A Day in the Penalty Box
Are you familiar with the Penalty Box?
The penalty box (sometimes called the sin bin, bad box, or bin) is the area in ice hockey, rugby football and some other sports where a player sits to serve the time of a given penalty, for an offense not severe enough to merit outright expulsion from the contest. Teams are generally not allowed to replace players who have been sent to the penalty box.
It’s not something we looked forward to, but as of tonight, we’re instituting a penalty box on Stack Overflow.
Our general strategy is to discourage specific problem behaviors, not individual users. But sometimes you just can’t seem to reach people, and it becomes necessary to place accounts in timed suspension.
When users exhibit a pattern of either …
No effort to learn and improve over time
-
This user does not put reasonable effort into the questions they ask of the community.
-
There is little or no evidence of this user learning over time, either in the topic itself or in the community norms on the site.
-
This user intentionally spams the site with the same question or very similar questions, over and over.
- The user never gives anything back to the community, but only takes.
Disruptive behavior
-
Other users tend to react poorly to this user’s contributions, posting negative responses in kind and generally causing a commotion.
-
There is a broad sense of community resentment over this user’s behavior, and they are frequently cited in discussion about the community.
-
There is a dark storm cloud of moderator flags that seems to follow this user around wherever they go.
-
The moderators get email complaints about this user’s behavior.
- This user makes overtly snide, rude, or hostile comments to their fellow users.
… these problem behaviors have to be dealt with. When they aren’t, it takes up excessive moderator time that could be used for something more productive — and, even worse, these behaviors begin to actively turn people away from our community, stunting its growth and harming everyone.
So starting tonight, there will be consequences for patterns of problem behavior.
If we think you are reachable, and the behavior is one that we feel can change, we will try to warn you via email first when there are behavior problems — so that we can address them before they become deeper problems. But I make no guarantees; the community moderators are very, very busy and there are a lot of things that need their attention. The odds of moderators contacting you with a warning first will be in direct proportion to how much evidence you’ve given us that you are, in fact, a potentially valuable and contributing member of the community.
Depending on the severity of the problem behavior — and at the complete discretion of the moderator — your account will be placed in timed suspension for anywhere from 1 to 365 days. That means:
-
Your account will be locked at 1 reputation.
-
Your user page will have a visual indication that you are in timed suspension, and for how long.
- You will be unable to vote, ask, answer, or comment.
At the end of this timed suspension period, your reputation will be recalculated, and your account will resume as normal. We don’t hold grudges. The point of all this is to address the behavior. If the behavior improves, you are welcome back.
(This should probably go without saying, but if the problem behaviors do continue beyond the timed suspension, your account is very likely to be permanently deleted.)
28 Comments
too much days in penalty box for him http://stackoverflow.com/users/285587/your-common-sense LOL
I don’t think there is any, just shouldn’t passed over the border.
Can someone please let me know , what’s the exact reason for suspension of my account , I was recently started taking part in the community and I put my first question and within 15-20 days my account is suspended.
I was insulted by the some moderator, who removed all my technical comments, blocked and then deleted my posts, and killed my account. He and his friends did that for me posting a SQL Server Management Studio screenshot. And there was NOTHING done to punish him, what a shame, using your power against helpless users with no tools to protest.
Your Common Sense is one of the best authors on this site ever. His posts are of top quality, giving the best knowledge to users, with explanations. And he is banned… What can I say?
You could say just nothing if you think he’s a great author.
@Pavel While not knowing the exact reason for his suspension, good quality work does not prevent bad behavior. And as with any team, you rather have a team of good people working together than a single totally enthusiastic one-man show. Of course, it’s even better if you get a brilliant person to work alongside the rest of the team, but if a person does misbehave, his good work is no excuse for bad behavior. The current profile text of that account at least shows quite a sense of entitlement. Yes, I’m sure he did awesome work, but painting yourself as the single Marvel hero against all those bad foes, who in their mind may attempt to contribute as well, is a sign of a developing character/behavior problem.
I feel like no matter what I say mods think I did something wrong
Following a time suspension for 7 days, now my account (https://stackoverflow.com/users/5025009/serafeim) is again back. However, the reputation remains locked at 1. Why is that? The article states that the reputation is recalculated.
Why do I see a user that is suspended for almost 5 years, when this article says the possible suspension time is from 1 to 365 days?
please let me know, what is the exact reason for suspension of my account.
Well, SE right now is so bad. Even a one-time offense resulting in a suspension with no warning whatsoever. Quoting https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/391202/3654837. Supposedly warning firsthand then suspension. But yeah, right now they just throw suspension without warning.
