So I've been hearing about and seeing questionable bans here and there, and it's getting kind of really concerning. I get the feeling that anything I ever say or do may or may not be used against me in the future as the "standards" gradually change; AKA it turns me off even the idea of commenting, replying, or even making these forum topics, and I wouldn't even consider myself someone who acts wierdly in general.

Latest example that was the straw that broke the camel's back:
This person isn't and has never been underage (aka under 18) since joining the site as per shown birth date: https://e621.net/user/show/321932
If something else happened, it isn't documented and thus looks real bad.

I can see this user has a history with bad tagging practices, but this last one is straight up undocumented, just showing up as "compromised, again.": https://e621.net/user/show/233194

And this is just the ones I saw *today*. It makes me feel that you're asking people to be perfect, that any mistake, personal flaw or disagreement might just become a ban, even on some other basis (used as an excuse). This second guy was developping assisting software for crying out loud, and was overall very positively active from what I can tell.

There's also the issue of many of the sources for negative strikes on accounts being put private, or being deleted, I assume. That means that most of the times if you look into it, nothing is even readily available to prove them.

A lot of it looks and sounds suspicious, especially with the recent-ish rumors (and, well, sadly, proof) of power abuse and unfair bans going around.

Are you really going to use chicagobears as an example? They outright went on a tirade of verbal assault on people on top of literally saying they are underage.

As far as the second example, considering it's kira doing it, and they deal with site programming and maintenance it's probably something to do with a compromised email such as it was hacked. Or some other issue which, they don't have to and probably wont disclose.

If the example on the reason of a neg isn't accessible for users it's probably because it's something that is Dmail, or a hidden comment by the user which isn't viewable due to different reasons.
1. Normal users can't see other users hidden comments
2. Normal users can't see other users Dmails.

There is also bans for different reasons such as impersonation, ban evasion, spambots, DDOS attacks, as well as other stuff.

Just because you don't know why something happens doesn't mean that there is admin abuse going on.

Versperus said:
They outright went on a tirade of verbal assault on people on top of literally saying they are underage.

It's worth noting too that the admins can't read minds (yet). People lie. If their profile indicates they were over 18 when joining, but also said they were under 18 here at some point, can you be sure they still aren't? What are they to believe? Gotta err on the side of caution on things like that, considering the kind of content here. And it is possible to get access back if they can provide appropriate proof of age and the admins are willing to give them another chance.

Watsit said:
It's worth noting too that the admins can't read minds (yet). People lie. If their profile indicates they were over 18 when joining, but also said they were under 18 at some point, can you be sure they still aren't? What are they to believe? Gotta err on the side of caution on things like that, considering the kind of content here. And it is possible to get access back if they can provide appropriate proof of age and the admins are willing to give them another chance.

Sure, they could went ahead and done that. But considering it wasn't just the fact of underage and they also insulted half of everyone, even going so far as to make hate accounts for users I doubt they would of been let back.

In regards to the "compromised, again" ban. It's really very simple. The account was repeatedly compromised, and used to create large problems and involved cleanup effort. They were told they needed to ensure that their account was secured properly before they could come back. The user failed to secure their account multiple times, and it was used to create problems, so they lost it.

While I can sympathize with them that they had somebody who disliked them and seemed rooted in their various accounts, it's not our responsibility to resolve that, and they were given multiple chances.

Just because there isn't a big long list of records doesn't mean that we're being uncouth with the items given out. For some things records are removed because they are created to put a stop to actions temporarily.

https://e621.net/mod_action?moderator=&body=233194&type=any

Yes, they absolutely have to document bans. You might not think it necessary, but as you see comments of banned people more and more often (on older posts especially, of course), it makes people increasingly wary of actually engaging with the website, ESPECIALLY if it isn't documented.

1. How am I supposed to know either of those things from the account's primary page or the "user records" page if nothing's documented? You can't expect people to do tons of background research on their comments and forum posts and edits or whatever else they're being banned for to be able to understand the situation. (and thus feel alright about the bans and not feel like they could be the next at any moment)

2. If it's supposed to be something private, how about, idk, summarizing it, or explaining the situation a little more than "and we're done here" and "underage", especially with sources that may or may not disappear, or simply aren't available to the large majority of users?

