Moderators: Seeking input on temporary subreddit bans

Craysh · 7 months

May I suggest an option showing how many temp bans a user has? With a subreddit that has several mods not everyone can keep track of all the problem children :P

violentacrez · 7 months

This differs from a regular subreddit ban in that the banned user isn't notified and can continue to post and comment, but these posts and comments will not be visible to other users. The idea is that this will be effective in stopping abuse because it won't "tip off" the banned user causing them to start posting/commenting from a different account.

This exact same logic applies to the normal, permanent bans.

If I understand correctly: We give a problem user up to 3 silent time-outs. They don't know they're banned, so they have no reason to change their behaviour during those silent time-outs. After the three are up, the user has no clue he's even been banned, so presumably he's going to continue his behaviour. At that point, we use the existing ban, and he switches accounts. The cycle begins anew.

What's the thinking behind not allowing mods to permanently shadow-ban them, thus breaking this cycle?

chejrw · 7 months

Sounds good to me. Will their posts become visible once their ban expires, or remain invisible indefinitely?

Also, 24 hours seems arbitrarily short to me.

RetardVomitPussyCunt · 7 months

Nice idea pal, but extend it for a week, sometimes a 'time out' isn't enough

Also while you're at it, can you give us the oppitunity to tell people why they're being banned?

your_favorite_buddy · 7 months

For clarity why not call it a probation?

Hibernator · 7 months

This feature seems to combine two new concepts--a temporary ban, and an invisibility cloak. I would much rather deal with spammers by making them invisible than by banning them, but I don't want it to be temporary. Please consider making the upper limit infinite instead of 24 hours (and maybe calling it something else, like "silent ban").

thebeefytaco · 7 months

I love the idea and I think it's a good step forward.

I posted this in ideasfortheadmins, but I guess it got ignored so I'll try again here. I think it'd be great if reddit implemented a warning systems for the mods. Not every little mistake should be a bannable offence, so I think it's okay to remind people of the rules and basically give them a warning. But if they've been warned in the past, there's really no excuse for continuing to violate the rules of the subreddit. However, I have no way of knowing if other mods have given warnings to other people.

All you'd need is a little warn button for the mod UI and then keep track of the number of warnings or violations someone has next to their name (only visible to the mods of course). Click on the number and it will take you to a page that shows where and why they were cited and the mod that did it.

The idea might need some tweaking, but I think it'd help mods do their job better.

gabwyn · 7 months

Can the hidden posts and comments from the banned user still be viewed by the moderators, in the same way they see reported items or spam posts?

The reason I'm asking is that occasionally a troll may decide to post something worthwhile or post a worthwhile comment that adds to a discussion, maybe the option to approve these comments/posts (stealthily) would be a good idea.

got_milk4 · 7 months

I like the idea, but I think the ability to not notify users should cross over to the banning interface as well. I deal with users routinely who, upon being banned, create new accounts to continue abusing users and claim the moderators are 'abusing their powers'. It'd be nice to be able to "ninjaban" these users permanently.

MikeOnFire · 7 months

Good idea. It would be cool to be able to synthesize votes on their faux posts as well.

RyJones · 7 months

I'd rather the times were expressed in days and had a limit of like a week.

koolkats · 7 months

Could we have the ability to make a note of why we banned them that's visible to the other mods?

Failcake · 7 months

Could you up the max ban time to 72 hours? I think it would be enough time to allow any troll to get bored and stop posting.

sodypop · 7 months

Awesome! I think this will be a big help to moderators during certain scenarios, and I like that the ban automatically expires after a designated time so there is no need to remember to remove it. Thanks!

Not to deviate from the subject, but I also hope that this suggestion regarding regular ban notification message system can be implemented at some point too.

HiFructoseCornFeces · 7 months

For its intended purpose for regular users, this is great. But any troll that figures out a temporary ban is just going to wait 24 hours to use that account and/or create more accounts. If a temporary ban somehow informed the spam filter of a temporarily banned user's IP address, and automatically marked that IP address's posts as spam, without mods or anyone ever seeing IP addresses, THAT could be a freaking great feature.

