spellraiser's Journal: Arrgh

Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner . If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email [e-mail] with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are "..." and "..." and (optionally, but preferably) your IP number "..." and your username "spellraiser".

It was bound to happen. I have been banned from AC posting a few times before, but this is the first time I have been banned from logged in posting.

Now, I have only one question. How, exactly, is 'excessive bad posting' defined? In my case, for instance, I never post 'badly' while logged in. This leaves the AC posts. These have been, in my opinion, few. I admit that I have sometimes posted AC attempts at first posts ... I mean, who hasn't? Then there is the odd sarcastic, mocking reply to a stupid comment which I'm too ashamed to leave in my user record.

I haven't been keeping an exact record of the number of these posts, but they are certainly not 'excessive'. Not by a long shot. Anyway, it's not like every single one of them has been modded down . Some of them have actually been modded up (This being the latest example thereof).

In short, I'm dumbfounded. These banning tactics are annoying and weird. What am I supposed to do ... stop posting anything that has even the remotest chance of being modded down?

UPDATE: Now that I think about it, it occurs to me that this ban might well be the result of me posting many comments that are moderated as Funny. Since this gives no Karma, and these comments are often moderated up and down before settling on their final score, perhaps the 'net value' of my moderations is negative, and this somehow triggers a ban. If this is true, then this is yet another reason for the Slashcoders to seriously reconsider the policy of not giving Karma for Funny moderations, which is in my view quite a ridiculous policy anyway. I know for a fact that it has led to a single post ruining the Karma of more than one user here.

Anyway, I'm just rambling here. I wish they would just come out and say what exactly triggered the ban ... I have sent a mail requesting this information. I can only hope I get a reply.

Good question

[nizo]

How, exactly, is 'excessive bad posting' defined?

This is the biggest mystery since the question was asked, "What is in Al Capone's vault?" It is vaguely tied to getting negative moderation, even if a comment ends up being positive after all is said and done. Sadly there seem to be a fairly large number of people who would rather rate something -1 Flamebait instead of posting a coherent response, so your goose is cooked if you end up with even a few people who slam down your comments. Take a look at grub's