Someone posted that it doesn't matter if you are suspended temporarily or banned forever, the word suspended will be seen under your username. Is this true?
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Suspended V Banned
- Thread starter Mac'nCheese
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From a programming perspective I guess it is possible if a banned state is nothing more then a suspension without a expiration date.
That is correct.
OK, so my feedback is: this is kind of weird. Why can't it be like it used to be when you knew that someone was just on a break or if they were gone forever?
I think it's a limitation of the XenForo forum software.
At this time, you can distinguish between Gone Forever and On a Break by trying to view the Profile Page. I don't know if it's a designed feature of the forum software (intentional), or just a side effect of how accounts are managed by moderators. That is, by pointing this out, the admins might change how it works.
If the Profile Page is viewable, then the user is On a Break (Timeout).
If the Profile Page elicits an error page, then the user is Gone Forever.
However, Gone Forever may apply only for small values of Forever. Some people manage to make a sufficient argument to the moderators to get themselves unbanned, although perhaps with restrictions, such as being forbidden from posting in some forums.
Yes, the old software was able to distinguish between differing states which included "Time-Out", "Suspended" and "Banned" thus conferring on the latter a sense of indefinite permanence which was occasionally mitigated.
Isn't this really just a matter of what group they are in and then having the respective label for said group? That's how most other BBs work and from the looks of it here it's no different (though I've never used this board's software personally), "Moderator", "Contributor", macrumors regular", etc. are all labels likely based on groups. So if there were separate groups for "Permanently banned" and "temporarily banned" they could be labeled accordingly.
To be honest, I am not entirely clear why the forum is not more explicit when describing the status of a member who has been either suspended or banned; perhaps, that is a deliberate choice that has been made.
Or it could just be a limitation of the current forum software?
I've no idea as the moderators don't work on the back end of the forum. From what I remember it's best we could do on XF, as members serving a time-out are placed in the same banned users group as members who are permanently banned. The only difference is they have an expiry date for their ban while it's set as never for banned members.
All I know is ... it doesn't take much to get suspended ... in fact, forget the stated "rules", the "rules" of the game shift continuously and arbitrarily.
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I'll second this, in many ways it's like watching a football game where there is a penalty on every play and it takes from the overall conversation. Human beings are controversial and will have spats, I get it if it's overtly mean, but there are many times where people aren't even allowed to gently spar. It is what it is, MR is very much big brother and if you want to post here you just need to be aware of it.
Sorry to reopen an old thread. I was also curious about this.
In my experience, if you try to view the profile page of a 'Suspended' user, sometimes it flags an error saying the user profile is not available. Other times the profile is visible as it normally would be.
Judging by the posting history of members who get the 'not available' error, I'm assuming they're the ones who have been permanently banned...? Is that correct?
In my experience, if you try to view the profile page of a 'Suspended' user, sometimes it flags an error saying the user profile is not available. Other times the profile is visible as it normally would be.
Judging by the posting history of members who get the 'not available' error, I'm assuming they're the ones who have been permanently banned...? Is that correct?
Yes, this is what I would assume; this message appears on the profile page of those who have been banned; that is, those members who have been banned with the time limit of when the ban is due to end set permanently at 'never'.
Meanwhile, it is - or, it should be - still possible to access the profile page of members who have been temporarily suspended (assuming that they themselves haven't set their 'profile settings' to limit who can view it).
The way I look at it is that we are all guest here and not even paying for the service.
I'm still not sure of the difference between banned and suspended. Is one permanent and one temporary ?
Banned is permanent and suspended (or time-out) is temporary but the label on a member's profile is the same.
Yes. See post #6.
I'll also add that there are definitely users who have been reinstituted from their Gone Forever state. I know of at least one with certainty.
So if a member gets suspended, even after they come back from their detention, the label stays with them forever? Kind of like a permanent criminal record?
No. The label goes away at the end of the suspension period. No scarlet letter.
What Olly meant was the badge of permanently banned and temporarily suspended is the same. I.e. A member's status is "suspended" if on a short time out and also says "suspended" if they've been permanently banned.