DEADB33F · 7 months

May I suggest adding the ability for mods to leave a reason to for the silent ban which gets auto messaged to the user at the end of their ban period (otherwise how are they meant to learn).

It might also get confusing knowing which mod has banned which users etc, and it'd be handy to know which users have been temp banned previously to make it easier to deal with repeat offenders.

Some kind of moderation event viewer would be great.
This would be a page where moderation events are logged and are visible by other mods... eg.

[Timestamp] - [Mod A] approved [Submission X]
[Timestamp] - [Mod B] Banned [User A] for [Reason] - [Link to related comment/submission]
[Timestamp] - [Mod C] Removed [Submission Y] for [Reason]
[Timestamp] - [Mod D] Changed Subreddit description.
[Timestamp] - [Mod E] Added [User B] as a moderator.
[Timestamp] - [Mod F] Shadow banned [User C] for [X days] for [Reason] - [Link to related comment/submission].

etc.

A list of checkboxes at the top would enable you to filter by event type and hide/view certain types of events. Clicking on a mod or user's name filters by events involving that mod/user.

This would be visible via something like /r/subreddit/modevents, and also via /modevents where it'd show all events for all subreddits you moderate (with each event appended with "in [subreddit name]").

Maybe even have the option to make the event queue public (with usernames hidden on silent bans), for subreddits who want to be extra transparent about mod actions.

I got the idea from a forum I moderate where we coded our own vB plugin to do exactly this. Example of it in action.

Calimhero · 7 months

Hey, I suggested that! I'm so happy you guys are implementing it.

Obviously, it is a great idea :)

a1mck · 7 months

I think this is a fantastic idea, but what we need, especially for SW, is a direct contact to you the admins to be able to handle really abusive trolls. I find it difficult to know which admin to contact regarding trolls that can potentially push people over the edge to kill themselves. If you could include a direct contact link with a comment box to explain what the situation is, so that everyone is in the loop, then this would be great.

Thanks so much bsimpson for this!!!:-)))))))))))))

Mike941 · 7 months

Make the temporary bans last 2 weeks max and keep the 3 temp bans per month and it'll be perfect.

davidjayhawk · 7 months

Yes, this would absolutely be useful. Can I ask why the "shadow ban" capability for mods is being limited to temporary only?

Basically two things are being given to mods here. The first is temporary banning which is basically a convenience making it so that we don't have to remember to go back and manually unban them. The second is the shadow ban which is a great tool for dealing with truly malicious griefers/trolls etc... who currently get a nice notification that it's time to create a new account when they are banned.

I guess I'm just wondering why these two things were combined into one instead of made separate capabilities?

ignatiusloyola · 7 months

I am 100% for this. Though I would ask that the temporary ban be extended to maybe 3-4 days.

Another possibility is to have people on an "Approve" list. Physically requiring that a mod approve all of their messages before they get published.

Kancho_Ninja · 7 months

As someone that recently received a ban from a moderator with no sense of humor, I endorse this idea.

mikkjel · 7 months

I like the idea. I guess the only thing I think I might be interested in seeing is the ban being tied to a post or comment, so that there is an underlying and documented reason (generally being an asshole OR not following the subreddit rules).

highTrolla · 7 months

Why impose limits on a mod's ability to shadow ban? It's their subreddit, let them do it as much as they please.

brandonclyon · 7 months

I really like this idea, it would also help cut down on troll accounts because they won't be fed.

roger_ · 7 months

Sounds like this could be useful.

My only suggestion is to make the upper limit be several days (e.g. seven) instead of only one.

drogepirja · 7 months

I have a suggestion. Let the users know they were banned, but remove the "these are your moderators!" list from each subreddit. This would theoretically force them to use the more streamlined "message your mods" function, and discourages potential abuse by people who might think message-spamming is a cool way to retaliate.

