Modify ban workflow to make it informative and helpful

[Mouth]

When you ban a user (via outright ban, or warning action), the following happens:

• They may (via warning) or will not (via outright ban or warning) receive a conversation message. Irrelevant, since they cannot read the conversation whilst banned
• May (if they have chosen to receive emails for new conversations) or will not receive an email notification of the ban. And if they do receive an email, full message text may not be received since the board options may be not to send full message text with email notifications.
• When they visit the site, whilst banned, they are redirected to a 'ban page' that tells them they are restricted and banned, and may (if given during warning/ban process) be informed briefly why they were banned.

Overall, the workflow is very impersonal and very difficult to communicate reason or purpose to the user. It makes the ban process hostile and ill-informed from the outset, instead of an opportunity for learning and instruction. I propose an alternative workflow to make it the latter.
First, some configuration/functional changes:

• Add 3 user group permission for "View your personal conversations", "Reply to your personal conversations", and "Send Personal Conversation to Banned Users" This way, we can setup a 'Bannned Users' group, and enable banned users to still read existing conversations, but not reply to them or start new ones. We also ensure that only Mods or Admins can send conversations to banned users.
• Add 3 tickbox options to warning actions for "Send email notification", "Send email notification with full text", and "Send conversation".
• Add a tickbox on warning definitions of "Use within immediate bans", to allow you to select this when giving outright bans (see next point below)
• When giving an outright ban, in the pop-up add a dropdown value box to select a defined warning (or a custom option as per current functionality), as well as the same 3 tickboxes ("Send email notification" (as per this suggestion), "Send email notification with full text", and "Send conversation") for warning actions above.
• Update the 'ban page' (page auto redirected to when banned user visits site) to show length of ban (as per this suggestion). If the ban triggered a conversation, give a direct link to the conversation (assuming above suggestion to add user group permissions to view conversations when banned is implemented).
• Also on the 'ban page', if the ban was derived from a warning action due to accumulated points, show the list of warnings received (inc. dates) and the points for each that are the basis of the ban. Also link to the post for which the warning was received, if applicable.

So the workflow (for the banned user) thus becomes;

• Be able to read the conversation that contains the ban reason, but not reply to other conversations or start new conversations.
• Receive an email notification of the ban, with the full text of the ban reason (regardless of whether the site sends conversation full text as standard)
• See from the ban page when their ban expires, and also if it was due to points accumulation what were the warnings received that led to the ban

This then becomes a informational and learning opportunity for the ban recipient, and a much less hostile approach. If the site owners prefers the hostile approach, they can turn off these additional l functionality and still leave the process as it is now.

 

[Paul B]

This thread falls outside the guidelines for suggestions, which is:

Finally, please keep to one suggestion per thread. This allows us to more accurately gauge the response. Massive rollup threads don't help us know the specific ideas that people are interested in.

I have therefore moved it to the feedback forum, as with the thread related to the memberlist.

 

[trichome]

So the workflow (for the banned user) thus becomes;

• Be able to read the conversation that contains the ban reason, but not reply to other conversations or start new conversations.
• Receive an email notification of the ban, with the full text of the ban reason (regardless of whether the site sends conversation full text as standard)
• See from the ban page when their ban expires, and also if it was due to points accumulation what were the warnings received that led to the ban

It would definitely be useful if banned members saw something more specific than "You were banned due to rules violations". In my testing they are shown the expiry date.

Another issue is that banned users still receive email notifications in general.

 

[arn]

This is an old thread, but still relevant in v1.4

"Rules violation" as reason for a temp ban is not informative at all. Ideally, we would offer a reason why they are temporarily banned. Or some other process by which there could be a more detailed explanation.

arn

 

[Isil`Zha]

What we did to get around the communications problem, is create a "Banned Users" forum that users can only see while banned via our banned users group, along with an irremovable notice that directs them there. There, users can only see their own threads (and staff created threads thanks to an add-on.)

It would be nice if better control over banned users was just built-in to XF, but this solution has been working for us pretty well. Suspended users can speak with the staff while otherwise only having view-only access to the rest of the forum. It'd also be nice if there were more permissions for conversations (so users couldn't go back and just start sending PMs in any conversation they'd gotten before they were banned - so we just didn't allow them to respond to conversations.​

 

[imthebest]

This is an old thread, but still relevant in v1.4

"Rules violation" as reason for a temp ban is not informative at all. Ideally, we would offer a reason why they are temporarily banned. Or some other process by which there could be a more detailed explanation.

arn

This is one of the vBulletin 3.8 features that I hardcore miss!!!