similar given that the commercial side of Github is fuelled by the free, open-source side. There is a feeling of community ownership. Going straight for the ban without some thought and soul-searching is confusing fixing an issue with making a more detailed judgment about whether the user ought to be on the site at all.

IMHO, Github played it about right.