Banned from Stack Exchange

[peterdavidcarter]

So, like, how many of you have been banned from Stack Exchange sites, and which ones, and why, and how long for?

[Weeks]

Just tell us your amazing story if that's what you want to do.

[peterdavidcarter]

Which amazing stories? True ones or the part-fiction? Do you feel there was a story behind the post, or a genuine question, or a bit of both?

[Xanthir]

Your other posts brag about being banned from a bunch of software communites, so presumably you're an edgelord who's proud of your ability to chan at people who don't give a shit.

We don't actually care about your banning stories, because banning stories are all the same ("I was a jackass and they banned me for it").

[teelo]

If it helps, I was banned from Miiverse for posting "PM if you want a 6IV Ditto".

Apparently "PM" is an obscure acronym for some 3DS hacking program.

[somitomi]

We don't actually care about your banning stories, because banning stories are all the same ("I was a jackass and they banned me for it").

There's an exception to every rule. I was once banned from a vinyl forum because the admin just decided the site would no longer be available from my region.

[SecondTalon]

The simplified banning story.

"Someone was an asshole and I got banned"

[sardia]

The simplified banning story.

"Someone was an asshole and I got banned"

Would you prefer the story "Someone was not an asshole and I got banned"?

[Clix]

The simplified banning story.

"Someone was an asshole and I got banned"

Would you prefer the story "Someone was not an asshole and I got banned"?

How about "I was a self-righteous asshole and I got banned?" (an autobiography)

[teelo]

How about "the DB glitched and banned everyone"?

[New User]

If it helps, I was banned from Miiverse for posting "PM if you want a 6IV Ditto".

Apparently "PM" is an obscure acronym for some 3DS hacking program.

If it's the PM I know about, it's actually a hack for a single game on Wii, which is a console that even Nintendo has left in the past. Unless there is a way to activate the hack in "Wii mode" on the Wii U, which I suppose could be possible. Also, talking about hacks and stuff is taboo around here as well, so I'll shut up about it, but just wanted to point out that it's getting a little absurd if they auto ban people for some obscure acronym for a hack for a single game for a console that's generations in the past at this point, and especially so since PM has meant "Private Message" for some years now and is extremely common as an acronym on any kind of text messaging system, such as Miiverse.

And then I was banned from a forum or something.

[SecondTalon]

Hacks? Like, modding your consoles firmware?

You can talk about it. I'd prefer you not go in to detail about how it's done, but it's fine to talk about it being a thing that is possible.

Same with ROMs really. Leave the names of the player out of the story and, as long as it's relevant, talk all you want.

What I'd rather not see is links to places telling you how to do it, or proper names of the players and whatever.

And, of course, if someone asks if they should buy a console game and your answer is "just download the ROM" then I'm tempted to ban you for being an unhelpful jackass, because at that point you're like the fucknozzles who reply to all Windows and MAC issues with "download Linux"

At any rate, while there were two stories of others being assholes (one of which was the forum itself being an asshole) I want to hear sardia's tale of no one being an asshole but banning happening.

[commodorejohn]

The only ban stories worth telling are the ones where someone ends up naked with an emu in a subway station.

[New User]

Yeah. The point is that PM is a hack for a single game only. PM is extremely popular, as far as video game hacks go, which means it's very obscure to most of the general public and nowhere near as popular as Nintendo's official products are. Furthermore, the use of the term "PM" on Miiverse to refer to this single, old game that can have this specific hack applied to it is presumably insignificant to other possible uses of the term "PM". It's actually embarrassing to think that Nintendo feels so threatened by the existence of PM that they must instantly auto ban anyone who uses that acronym on Miiverse, for fear that the hack will become more popular and more players will want to modify their game with files not officially sanctioned by Nintendo, just to play another version of an old game that only interests a very dedicated, but relatively small, community of diehard fans. To illustrate the absurdity even more, since applying this hack involves downloading files, arranging them in a specific way onto an SD card, and then going through a very specific set of steps to force the Wii to run the files from the SD card, I think that anyone who can figure out how to install PM can recognize a better place to discuss it besides Miiverse, such as the fan-run websites entirely dedicated to that particular game and PM itself.

[Thesh]

They are corporate forums. It's not about being rational, it's about the business wanting 100% control of the hardware so they can maximize profits, since profit margins on software increase with time while with hardware it ends the instant your unit is sold. It's basically the consumer-side version of the company store that all rent seekers are looking to introduce (see phones, cloud, IOT) - get you to make a purchase, and then lock you into giving them money for everything you want to do with it and make it difficult to move away.

[New User]

I get that, but they are skirting dangerously close to the so-call Streisand effect with this. PM is both a common term used when telling time of day, and also a common abbreviation for Private Message, among other things (Phantom Menace if used in a Star Wars context, for example). While it might be more likely that Miiverse users would discuss a Nintendo hack instead of a Star Wars film, it still holds true that this hack is presumably quite obscure to the general Miiverse user. If a user makes a post concerning trading of Pokemon, such as teelo did, or if a post such as, "The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD was so fun that I just couldn't stop playing until 11:30 PM last night!" and those users are suddenly banned, they are going to research the reason for the ban. Then they'll discover the PM hack. Then they might indeed think, "this looks cool. I'll give it a try. It's unofficial, but it's free, and my old Wii is just sitting in my closet collecting dust anyway. Might as well get some use out of the old thing." So they look into modding their firmware (not strictly necessary to run PM, but every website about PM will likely include instructions on how to do it as well), and they just might discover the world of unofficial mods for Nintendo products. At the very least, even if they aren't actually interested in installing and using PM for themselves, they might at least be inclined to mention the ban in another discussion, such as on facebook, or on a webcomic's fan forum, for example. And that mention might snowball into a discussion about the PM hack. And that discussion will be read by other users, such as on this hypothetical webcomic's fan forum. And some of those users will then be exposed to the existence of PM, and might be intrigued enough to try it, or at least to mention it in another discussion, therefor spreading the word.

