[insanitybit]

Users get really bothered by arbitrary banning, irrationally so I think. I've been on sites with moderators who could basically just enforce the rules as they liked and it's so much better. No "well technically I'm not rule breaking" - a human makes a judgment and bans them.

For some reason these "professional" Websites (ie: the modern web of company-run forums) seem to resist this idea, and unfortunately it's hard to do it later in the game because the userbases can be very easily riled up.

[JohnBooty]

I ran a small community (thousands of members) that way and I think it was the best (or rather, least bad) approach.

There are a few reasons why it worked IMO, but the practices seem extremely difficult to scale.

- I spent a lot of time building good will in the community: personally interacting with members, calling out great community participation, etc. My positive interactions outweighed negative probably 5:1 or 10:1.

- I used the ban hammer exceedingly rarely. Like, probably about twice per year over the course of ten years.

- This was a pay-gated community, which cut down on troublemakers

- Moderators enforced policy, but I was the only one who could actually ban

[ytoawwhra92]

I agree that this tends to be the best kind of moderation for individual communities, but I don't think it scales particularly well to platforms hosting many communities, and anyone earning an income from the platform really won't like arbitrary, human-judgement bans.

[OnlineGladiator]

So you think if you get banned without notice you should be unable to appeal and this is what fosters a healthy community?

[insanitybit]

So strange, none of the words you said appear in my post.

[OnlineGladiator]

> I've been on sites with moderators who could basically just enforce the rules as they liked and it's so much better. No "well technically I'm not rule breaking" - a human makes a judgment and bans them.

I'm not sure how else to interpret what you typed.

[insanitybit]

I said nothing about lack of appeals or lack of notice. I said that mods would make judgment calls.

[OnlineGladiator]

Is there ever a situation where mods don't make judgment calls? Or are you just saying moderated is better than unmoderated?

Also you specifically pointed out that arguing over the ban is bad, which is implies appealing the ban is bad.

[insanitybit]

There are - when they go by the letter of the rules.

[whalesalad]

Absolutely. Those in power make mistakes all the time.