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Between various and sundry mumblings in Site Feedback and a comment on my own profile asking "y u always get me banned?" I feel it is time to clear something up for th general populace, or at least those of it who read this journal. When people ask why something has been done to them or demand a better defense against something, they always skip over the initial action and go right to the reaction, which they have found terribly unsatisfactory. The solution to all these problems and questions is pretty simple: Follow the rules.

Yes, your best defense is indeed a good offense. If you haven't done anything that you're not supposed to, and that you agreed not to when you signed up for an account here, then there's nothing to fear. I'm not afraid of going to prison, for example, because I do not commit crimes. I do not fear police brutality or profiling or a serious miscarriage of justice because I don't break the law. Even if someone were to accuse me, my record would come up clean and I would go on my merry way, at worst mildly inconvenienced but generally unmolested. As one of the other drummers in the high school marching band would say, "Two words: don't ******** up." If a teenager who answers to Boner can grasp this concept and apply it to a field show and complex pieces of sheet music, then it can't be too difficult. If you don't want to get in trouble, don't do anything wrong. We link the rules at the bottom of every page, and have the easily accessible within every forum, plus you agreed to follow the rules the admins drew up when you registered for an account here. If you don't like the rules, well, you can either resign yourself or find a more amenable community-- the chans have no baseline for decency that I know of-- where you can act as you see fit. When it comes down to it, I don't think we ask for too much, but those in disagreement are free to vote with their feet and find a better place.

This talk of abuse of power or some kind of grudge is patently ridiculous. If you don't do anything bad, then you won't make anyone angry or attract negative attention. If you haven't attracted negative attention through misbehavior, then no one will notice you and mercilessly sentence you to death beneath the banhammer. I know plenty of users out there follow the rules, and even though you get the occasional good-faith error, they enjoy the community without any kind of reprimand. Why? Because they didn't do anything to get one, because they are positively contributing to the community. When someone asks, "Why did you get me banned?" they really need to be asking themselves. A staff member might take action against you, but you did something to warrant that action. If I've told you not to troll here, or to use the Chatterbox for spam, and you keep doing it, something more will happen because your behavior is making, say, Life Issues less enjoyable for other posters, which you well know because of your warnings. You got yourself banned, not me.

To sum up, if you don't want to get banned, don't do anything that would get you banned. We make that pretty clear in the ToS, and we make the ToS obnoxiously accessible. So read what you signed and stick to it, and we'll all be better for it.

EDIT: Since there is a need to make myself clearer, I will. Sometimes, there are giant waves of bans to contain botting, and innocent people get caught. Unfortunately, that's the best way to halt the bad effects of botting, and we'll always investigate ater the fact. It's a crappy way to handle things, but I can live with it begrudgingly as long as investigation goes on. Aside from that, there is one exception I have ever seen to this, and it's not the people demanding more defense. The people wanting more protection are trolls, antagonizers and negative forces in the community who know the policies "soooo well" because yeah, we've spoken to them about what they do. This is, in the main, directed at everyone in SF who has a rap sheet but thinks they should still be treated like a good, positive, dedicated user.