I think if Nintendo just ignored the PM thing, it would attract less attention to a product that they wish didn't exist. I get that there might be certain terms they don't want mentioned, but PM is merely an abbreviation for the actual name of this hack. And the term "PM" can be used for many more things, some of which might actually be beneficial to Nintendo. Banning users from their discussion forums isn't helping them any more than banning the use of the term, because that just means less users to discuss actual Nintendo products (such as teelo who was attempting to discuss Pokemon, and also inviting more users to use Miiverse (via Private Message), both of which are official Nintendo products).

[somitomi]

At any rate, while there were two stories of others being assholes (one of which was the forum itself being an asshole) I want to hear sardia's tale of no one being an asshole but banning happening.

That's something I'd like to hear as well.

Spoiler:

fucknozzles

For reasons unknown, I find this word absolutely hilarious.

[Sheikh al-Majaneen]

The only ban stories worth telling are the ones where someone ends up naked with an emu in a subway station.

If you have one of those, the world needs to know. All the details.

[teelo]

@New User, yeah some of their bans are amusingly absurd. I first read about the "banned for posting PM" thing when browsing peoples Miiverse ban logs.

I know people got banned for mentioning the time because Nintendo thought that by PM they were talking about a certain Brawl mod, and not, you know, any time during the 12-hour period from noon to midnight.

The one right below it, though, particularly amuses me, being a Pokemon fan and all:

Soon after ORAS were released, someone asked about Hoopa, and I replied by saying that it wasn't available yet.
I got banned for 24h, presumably because this was before Hoopa was officially revealed, but still.

Lots of the reports in that thread are people who genuinely deserved it, though. Swearing and stuff.

E: Although banning people for replying to someone who actually broke a rule is a bit weird. Blizzard tend to be over-the-top moderators but even they usually don't forum ban for quoting a rule-breaking post.

[Carlington]

Sounds to me like a variation on the Scunthorpe Problem.

[teelo]

Essentially, yeah.

An amusing example of that one from the World of Warcraft forums: they censor the word "rape". Not surprising. They censor lots of words. Their forum package supports the ability to link in-game items on the forums. For a long time, linking items such as [Drape of Cruelty] would display the item as [D$^#@ of Cruelty]. Yup.

[somitomi]

Essentially, yeah.

An amusing example of that one from the World of Warcraft forums: they censor the word "rape". Not surprising. They censor lots of words. Their forum package supports the ability to link in-game items on the forums. For a long time, linking items such as [Drape of Cruelty] would display the item as [D$^#@ of Cruelty]. Yup.

Similar example: I once saw wristwatch censored by some automated process. Took me a while to find the objectionable word hidden in it.

[karhell]

Even more perplexing when said objectionable word is not even in the language you're using. I remember spending an incredible amount of time a few years back explaining to my guildmates why on earth the word "douche" was censored (playing on a server dedicated to France, where said word pretty much exclusively means "shower").

[Soupspoon]

It's probably a default COLOREDlist being miRELATIONSpressed by the filter's BOTTOMysis, meaning all potentially offensive and BREASTilating substrings in English are BOTTOMumed as already needing to be banned.

[wumpus]

Essentially, yeah.

An amusing example of that one from the World of Warcraft forums: they censor the word "rape". Not surprising. They censor lots of words. Their forum package supports the ability to link in-game items on the forums. For a long time, linking items such as [Drape of Cruelty] would display the item as [D$^#@ of Cruelty]. Yup.

I'm pretty sure Dungeons and Dragons Online censored its own bastard swords (this is worse because [I think, wasn't there] they were the best you could get during initial release [only supported levels 1-10 or so]).

[Moonythedwarf]

How about (SS13 Paradise) 'The stickyban system went haywire and banned everyone'

It happens to me a lot.

[Flintstone]

One day, I just lost the ability to log into stack exchange. I don't know why, it just decided to not accept my account. Didn't say I was banned.

[monkey3]

That site is a bit difficult to use first time , so much automated stuffs happening like the questions don't meet the required standard etc etc .But i kind of like it after few months of messing around

[heuristically_alone]

Back in the day after I got tired of my Club Penguin account and deciding I wouldn't play any more, I walked around telling yo mama jokes until I got banned. Only time I've ever been banned in my life.

[4=5]

I got kicked for 24 hours for requesting that another user be banned for consistently posting cliche fanfiction ideas.

[Mo0man]

It's a little fascinating to me that the one who posted this thread in the first place never even posted their story.

I mean come on!

[Mutex]

Having kept us waiting this long, whatever it was could only be a disappointment after this much hype. It would be like Half Life 3.

[somitomi]

It's a little fascinating to me that the one who posted this thread in the first place never even posted their story.

I mean come on!

And we didn't get to read sardia's story either. Honestly I'm more interested in that one.

[flicky1991]

Since it's relevant to parts of this thread: Miiverse is closing on 8 November. So now we'll all be banned!

[K-R]

It's a little fascinating to me that the one who posted this thread in the first place never even posted their story.

I mean come on!

And we didn't get to read sardia's story either. Honestly I'm more interested in that one.

Does it exist? I read it as a hypothetical.

[somitomi]

Does it exist? I read it as a hypothetical.

I do hope it does.

Miiverse is closing on 8 November. So now we'll all be banned!

Not me, I don't have a Miiverse account.