How rules are enforced

[danp]

On the PAFOA forum rules are enforced in one of two ways:

1. Manual Bans
2. Automatic bans based on infractions

Manual bans do not happen often, so this post will mainly focus on explaining the infraction system we have set up to handle rule violations.

Infractions, what the heck are those?

Simply put the forum software allows us to give users infractions for various behaviors which violates the rules. Each infraction has:

1. A description
2. A point value
3. An expiration date (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH A BAN/EXPIRATION)
4. The option to give it as a warning (in which case the infraction carries no weight, it's just a heads up to not do whatever you did again)

When an infraction is issued, if it is not a warning, the points for that infraction are added to the users total infraction points. If and when each infraction expires, those points are removed from the total infraction points. Additionally every time an infraction is issued a private message is sent to the user explaining why and the forum will alert all moderators to the new infraction for any necessary review.

If a user reaches a certain level of infraction points, this will result in an automatic ban depending on the amount of points they have. The current automatic-ban levels are as follows:

1. 10 Points: 1 Day
2. 20 Points: 1 Week
3. 40 Points: 1 Month
4. 80 Points: 6 Months
5. 160 Points: 1 Year
6. 320 Points: Permanent

So let's take some example scenarios:

You are a spammer that sells stolen iPods, you post such junk on the forum. You will be hit with a 320 point infraction that never expires for "Spam: Unrelated". This will instantly trigger a permanent ban. Pretty simple.

A slightly more complicated example:

You have a tendency to be a real jerk to people. You get hit with an infraction for "Harassment: Excessive Personal Attacks" which caries 5 points and expires in 1 month. At this point you're half-way to a 1 day ban, so if you do it 5 days later before that first infraction expires and manage to get yourself another one, you will be automatically banned for one day and you will have 10 infraction points for the next 25 or so days. If you come off of your 1 day ban and decide to do it again, you'll get hit with another, resulting in 15 points and another 1 day ban. If you do it one more time, you'll end up with a 1 week ban and the process will continue.

The goal here is obviously that after a user gets an infraction or a small ban they will realize the error of their ways and rejoin us as a positive member of our community.

We have attempted to work out the math to make sure that the points configured in our infractions relate to appropriate punishments in the automatic bans. As time goes on and as needed we will modify the infractions available based on changes to our forum rules and we will always be tweaking the points associated with various infractions to make sure all punishments fit the crime.

Our hope is that the infraction system will be a much more objective, even-handed approach to dealing with users that will ensure enforcement of the rules fairly and provide a reliable tool for keeping such data around.

Our guess is that 98% of the users of this forum will never receive an infraction, 1% will receive one now and then and learn their lesson, and 1% will be hard-headed to the point that they get banned permanently.