Someone With High Negative Influences Should Be Banned

[James Hiddle]

Members who have extremely high negative influences should be banned. If you have that high of negative influences that shows us you have no respect for the rules which in turn shoots your credibility down the tubes. Why should anyone trust anyone with that high of negative influences if you have no respect for the rules.

Therefore those who continue to break the rules should be banned just my opinion.

[Jon Holdman]

Most of the folks who get banned are pure spammers. Two main flavors. Some folks just have something they're advertising. They join and post a bunch of ads, often identical. The other flavor are SEO (search engine optimization) people who post a bunch of links with the hope of raising the ratings of those pages. We delete all their posts. At 50 points for each deletion, its pretty easy to be way in the hole very quickly.

Once in a while, though, somebody does that then realizes they really do want to participate. Those are the ones you actually notice. The ones that spam the boards, get their posts deleted, then go away are never seen.

I'm inclined to give someone the benefit of the doubt. Even Rich notes he hadn't actually read the full rules until recently. So, if someone digs them self a hole when they first join, but then behave and contribute, why should they be banned.