HideAndSeek · 7 months

Make it so.

Vusys · 7 months

I'd like a tickbox to make the ban announced to the user. Shadow bans make me feel uneasy.

Lemonegro · 7 months

temporary bans can last from 1 to 24 hours

Longer per number of offenses please.

DukeGoogamuke · 7 months

Can some kind of notification happen to usernames so that mods can spot who has already been temp-banned?

Raerth · 7 months

What's your reasoning behind the limitations?

DragonHunter · 7 months

I'd like to see it 3 days, so the user can be ninja banned for the weekend.

XavierMendel · 7 months

Could we have an option for X hours, X days, X weeks, or forever?

grondin · 7 months

We need some way of dealing with folks creating many throw-away accounts to get around bans. I know the mods won't have access to IP addresses directly, but how about a method of connecting-the-dots from newer accounts to previously banned people.

A mod function that would show (Throwaway-account123) is from the same IP address as (Banned-User-A)

And only for previously banned users - there are legitimate reasons to create an anonymous account that should not be curtailed.

rawveggies · 7 months

After reading the comments here I agree this is a useful feature, although I only moderate one small troll and spammer free subreddit so I won't likely use it.

However, I would like to say that I hope it includes the ability for other mods to see which mod it was that used the feature, as I believe it could easily be abused, and other mods could act as a check to ensure the feature is not abused to shadowban users that a mod may personally disagree with.

I used to use fark.com a lot, and I was shadowbanned there, I think, for posting a controversial, but verifiable, statement on the politics tab. I'll never know the exact reasons, but I assume it was done by a mod that personally disagreed with my post. I only knew because my photoshop contest entries stopped getting votes immediately after my controversial post. I stopped using fark, and have never gone back.

I believe this happened to other users there, as well. Considering the massive drop in traffic to fark over the last few years, and according to the users at bannination.com (which was created for users that were banned from fark) the loss of traffic there had to do with the belief in widespread censorship by the mods.

scientologist2 · 7 months

Temporary bans should be available up to something like several days, allowing time for emotional hot heads to chill out.

I 've done that, telling a guy to message me after the appropriate period and remind me to reinstate them, along with telling them why they were being banned.

The few days off does some good.

Another option, for admins only, would be to make certain reddits non-accessible at all, just for the truly offensive users. They would go to read the subreddit, and get the notice that they are forbidden access. Again for as certain period of time, or after petition from the moderator on their behalf, or what ever.

phyzome · 7 months

Another idea to add to the wishlist: Disemvoweling It would be a lovely feature.

E_lucas · 7 months

What about a system that allows you to give them warnings along with the temporary ban for a '3 strikes' type of build up to perma-ban.

a_pound_of_blow · 7 months

I like this idea a lot. It might cut down on the "so-and-so banned me from r/whatever" posts.

AnnArchist · 7 months

Can we get an option for a user preferences to 'ignore all temporary bans'?

Dadasas · 7 months

It sounds good, but I don't really like the limits.

metaranha · 7 months

I think this is a really good idea, and i'd like to see it expanded a bit. One thing i'd really like to see is a reason system behind banning.

I've really wanted to see something like this where a mod can include the purpose for a ban (both in this proposed system, and the regular ban system) and have it so that the user can also see the reason for the ban.

This would save me the headache of having to go through a complete explanation for banning someone when "you've been banned for spamming" would be totally sufficient.

PastafarianTwit · 7 months

I... I think I love you.

DropkickMikey22 · 7 months

So Let it Be Written, So Let it Be Done

CyberVillian · 7 months

I like the idea. Maybe let people ba for up to 72? Also I think there should be a way in perm ban to also not notify and just perm mute the user too.

maxpericulosus · 7 months

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but wouldn't a banned user be able to just log out and see that his comments aren't showing up? I suppose he'd have to figure this out on accident, but still, it's an easy way to tell if you're being temp-banned.

