Back on reddit, I used to do a monthly roundup of bans. I haven't since moving here, but I had some time today, so here are the bans from approximately the last month. Unfortunately, there is still no automated way to collect these, as far as I know, so whether I will continue to do this depends entirely on whether I have the time and I feel like it.
Inevitably people will want to argue whether this or that ban was justified. I don't really care if anyone thinks a ban was unjustified (especially if it's the person who was banned). We do take user sentiment into account, but that means we let the community decide what tone and direction they want the Motte to go, it doesn't mean that upvotes or downvotes in themselves tell us whether we should consider a comment or a ban decision good or not. I suggest people read (or reread, if you never have), the community sentiment section of the rules.
That said, the "Motte help" feature (where you get to volunteer to vote on whether a comment was good or not) does guide us somewhat. Speaking for myself, if a comment has been reported, and I am on the fence about modding it or not, a strong consensus that it's "not bad" will usually persuade me to let it go, while a collective judgment that it's "bad" will usually convince me to mod it without hesitation. I do not always go along with the volunteers' judgment (sometimes a comment is very blatantly violating rules, and sometimes it clearly is not, it's just a very unpopular opinion), but I definitely take it into account. Other mods can speak for themselves about how it influences their judgment.
Behind the scenes, we still have a fair number of trolls and very persistent sockpuppets. You have no idea how much stuff gets nuked before you see it. This isn't even counting the usual spam (which is also constant).
I would also like to make a plea of my own which will probably be ignored: Stop using the report feature to say "I don't like this."
Some of you (you know who you are) use the report feature constantly. Anyone who expresses an opinion you disagree with, anyone who makes a comment that's just a teeny tiny bit sharp in tone (and expresses an opinion you disagree with), anyone who argues with an opinion you agree with. There are certain people who when I see a report was submitted by That Guy again, I almost automatically dismiss it because I know with 99% certainty it will be another case of "someone said something he didn't like." If the report button is just your way of expressing frustration, whatever, but it doesn't actually work as a super-downvote button. Some people also use the report button to express their frustration in more visceral terms (e.g., namecalling, sneering, taking cheap shots that only the mods will see). That just puts you in the "Ignore this guy's reports" bucket too.
The Bans
@Amadan banned @Goodguy for 7 days
@netstack permabanned @you-get-an-upvote by request
@Amadan banned @No_one for 7 days
@naraburns banned @ok-target-7361 for 1 day
@netstack banned @pusher_robot for 1 day
@Amadan banned @Who_Cares for 3 days, extended to permaban after escalation in DMs
@Amadan banned @ok-target-7361 - duration, permanent
@Amadan banned @AvocadoPanic for 3 days
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Notes -
What’s the shortest amount of time you can ban someone?
Well, theoretically I could ban you and then unban you 1 minute later.
But 1 day is the lowest setting.
Fractional bans work! I did it once when I accidentally submitted a permanent with reason ”3” instead of a 3 day ban. I caught it after a few hours, and replaced it with a 2.7 hour ban for time served.
So I guess it could be arbitrarily short.
I would assume that's a product of the same thing that causes Excel to format time durations, and times themselves, as fractions of a day: seconds divided by 86400.
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Hah. I didn't know that. TIL.
Personally I doubt I'd ever bother banning someone for less than 1 day.
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