I got banned for the comment "handicap stones are for women anyway" for the reason "no sexism on KGS." I would like to know who banned me and for how long I am banned. This basic info should at least be provided along with the "reason" for the ban.

I don't think there is any reason to give this information.

If you believe that handicap stones are for women, then you can contact the admin mailbox to explain why.

I don't think there is any reason to give this information. If you believe that handicap stones are for women, then you can contact the admin mailbox to explain why.

Bantari, I believe there is no reason that you immediately need to know who banned you and for how long. That is current KGS policy, and those who have been banned are unlikely to circumvent that by asking here in the forum. If your ban is incorrect, there is always a point of contact available to help resolve the situation.

Let me illustrate one reason why. Yesterday a player on KGS abused another during a game with something along the lines of "F@&é you ké"' I am going to knife your jçà ass and r"'( your mother". When dealing with such users, admins should not have to fear that they are going to be a target of abuse because of enforcing the Terms of Service: It is an extreme example, but it does apply across the board.

If somebody did something wrong, they get punished. Sorry, but they do not need to know how long that will last - in fact some decisions are changed, so the information given in the primary instance would then be misleading. They do not need to know who punished them. They just need to know that they have broken a rule, an the ban message should allow them to understand what they did wrong.

Obviously there are other opinions on that, and feel free to debate those.

PS: There was also no need to inform people that handicap stones are for women, for one thing, they are not exclusively for women.

I don't think admins getting abused should be an issue in either case - although I am also iffy on giving out the info as to "who" banned you. In any case, if the admin acted correctly, and somebody tries to harass them publicly for that - this person just makes a donkey of himself, and the admin is in the clear. So no problem.

I was more curious as to why that deserved a ban in the first place. I would never have banned anyone for it when I was a KGS senior admin.

I got banned for the comment "handicap stones are for women anyway" for the reason "no sexism on KGS." I would like to know who banned me and for how long I am banned. This basic info should at least be provided along with the "reason" for the ban.

know several internet moderators who have gotten death threats, a few openly female ones detailed rape threats usually with as much personal information as possible thrown in to be extra creepy. Several including myself getting detailed threats of physical violence and again I and others have had to deal with abuse and more if we used the username anywhere off the site in question. Boidhre is a "new" username because of this kind of thing happening to me regularly.

I can understand why they want to be anonymous. Or why many/most of the KGS admins/mods have other accounts for playing on.

Anyways, aren't the admins already protected by the anonymity of KGS nicks?

I think for the majority of admins there is virtually no anonymity. They are all active members of the go community which is, in the grand scheme of things, really quite small (Example - I don't think anyone has trouble figuring out what edlee's name is). Admittedly some do choose to have their admin identity separate from their "go community" identity, but that group is a minority.

I'm not sure how A got to B here. I perceived one to be an off-hand comment/attempt at humour in a hyper PC environment and the other to describe people with serious psych issues and perhaps a weak line of defense protecting volunteer admins. To the latter, I believe there is a priority to deal with some deep mental issues (for the person uttering typing such messages) before we come to the table on the issue of humorous or not. I do not believe it to be fair to equate the two.

As for the length of the ban? Why customize or vary it. Standardize it, ie. 1 week. 3 strikes your out. I do support the anonymity of the offense and the player handle. To sensationalize it is to promote it. You do something stupid, your banned. No spectacle, no need to follow up with questions.

Flame on.

You banned people for much less, dude.