Brutos · 7 months

I'd like to have a feature, to still see shadow banned users as a normal user, just like I can choose under comment options to not hide downvoted posts.

I fear that this feature has abuse potential for mods, so it needs some kind of transparency. Of course the default setting would be set to hide shadow banned users.

Granted that would make it potentially easy for shadow banned people to figure out that they are banned, although just logging out would provide the same.

zagman76 · 7 months

vBulletin calls this feature "Tachy Goes to Coventry" and is a great tool for helping control the abusers. I think it is a wonderful feature!

arcturussage · 7 months

a user can receive a maximum of 3 temporary bans per month

3 per month no matter what subreddit or just within your subreddit? If it's only 3 for all of reddit that might be low if there is someone that likes to collect downvotes.

If it's only three times per month having more than 24 hours might be nice. Maybe up for 48 or 72.

As for the interface I like that for temp bans it says who temp banned them. It would be nice to have that information for Banned users as well. Who was banned, who banned them and when they were banned.

[deleted] · 7 months

This would be great for subreddits mods wanting to discourage certain kinds of crap from being posted. How about give the moderators the option of showing users what post/comment a user made that got them banned, like the "User was banned for this post" stuff on SomethinAwful?

aazav · 7 months

As a poster who was recently trolled by StoneCypher, I look forwards to this capability.

mmaluff · 7 months

For extra realism you could make it so that the invisible comments get a downvote or two a few minutes after they're posted.

mkosmo · 7 months

Can we get the length longer than 24 hours? I'd personally like a few days of possible time to manually review a users posts if they're that bad. 24 hours may not be enough. I'm talking no more than 72 or 96 hours though.

monkikuso · 7 months

I like this idea a lot.

If I could also add, perhaps a feature that makes a user unable to post/n visible posts to your subreddit if the user has had X amount of temp. bans in a given length of time from any other subreddit.

I feel this would be another layer of "protection", for lack of a better word, against people who are continuously doing things to get bans. Kind of like a behind-the-scenes way for subreddits/mods to be looking out for other subreddits/mods.

Laurelai · 7 months

I WANT YOUR BIOLOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE CHILDREN NOW OMG THANK YOU

Dirt_Bike_Zero · 7 months

I first thought is that it is good because it allows the user to continue posting and "digging their own hole" - building a stronger case possibly.

gigitrix · 7 months

As a mere user I support this.

neggbird · 7 months

Make temp bans last up to a month. One day is nothing, one hour even more so nothing.

Shade00a00 · 7 months

I think we need to allow up to 1 week of banned time per month. Once they reach that, mods should decide whether to ban permanently, but a 1 week ban ought to be enough to deal with anyone who tends to post trollish content, and let them cool down from their post streak.

Once everyone ignores you for a week, you're good, I'd say.

mayonesa · 7 months

How about this:

Allow me to ban users who constantly downvote our content. We have a gang of 4-12 people who are attempting to destroy the subreddit by downvoting quality articles and upvoting submissions by spammers.

We should consider: should moderators be able to see how users have voted?

In any case, please don't let banned users continue to upvote/downvote. Cut them out of the process entirely.

rockon4life45 · 7 months

May I suggest up to 72 hours? Sometimes trolls will stop trolling if nobody responds for 3 days.

ravia · 7 months

Banning without informing the person banned is pretty well obviously wrong. Some "spammers" seem to require that but then some subs have substantial problems in which the bans are ostensibly due simply to controversial opinions. The obvious violence, and frankly I'm not sure what else to all it, of just straight out lying to the commenter by banning without disclosing this to them should give one pause, it seems to me. This opinion is quite opposed to the poster's proposal. Will that get me banned on here for having this opinion? I wouldn't know, of course, as the kind of ban being proposed wouldn't have to disclose that to me. Why this is not seen as obviously wrong I have no idea, but I think it is pretty well a contemptible practice and find its proposal itself quite offensive and destructive. It sucks that there are spammers. Some would say that it sucks that some have opinions that differ from ours. But that is not a good solution.

avengingturnip · 7 months

A temporary ban that lasts no more than a day will be of limited use. A ban lasting for several days, perhaps up to a week would be necessary to deal with intermittent trolling.

