What is "(banished: ID 421968)"

One rule around here is that we are not allowed to discuss Moderator actions publicly. If a poster has broken the rules in some way, then they can be banished from posting for certain amounts of time, depending upon the severity of the misdemeanor.

No problem my friend, i have sent you a pm.

When a user is banned, their account handle on the forums changes to (banished: ID xxxxx) where xxxxx = their SETI@Home account number. During the course of the ban all of the user's posts are hidden, so any threads they have started appears to have a different thread author because the original thread author's post was hidden.

The reason for this is because in the past, when some people have a meltdown, they had a tendency to litter the forums with various flames or other unacceptable posts. Also, there has been issues with spammers posting over in the Help forums where the minimum required RAC to post is zero, and some script kiddies have figured out ways to have a bot post dozens of spam messages advertising their wares.

In either case, by hiding all posts this allows the moderators a chance to hide any content that is not acceptable for our forums. Any posts that are not in violation will re-appear once the banned user is allowed back.

And don't worry about discussing moderator actions. The only rule is to not discuss specific moderator actions in public. We have an email list setup so that anyone with a specific complaint can email the entire team of Mods to be reviewed. The Mods will discuss the merits of the complaint and decide upon an appropriate action, if any.


Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this. There may have been other people that were wondering the same thing you were but were afraid to ask.

-Fred
SETI Forums Admin

Thanks Fred, a very helpful and informative reply, which will be useful to many people.

When a user is banned, their account handle on the forums changes to (banished: ID xxxxx) where xxxxx = their SETI@Home account number. During the course of the ban all of the user's posts are hidden, so any threads they have started appears to have a different thread author because the original thread author's post was hidden.

The reason for this is because in the past, when some people have a meltdown, they had a tendency to litter the forums with various flames or other unacceptable posts. Also, there has been issues with spammers posting over in the Help forums where the minimum required RAC to post is zero, and some script kiddies have figured out ways to have a bot post dozens of spam messages advertising their wares.

In either case, by hiding all posts this allows the moderators a chance to hide any content that is not acceptable for our forums. Any posts that are not in violation will re-appear once the banned user is allowed back.

And don't worry about discussing moderator actions. The only rule is to not discuss specific moderator actions in public. We have an email list setup so that anyone with a specific complaint can email the entire team of Mods to be reviewed. The Mods will discuss the merits of the complaint and decide upon an appropriate action, if any.


Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this. There may have been other people that were wondering the same thing you were but were afraid to ask.

-Fred
SETI Forums Admin

In this case where multiple threads are by the one banished ID, it is (obviously) a prolific poster that has been "banished".

In this case where multiple threads are by the one banished ID, it is (obviously) a prolific poster that has been "banished".

Yes. When said "prolific poster" returns, perhaps he can be encouraged to group his future posts into 2 or 3 longer, journal-style threads. I have seen this work well in other settings.