3. I'm not talking about legitimate reasons for bans (and I'd like to mention rather extreme in this case, which isn't comparable to the issue being brought up)

4. Lack of transparency in management is proportionally equal to the amount of administrative abuse in most realistic cases. That's just how people will perceive it.

KiraNoot said:
The account was repeatedly compromised, and used to create large problems and involved cleanup effort. They were told they needed to ensure that their account was secured properly before they could come back. The user failed to secure their account multiple times, and it was used to create problems, so they lost it.

I appreciate you explaining the situation, and I understand where the ban came from at this point.

I'd only say prehaps next time say something like that in the reason especially on perma-bans so you don't have to "clean up" after the concerns. Just saying. I think you can understand with so many people criticizing your use of bans (on and off the platform) that maybe you guys should be putting more effort into making the bans clear to the public.

furryMaxime said:

Latest example that was the straw that broke the camel's back:
This person isn't and has never been underage (aka under 18) since joining the site as per shown birth date:

The last comment ChicagoBears made stated, and I quote, "but there are a few users who have put someone like me who has a lot of anxiety, is barely passing through his last year of high school". The comment was made December 29, 2018. If he was really born in during November 1999 he would have been 19 at the time of writing that. However, the school year in the US traditionally starts during August or September, so he would have just started the last year, at 19 years of age.
While certainly possible with health related issues, this is a very suspicious sentence, and since we're legally required to keep children out we've decided to err on the side of caution.
Further, if he'd actually be of age he can always appeal the ban and we'll reinstate his account.

furryMaxime said:
https://e621.net/user/show/321932
If something else happened, it isn't documented and thus looks real bad.

I can see this user has a history with bad tagging practices, but this last one is straight up undocumented, just showing up as "compromised, again.": https://e621.net/user/show/233194

As Kira already said, DelurC has had plenty of private talking to in my emails where we told him his tools are being used to wreak havoc and he did nothing to properly fix it. At some point he posted his password in plain text to our forum, and subsequently his account got used to post bestiality porn.

Obviously we don't leave that on our servers (thus it's destroyed and all records of it have been purged) as well as that I will not publish emails.
On the same note, until a few months back deleting a record from a user's account also deleted all entries of the record being issued, this is something that no longer happens, but we couldn't retroactively restore them for older deletions. Nowadays if a record is deleted the record creation action is still there, and contains a full copy of the initial text of the record. This was done to both help with transparency, as well as help us keep our papertrail in order.

furryMaxime said:
There's also the issue of many of the sources for negative strikes on accounts being put private, or being deleted, I assume. That means that most of the times if you look into it, nothing is even readily available to prove them.

A lot of it looks and sounds suspicious, especially with the recent-ish rumors (and, well, sadly, proof) of power abuse and unfair bans going around.

I believe you're mostly referring to records Millcore has made, and I'm to blame for that. I didn't make it clear enough that the only times we hide comments are when they're containing illegal things, or entirely egregious harassment or insults towards other people, or things like threats of murder. This should no longer happen, though, unless any of the aforementioned shows up.
If you saw the record I gave to Daenesaur recently, he actually hid the comment himself, but I do not tolerate harassment towards other people, even if someone tries to hide the evidence.

Other than that, many times we get to use harassment against staff it happens in dmails or emails, by nature those aren't public and can't be seen by users. This is something I wouldn't know how to solve, we could provide quotes, but that's not really useful for proof.

If we really wanted to ban people just because we want to, we could just disable the ability for the public to see records and ban reasons, like some sites(eg a site that begins with f and ends with y and is furry centric).

NotMeNotYou said:
The last comment ChicagoBears made stated, and I quote, "but there are a few users who have put someone like me who has a lot of anxiety, is barely passing through his last year of high school". The comment was made December 29, 2018. If he was really born in during November 1999 he would have been 19 at the time of writing that. However, the school year in the US traditionally starts during August or September, so he would have just started the last year, at 19 years of age.
While certainly possible with health related issues, this is a very suspicious sentence, and since we're legally required to keep children out we've decided to err on the side of caution.
Further, if he'd actually be of age he can always appeal the ban and we'll reinstate his account.

There is also this where he writes he's 17
https://e621.net/blip/show/87207