Danbooru

Stripped of privileged status?

Posted under General

albert said:
I've restored your level.

The intention is that your old level is always restored after a ban expires.

Uhh, but why? At the very least it should be a choice when the ban is instated. Always restoring the level weakens the severity of a ban a lot. Also, does it restore the level after manually removing a ban? If so, how are we supposed to demote people if even that hacky solution doesn't work anymore?

While I agree with your sentiment in general, Hazuki, (that additionaly scrutiny, assessment, and control over banning mechanics is probably a good thing), what privileges do "privileged" members lose when demoted to basic "member" that could be used maliciously? In this case giving privs their "I-spent-$20-for-Danbooru" accounts back doesn't seem to be problematic.

A better solution in the end might be to add a drop down field in the banning form letting a mod set a "target" membership level to be be instated after the ban completes. By default, and for most uses, this would be the user's pre-banned rank. If punitive action is sought, it could be set to something lower. Higher ranks shouldn't populate for obvious reasons.

Shinjidude said:
what privileges do "privileged" members lose when demoted to basic "member" that could be used maliciously?

Flagging posts for re-moderation, rating and note locking, and the ability to view (and thus remove the appropriate tags from) loli and shota posts, to name a few.

My two cents: if someone has a paid for privileged account, it shouldn't be stripped unless they repeatedly break the rules (like three times within a certain time frame, say half a year) or grossly and severely break them (like going on a loli/shota detag spree just because they can). If they got promoted based on merit, then they should be able to lose it based on merit. I don't think someone paying for the additional features then getting it taken away is fair.

Now would it be possible to make another level that has all the same access levels as the current privileged level but call it "donater"? It'd be easier to distinguish who donated and who didn't to get the level that they were at (granted I think very few priv accounts were invites).

If the user in question has already explicitly displayed intent to vandalize the site (tag/note/pool vandalism, flag abuse etc.), I don't see any reason to restore his privileged status.

If the ban has been issued for chronic comment related offense (comment spam, bad comments), case to case basis handling might be the right solution, as the privileged status removes the 2 bump/hour limit which makes shitposting way too easy.

If the ban has been issued for an isolated incident (spoilers, stupid flamewar) and the user doesn't have a record of abusive behavior, I don't see the reason to strip the user of the privileged status forever after his ban expires.

Basically what Heparine said. If I deem an offence ban-worthy, I don't see why the user should get back to their old level as if nothing had happened. A ban is _supposed_ to be harsh. Sure, there are cases where I think temporarily being unable to use the site fully without losing the status permanently is an appropriate punishment, but those are minority cases which are handled just fine by the offender dmailing me to show they got the point and me manually restoring their level, and that's by definition a case-by-case thing.

We'd be more than adequately equipped for handling bans if the stupid "only admins can invite users with negative records" restriction was lifted, but even with it in place, the occasional mail to jxh2154 once every two months is not too much of a hurdle, and gives an opportunity for jxh2154 to review the case, which is not a bad thing.

tl;dr: Defaulting to automatically restoring user status post-ban is the wrong policy applied at the wrong level by the wrong person.

葉月 said:
tl;dr: Defaulting to automatically restoring user status post-ban is the wrong policy applied at the wrong level by the wrong person.

I agree with the whole segment you posted, it's understandable that some punch needs to come with a ban to show you guys mean business, and I wouldn't argue with that.

But in my particular case, and I know you don't have admin status, but if you did, would you have given me my status back after my ban was lifted?

KooHooP said:
I agree with the whole segment you posted, it's understandable that some punch needs to come with a ban to show you guys mean business, and I wouldn't argue with that.

But in my particular case, and I know you don't have admin status, but if you did, would you have given me my status back after my ban was lifted?

Given that you took the time to understand what happened and appeal, yes, I would. It's very rare that I don't in such cases; IIRC, it's happened exactly once, when the offender started lecturing me on how to be a mod properly. In basically all other cases people who contacted me had their status restored / ban lifted.

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