My account was misused by someone else and it is locked. I have had 411 reputations and 11 badges but it now started with 1 reputation. Why is it so?
At what time today 2-8-2020 will my seven day suspension be lifted? Thank You
I got banned by engaging an individual who was condescending an unhelpful. He deleted his comments because they were indeed that: condescending, unhelpful, and agressive. The person that suspended my account very likely was the same person that I engaged.
In my opinion this is extremely unfair. I did not swear, I did not belittle the person. I gave this person milder treatment than this person gave me, and because this person (likely) has “mod powers” he/she can freely use those to punish those that get in his/her way.
I totally understand the need for moderators. I also don’t typically jump to “mod abuse”. All I am saying is please review this case @other mods, and make your independent judgement. If your judgement remains the same, then I understand. I will server my sentence. I believe strongly however that I really did not do anything wrong.
Please consider.
I answered a simple question. I am new to SU so before I posted, I checked whether naming free software to solve the OP problems and/or a URL link to wasn’t allowed or was frowned on. Nothing was mentioned in Helps. It was immediately down voted. I edited out any mention of what software was needed. I flagged it because I thought a moderator should look at it. They deleted my answer. I didn’t mind the down vote. Don’t mind the revised answer being deleted.
After discussing my options I decided to re-answer the question with the same revised answer gave earlier. Adding specifics about how the softare works to accomplish the OP’s goal, since they asked for that anyway.
I go to post and I’m informed I need to sign in. SO I did that using Google account, as I already use it here. But it signifies I’m a new user. Which I’m not. So what’s the penalty for?
It would be nice for some mods I know to chill in the penalty box…
I got suspended because I always have lots of likes and dislikes as I read through lots of posts on this site, and that means I am TARGETING other users? Seriously?
I understand your dilemma, as I too was suspended — most likely for my high levels of voting. Don’t worry about the accusations for the reason your account was banned, as I believe the process might be automated — correct me if I’m wrong. I’m sure you are not really “targeting” other users and that everything is just a misunderstanding. As long as you explain the situation to the moderators, everything should go smoothly and your account will be restored.
I work very hard on my StackExchange account and was very surprised to see I was suspended — I had 1300 reputations. I feel as though my StackExchange community does not vote as much as they should, so I try to max out my votes each day to make the biggest imact on users who deserve an increased reputation. I believe the system for detecting odd behavior may have found my “excessive” voting unusual and suspended my account, but it is important to note that instances like this will happen and it is important to be open with the moderators, who will be more than willing to help fix the problem.
If your account has been suspended, do you lose the opportunity of becoming a moderator? My brother has an Arqade account, and so do I, and I was suspended for having a sockpuppet, when in reality, it was my brother’s account. Now, his account has been removed, and he is very upset.
No, you do not, you can nominate yourself again to become moderator after 1 year. In fact, there are cases of users becoming moderator even when their account has been suspended once.
I don’t understand what’s problem cause the issue on my account. I just answered one question about testing canvas tool, I introduced one. Is it a problem? Please pay attention, the question is to ask a tool, it didn’t limit the scope.
I just got immediately re-banned for a full year. The mods say I’ve been doing the same behavior – excessive low-quality-posts, non-edits, etc.
But I think the mods were anticipating. I only made one not-well-received answer, one question that was closed as a duplicate, and only one suggested edit that I actually DID make an honest attempt to improve but was still rejected by a moderator.
I was very annoyed when I had my previous ban – but I just got re-banned immediately after I returned for a strange reason.
Please, I honestly DID try to do my best this time. Although I may have made some mistakes, I still want another chance. Please, I need my ban to be lifted.
Thanks!
I just got immediately re-banned for a full year. The mods say I’ve been doing the same behavior – excessive low-quality-posts, non-edits, etc.
But I think the mods were anticipating. I only made one not-well-received answer, one question that was closed as a duplicate, and only one suggested edit that I actually DID make an honest attempt to improve but was still rejected by a moderator.
I was very annoyed when I had my previous ban – but I just got re-banned immediately after I returned for a strange reason.
Please, I honestly DID try to do my best this time. Although I may have made some mistakes, I still want another chance. Please, I need my ban to be lifted.
Thanks!
Why my account has been suspended for 60 days? What is major reason behind doing such an unfair decision to me?
Hello, A user called Adjan (https://stackoverflow.com/users/1447296/adjan) has been on a spree of down-voting posts for no apparent reason without comment or feedback. Can you please look into this? I have filed a complaint, but nobody has gotten back to me yet. Thank you
365 days in the “Penalty Box” is far from interpretation of “A Day in the Penalty Box”