Rollout · 7 months

I have been asking for a sort of "shadow-ban" for a user from a subreddit for a long time.

This would be awesome, but it needs to have adjustable time, from one day to infinity.... Or just be permanent, and the mod has to lift it if they see fit.

Most of the time, in my finding, if I am going to use this feature it is because the user needs to be gone, not just for a few days.

mattryanharris · 7 months

Great idea! Thanks!

Laurelai · 7 months

when will this feature be available?

Laurelai · 7 months

There should be no limit to either amount or time, a coordinated attack (and this does happen frequently) by many people will overwhelm this ability quickly, abusive mods will abuse no matter what tools they have or don't have, the people in the sub will notice and just create a new one like with what happened with /r/trees, so if mods abuse the new ability they are abusive anyways and likely abused their power before, and if the community doesn't have a problem before with their style of moderation then its not likely they will have a problem after it. Its not tools that make mods abusive, its being an abusive fuck that does it.

happybadger · 7 months

Seems kind of redundant. We can already message people who are unknowingly breaking the rules, and anyone doing it out of malice isn't going to stop because we put them on time-out for a day (even permabans are circumvented by taking thirty seconds to make a second account).

Personally, I'd prefer a ghost ban function. /r/TodayIlearned had a spammer posting for a few days who would switch between gibberish-name accounts whenever we confronted him. If he thought his post was getting through but in reality he's ghost banned, there's no reason to switch accounts. It'd also cut trolling a bit, as trolls would figure that they're just terrible at it.

Antidote · 7 months

Eh... silent bans aren't really helpful. A good ban message with "You have been temp banned" is far more effective because then the user actually knows that they did something wrong rather than just believing there's some bug with reddit and that's why their posts aren't showing up. Additionally 1 to 24 hours is not a good set of intervals. We need to be able to ban from 1 hour to about a week. Really there shouldn't be any limitations on it.

Also what's the purpose on the limit of temp bans per month?

IAmAnAnonymousCoward · 7 months

What incentives do mods have not to abuse this feature?

If it's really about illegal content, then limit the ban to once per user and 12h. This should give the admins enough time to hand out a permanent ban. In case the admins refuse to hand out the permanent ban, automatically re-approve all banned posts and comments and inform the user about what happened. This should keep rouge mods in check.

the_real_misogynist · 7 months

Doesn't seem very effective, honestly. We catch on to these temp bans pretty fast, usually within 5-30 mins.

What happens after we reach the maximum of 3? Do we get our accounts banned forcing us to create more shills?

ChaosMotor · 7 months

Silently silenced? Shadowbanned? No, I don't like it.

AnnArchist · 7 months

Not a fan of the concept myself.

Then again, I don't ban people in the subreddits I moderate.

The interface is clean though.

nthitz · 7 months

Cool feature! Why such arbitrary limitations though?

skifrk29 · 7 months

I like it. It's clean, friendly, and could be really helpful in certain areas. Good idea.

ahintoflime · 7 months

Clever thinking, that will definitely be a lot more effective, at least until people start catching on.

DarkSideofOZ · 7 months

Me Gusta

IronChin · 7 months

Do it.

qadm · 7 months

Edit: I didn't read the whole post. Great feature!

Complex- · 7 months

so after 3 temporary bans they are permaban?

Stereo · 7 months

While you're in that part of the code, it would be great to show who banned test4, and when. If it's not too much to ask, a comment field for bans would also be nice.

calisoca · 7 months

I like it, but it'd be nice if they received some sort of notification. Without notification, it seems sort of like grounding a kid to his room for the weekend when that room has an Xbox, Playstation, TV, etc.

sync0pate · 7 months

Like it. Definitely seconding the call for it to last longer, a week or so at least I'd say..

nowned · 7 months

Fantastic idea, would be very helpful

randomb0y · 7 months

I don't know why a perma-ban would tip off the user either ...

icedevil6 · 7 months

I love the idea, but would prefer a window of 1 to 72 hours.

dumbassthenes · 7 months

Sure, why not?

