Hiccupx:
It may sometimes seem that we don't take abuse reports and disruptive members seriously, but to give you an idea of how hard the moderators work, here's our stats for the past week (from 29th Jan to now):
Notes: 3
Warnings: 5
1 day suspensions: 2
1 week suspensions: 1
Permanent bans: 7
IP address bans: 12
IP address bans are usually for trolls, scammers and spammers that have no interest in the site other than to cause disruption or to get what they can from it. We have very strict sign-up checks that stop most of these at the door but for those that do get through we usually pick these up in a day or two.
Permanent bans are for members that may have some interest but have repeatedly broken the rules, usually by scamming or harassing other members or by persistent begging and advertising. These bans prevent people from signing-up by they can still view the site in a limited way as a guest.
The notes, warnings and suspensions are just for members who do have an interest in the site but play up occasionally, for instance may need a day off to cool off after an argument in chat.
Overall, we try to be as tolerant as we can of everybody, because it's not good for the community to ban lots of people. This means having to put up with some minor grievances, arguments and disruptions from otherwise good people just as you would in 'real' off-line life.
However I take your point about improving the reporting feature. Adding the ability to upload screenshots would be really useful because so often it's just one person's word against another. Thanks for the suggestion.
I don't think anyone expects you to wield the ban hammer and take out people we don't like. That's a very good way to dissolve a community overnight.
Instead, we ask you to revisit how this site handles the more egregious offenses like stalking, sexual harassment, and other things that make your user base feel unsafe.
Not only that, but we would also like to know how you plan on lessening such behavior in the future. You said, "it's not good for the community to ban lots of people." This implies that there is a sizeable portion of this community that regularly commits egregious offenses.
If this is the case, this also implies that, unintentionally, there's a culture that either fosters such behavior. Naturally, we all understand that there's only so much anyone can do about someone else's behavior. However, since you are the site owner, it would put many people at ease to know what your plans are to minimize this going forward.
