This is a bit of a rocky subject but I think it should be brought up for us all to have a say. Recently a member got banned, I don't know what exactly happened but it involved the chat room and PM's. I always think its a bad idea to ban any member on a support site for any reason other than them being a troll because it means that they cant get any support and also they can't support any other people. What if they're the only person on at the time someone posts a suicidal post and they could be the one there for that person. Also, maybe they are in a really angry mood at the time they come on here to vent and say some things they shouldn't (most people do that, we're human) then they get banned. And getting banned could be the icing on the cake and could make them do something that they shouldn't do. Anyways, thats just my opinion.
The member in question (who I will not name) was booted (temporarily banned) from the chatroom for continually being disruptive in there despite several requests by the two chatroom mods present to desist. The member then sent very abusive PMs to several mods requesting account deletion. At this point we did not delete the account because that is permanent. Instead the member was banned because a ban can be reversed. The member then signed up again with a different account claiming, incorrectly, to be a relative. It was obviously fake due to the same IP address despite allegedly living hundreds of miles apart, and had the exact same writing style. This new account was banned. One of the moderators (not someone who had been involved in the initial incident) sent several emails to try to resolve the situation, but received just one very brief response. After a few days an ultimatum was set whereby the member had 24 hours to respond, acknowledge the problems and apologise for the abusive comments or the account would be deleted. Again a brief reply acknowledging none of the points was received, so the account was deleted. This deletion was in line with the original abusive request, several days earlier. We spent over six days trying to resolve this issue, so the ban and deletion was not hasty. Also this member had been involved in several other problems in the chatroom over the last few months. The member name appeared far too often in the mods area, and had received several warnings and temporary chatroom bans. Further discussion about this particular incident is not appropriate, nor is posting or speculating on the name of the person concerned. Be assured that bans are rare and are always the very last option.
I'm not a chatroom moderator but do see some of the reasons that members get banned. Usually they are only temporary allowing everybody involved to have a cool down period. Your points are well-taken though. I'm sure the chat moderators can add to this as to the reason people get banned.
24 hours usually. That's how long an automatic temp chatroom ban lasts when someone is booted, and is the normal length of an initial forum ban on the rare occasions that we need to do one. We also attempt to make contact with the person by PM or email as appropriate straight away, and can lift the ban earlier if that's felt appropriate.