R/surfing is pretty free of trolls anyway, so it's not a big deal either way.

geekjive · 7 months

for subreddits with consistent multiple-account trolling problems, this can be very useful. please implement!

bluerasberry · 7 months

Seems cool as is. Implement it and call for more feedback later.

Damaband41 · 7 months

Interesting... I'll report back if I have a Troll Uprising any time soon.

bluequail · 7 months

I am all for it.

ninjaface · 7 months

I like this.

potentialloser · 7 months

All for it!

mattsatwork · 7 months

This would be great

dredd · 7 months

Thumbs up!

Yandere · 7 months

Perhaps have it so if they make any comments/posts they receive fake votes, to further preserve the illusion of not being banned.

Highly active trolls that intentionally try to net a lot of down votes might get suspicious when they suddenly get no down votes from a given reddit.

Edit: I also mean that, by fake, these would not be reflected in their user profiles. I think that just showing they have -X points when they go to check a post or comment would suffice. Plus this wouldn't affect the karma system, just further try to fake the banned redditor out.

sevenalive · 7 months

Sweet. While you are at it. Can you please code a feature to force the display of flair in a subreddit, so the user can't turn it off?

On r/playitforward, we use it to keep track of games gave and received. r/gameswap could also use flair instead of CSS for their system too.

I hid the checkbox in the stylesheet, but that doesn't do anything to stop it.

Also would like a way to export/import flair to csv for backup purposes.

Laurelai · 7 months

There should be no limit to either amount or time, a coordinated attack (and this does happen frequently) by many people will overwhelm this ability quickly, abusive mods will abuse no matter what tools they have or don't have, the people in the sub will notice and just create a new one like with what happened with /r/trees, so if mods abuse the new ability they are abusive anyways and likely abused their power before, and if the community doesn't have a problem before with their style of moderation then its not likely they will have a problem after it. Its not tools that make mods abusive, its being an abusive fuck that does it.

DjMeztoome · 7 months

This is an awesome feature...Sometimes a Minor in Solipsism can backfire drastically.

This has potential to redditate a redditor into redditing his orangeRed envelope even more Red.
Maybe a time Factor in there somewhere...Like Mods get to choose the 3 different time lengths..or maybe the 4th?

aukxsona · 7 months

I say 1-7 days.

Mike941 · 6 months

I run a subreddit for WC3. WC3 has a lot of hackers and these hackers like to go to legitimate WC3 websites and flame us by posting their exploits and acting like they're legitimate players. If you ban them they usually just make another account.

So this secret ban would be really useful for my reddit. So far it's been small enough to avoid being noticed by the hackers but i think hackers just started to notice it.

So when will this secret ban be available?

Clayburn · 5 months

Is this in effect? I can't seem to post anything to /r/television. The mods also do not reply to me. I don't get any errors. But I don't know why I'd be banned. I rarely post to /r/television at all because TV mostly sucks. I usually use show-specific subreddits.

So, what should I do? How do I find out if this is what's happening? Also, I tried using a throwaway to submit, and same thing. Doesn't show up in /new and no response from mods.

Twitchxiii · 5 months

Add this an possibly limited bans such as character caps in comments added to limit banned users and maybe only so many commets a day? Just suggestion

meatspace · 4 months

It's kind of dishonest to ban people and not let them know...

nicholaaaas · 4 months

If they aren't told they did wrong why will they stop when the period is over?

over8000 · 3 months

maybe instead of not telling him, it alerts him how long the ban will be in place [edit] thus not encouraging them to make and use a second account for access. and possibly you could base the limit on hours not the amount of times it has happened?

What incentives do mods have not to abuse this feature?

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