Ive seen old threads were people are apparently banned because their avatar section has "banned" across it. I'm trying to grasp how people on a fish based forum get banned??
Asking for a friend
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Answer-
There's three main ways to get the boot.
1- Spam bots. Either they register and somehow slip through our filter and get in, or they password hijack old, dormant accounts and start spamming into the forum from them. There is a "spam cleaner" tool that allows us to remove said content with the option of banning the account. There has been times when I've restored accounts after the fact, but someone reaching out to ask why when they've been banned for being hijack hijacked six or seven years after their last legitimate activity is rare.
2- Noobs who run their mouth, clearly have no idea what they're talking about, and refuse to accept correction to the point that they're aggressively defending themselves. MFK is fish based and fact based. These folks, while often possessing the passion we're looking for, are so deep in the Dunning-Kruger valley that they have no clue how much they don't know. I appreciate the enthusiasm about fish, but they fail to meet the fact-based criteria of the forum. Everyone wants to be a hotshot YouTuber, but while you can trick people on FB and YT into thinking you know what you're talking about, you can't BS a MFKer. I have a very light hand with these folks as more often than not they can be reformed into productive and passionate members of our community.
3- Political or politicized content and other TOS violating content. From late 2018 into about September 2019 there was basically a civil war on MFK with two groups of people who wanted to talk about things that can't be discussed on Facebook on MFK, and they absolutely wanted each other's blood. It was a giant pain in the butt for the staff, and was the single handed impetus for me expanding the leadership: I couldn't do it all by myself anymore.
The reason we don't want political or politicized content here is because we are here to talk about fish, not about stuff that make people angry at each other. Given that you can be best FISH buddies with somebody who has completely opposite opinions on things such as guns, presidential candidates, and religion far more easily if you don't know their stance on such things; and given that over the past decade, MFK has proven beyond any shuttle of a doubt that it is not capable of having reasonable discussions on such manners, the leadership team decided to just ban the discussion of such subjects on the forum. Those discussions have proven to be more trouble than they're worth. (I'm aware that such things are being discussed very low-key at this time, but so long as it stays that way, I'll allow it to continue; intent of the rule, not the letter of it).
Several people from both factions of that civil war have now been banned or placed on probation which has resulted in their rage quitting the forum.
Those people on both sides of that civil War who are now engaging with civility are under my protection, and will not be called out for their actions during that time under pain of removal from the community. This is not negotiable, these individuals have behaved in good faith, and I will protect them. Past transgressions have been forgiven. Those of you for whom that applies that may be reading this, thank you for your good faith and your continual support of the Terms of Service.
At this point I am going to close this thread for a couple of hours, so that the community can read my reply. I will also place a copy of this comment in the OP for ease of discovery. My take on this is authoritative, so there is no need for speculative discussions on the matter for the time being. Once such time has passed so as to allow for the majority of people in this thread to have read my reply, I will reopen this thread to allow for continued discussion.
Thank you.
Asking for a friend
==============
Answer-
There's three main ways to get the boot.
1- Spam bots. Either they register and somehow slip through our filter and get in, or they password hijack old, dormant accounts and start spamming into the forum from them. There is a "spam cleaner" tool that allows us to remove said content with the option of banning the account. There has been times when I've restored accounts after the fact, but someone reaching out to ask why when they've been banned for being hijack hijacked six or seven years after their last legitimate activity is rare.
2- Noobs who run their mouth, clearly have no idea what they're talking about, and refuse to accept correction to the point that they're aggressively defending themselves. MFK is fish based and fact based. These folks, while often possessing the passion we're looking for, are so deep in the Dunning-Kruger valley that they have no clue how much they don't know. I appreciate the enthusiasm about fish, but they fail to meet the fact-based criteria of the forum. Everyone wants to be a hotshot YouTuber, but while you can trick people on FB and YT into thinking you know what you're talking about, you can't BS a MFKer. I have a very light hand with these folks as more often than not they can be reformed into productive and passionate members of our community.
3- Political or politicized content and other TOS violating content. From late 2018 into about September 2019 there was basically a civil war on MFK with two groups of people who wanted to talk about things that can't be discussed on Facebook on MFK, and they absolutely wanted each other's blood. It was a giant pain in the butt for the staff, and was the single handed impetus for me expanding the leadership: I couldn't do it all by myself anymore.
The reason we don't want political or politicized content here is because we are here to talk about fish, not about stuff that make people angry at each other. Given that you can be best FISH buddies with somebody who has completely opposite opinions on things such as guns, presidential candidates, and religion far more easily if you don't know their stance on such things; and given that over the past decade, MFK has proven beyond any shuttle of a doubt that it is not capable of having reasonable discussions on such manners, the leadership team decided to just ban the discussion of such subjects on the forum. Those discussions have proven to be more trouble than they're worth. (I'm aware that such things are being discussed very low-key at this time, but so long as it stays that way, I'll allow it to continue; intent of the rule, not the letter of it).
Several people from both factions of that civil war have now been banned or placed on probation which has resulted in their rage quitting the forum.
Those people on both sides of that civil War who are now engaging with civility are under my protection, and will not be called out for their actions during that time under pain of removal from the community. This is not negotiable, these individuals have behaved in good faith, and I will protect them. Past transgressions have been forgiven. Those of you for whom that applies that may be reading this, thank you for your good faith and your continual support of the Terms of Service.
At this point I am going to close this thread for a couple of hours, so that the community can read my reply. I will also place a copy of this comment in the OP for ease of discovery. My take on this is authoritative, so there is no need for speculative discussions on the matter for the time being. Once such time has passed so as to allow for the majority of people in this thread to have read my reply, I will reopen this thread to allow for continued discussion.
Thank you.
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