- x Foman123 x
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I agree with this idea, GP. Besides the more superficial value of allowing users to easily see what kinds of infractions they have committed in the past, it also would have the more subconscious effect of reminding users that rules are in place whenever they view their profile (or wherever the ban history would be located).
Sure, you have your veteran trolls and spammers who would attempt to use this as something to brag about, but who cares? Rules violations will still be punished via the use of the Report button, and the juvenile imbeciles who brag about their frequent bans (or use them to talk about how "awful" Bnet has gotten because they can't get away with stuff anymore) will also have the beneficial effect of alerting more intelligent and/or rule-abiding users to what kinds of behaviors are corrected here.
On a larger scale, I also think that moderators should continue to be vigilant about providing detailed reasons whenever they issue warnings and bans. I continue to see posts in the forums saying "Why was I blacklisted?" Punishing a user when he or she does not know why he or she is being punished is no different than punishing them randomly for no reason at all -- the punishment is not corrective and has no conditioning or beneficial effect on future behavior. Merely pointing to a thread and saying "you violated the forum rules in this thread" does not help, nor does a comment like "Don't do that again." Moreover, listing the actual forum rule that was violated and how it was violated may assist the moderators in preventing accidental warnings or bans.
To get back to the original topic, I think that this could be a great feature for stressing the connection between bad behavior and punishments. Contrary to what a small number of very loud and very wrong protestors have been saying recently, the rules of discussion here are actually quite lax. For that reason, many users tend to think that ANY post is acceptable, including those that are absolutely useless and pointless and contribute nothing to entertaining, amusing, educating, engaging, or enlightening other members here.
Pretty much every forum rule here is geared towards preventing these kinds of useless posts that contribute nothing to a real (however serious OR silly it may be) discussion. Allowing users to see their ban/warning history would be a small step in stressing that, although the rules are lax here and discussion topics may range from the serious to the not-so-serious, there ARE rules that must be followed in order for everybody else to be able to participate to a meaningful degree.
Short version: I agree with GP's idea.
[Edited on 02.21.2008 9:28 AM PST]