Quote: MichaelBluejayYeah, that's the idea. Public shaming for forum infractions feels awkward to me, like it's grade school or something. It also makes the forum feel policed, even if the police action is completely justified. Suspending members quietly and privately would allow them to save some face and not make the rank-and-file members (the overwhelming majority of whom aren't subject to punishments) constantly feel that someone is watching over what they say..
Ah, a secret police idea. Take people away
and punish them without anybody knowing
about it. An old and very effective idea used
with great success in totalitarian states
such as Germany in the WWII era, and
later in the Soviet Union.
Quote: RSThen all the nonsense 1BB was always complaining about would not have been as funny. That would have been depriving this whole forum of 99.17% of 1BB's hilarious/psychotic Fanta.
EDIT: rants* not Fanta. Darn phone!

Psychotic Fanta indeed:-)
1) The name would be in red so the people will know anyway
2) If it is a valued member there would be gossip about what or how it happened
3) If it's a newb people won't notice
Quote: MichaelBluejayYeah, that's the idea. Public shaming for forum infractions feels awkward to me, like it's grade school or something. It also makes the forum feel policed, even if the police action is completely justified. Suspending members quietly and privately would allow them to save some face and not make the rank-and-file members (the overwhelming majority of whom aren't subject to punishments) constantly feel that someone is watching over what they say.
Quote: Gabes22This would work in two ways.
1) The name would be in red so the people will know anyway
2) If it is a valued member there would be gossip about what or how it happened
3) If it's a newb people won't notice
First, the forum is supposed to feel policed.
Second, we didn't have a suspension list for the first year or so. What happened is exactly what Gabes wrote, there was all kinds of gossip all over the forum about who was suspended and for what reason. So I created the Suspension List for two reasons:
1. So the mods would have a record of past suspensions, to keep track of habitual offenders.
2. To end the gossip and have a public record of who was being suspended for what and for how long.
I didn't expect this list to get so much attention but it did. There was so much discussion about every new suspension that I created the "discussion" thread to keep it all in one place.
If public shaming smacks of grade school, then so be it. I personally favor public shaming for real crimes.
Anyway, I like the way we do it.
Time out for you; bad kitty!
Shame!

Quote: EvenBobAh, a secret police idea. Take people away
and punish them without anybody knowing
about it. An old and very effective idea used
with great success in totalitarian states
such as Germany in the WWII era, and
later in the Soviet Union.
I guess being deprived of chiming in here because of hostile character assassinations would be some sort of egregious violation of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, eh? Or is it to be deprived of public floggings? (approaching Godwin's law here...)
Call it discreet police instead of secret police in this case.
Quote: MrVOh no, not the hamster!
Time out for you; bad kitty!
Shame!
Why did this make me chuckle. It is not funny. Still laughing damn it.