[Larwee]

I have a lot of private message correspondence with members. Often this involves members who have done something they should not have done.

A number of times I've been told by members that they don't want to get banned and they wanted to know how to avoid being banned or what would cause a member to get banned.

I hate to ban members. I really wish it were possibly to never need to ban a member. However it is just something that must be done at times.

There are some situations where there is just no choice but to ban the member because the rules violation is serious and/or it is obvious that they just don't care and feel they can do anything they want no matter what the rules say. Spam posters would be one example.

Some communities are too stict and will ban members for the slightest violation of any rule. That may not be the best way to do things in every situation.

I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread that we don't use infractions and there are no automated bannings. We use human judgement and common sense.

If a member makes what is felt to be an honest mistake, even though it might be something that is against the rules, that doesn't mean the person will be banned. It depends on what was done. When possible we like to work with members to help them better understand the rules and what they should and shouldn't do so they can avoid making the same or similar mistakes in the future.

This doesn't mean that we allow members to get away with anything they want or that they can violate the rules and not receive warnings or get banned.

All that we ask is for our 5 Star members to try to do their very best to be good members and to be cooperative when informed that they have done something wrong. If you do these things and don't make any flagrant rules violations, you probably don't need to be too concerned about being banned.

But please don't test just to see how much you can get away with. You probably won't get very far.