How to notify me about a banned IP in a way that gets fast results.

[Ben E Lou]

Hey there, this is {long-time user} from FOFC. {section redacted...not relevant to this post} I just tried to log in to my account, but it says I'm banned. I'm sure it's just a mistake since I've never even been boxed before or done anything wrong, but I was hoping you could take a look at it. I'm using my wife's laptop and she sometimes posts from it, so maybe that has something to do with it, I don't know.

It turns out that the IP address in question was banned way back in 2006 due to asshattery and had nothing to do with the person who sent me the email above. I was able to keep the original asshat's IP banned while still providing an exception for the long-timer to post again.

The point here is this: don't assume that an IP banning in particular is because someone hates you or some mod is being heavy-handed or whatever. It's usually just collateral damage, and often the result of something that happened years ago. However, a good 25-50% of these kinds of emails start with "Hey asshole, why the fuck did you ban my IP?????" and then get nasty. Suffice it to say that I'm a bit less motivated to rectify the situation for those people.

[DanGarion]

Just a observation but banned IP from 5 years ago, probably doesn't need to be banned any longer.

[cuervo72]

Depends on why it was banned. If it's a spambot IP, probably not a bad idea to keep it banned.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Just a observation but banned IP from 5 years ago, probably doesn't need to be banned any longer.

I'm not bothering to go through and clean all of those up. Thanks for your input.

[Ben E Lou]

(And yes, cuerv, many of them are spambots.)

[jeff061]

To be fair, if someone feels the need to start with ""Hey asshole, why the fuck did you ban my IP?????"" most likely their original assumption is correct.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by jeff061

To be fair, if someone feels the need to start with ""Hey asshole, why the fuck did you ban my IP?????"" most likely their original assumption is correct.

+1

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by jeff061

To be fair, if someone feels the need to start with ""Hey asshole, why the fuck did you ban my IP?????"" most likely their original assumption is correct.

Originally Posted by DanGarion

+1

And of course, both of you are wrong. I've had 6-8 of those over the years. So far, *zero* of them have actually been banned. When I ban a non-spam IP, it's for obvious reasons and the person should know why. I doubt that I've banned more than 10 IPs of non-spammers in the 9sih years that I've run this place.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

And of course, both of you are wrong. I've had 6-8 of those over the years. So far, *zero* of them have actually been banned. When I ban a non-spam IP, it's for obvious reasons and the person should know why. I doubt that I've banned more than 10 IPs of non-spammers in the 9sih years that I've run this place.

Actually I didn't read what Jeff said correctly, I thought he was agreeing that if people were writing like that then they don't deserve to have it resolved quickly. Sorry it came out that I was being a dick, that wasn't my intention.

[Ben E Lou]

Fair enough.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by jeff061

To be fair, if someone feels the need to start with ""Hey asshole, why the fuck did you ban my IP?????"" most likely their original assumption is correct.

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

And of course, both of you are wrong. I've had 6-8 of those over the years. So far, *zero* of them have actually been banned. When I ban a non-spam IP, it's for obvious reasons and the person should know why. I doubt that I've banned more than 10 IPs of non-spammers in the 9sih years that I've run this place.

See, the way I read Jeff was in the vein of the bolded text there.

They're being belligerent and hoping to intimidate you into reversing the ban, but it's really a rhetorical question - they know exactly why they were banned.

[jeff061]

Huh? I just meant they are dicks and likely did something to be banned. Nothing more and nothing less. I'm not sure how I could have been mistaken as being argumentive. Certainly wasn't disagreeing with spirit of original post.

And if they didn't do anything I'm not all concerned with whether or not that wrong is corrected if that's how they respond.

[digamma]

I figured that's what you were saying but it kind of read like you were saying their assumption that Ben was an asshole was correct.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by digamma

I figured that's what you were saying but it kind of read like you were saying their assumption that Ben was an asshole was correct.

Confusion already solved so not a biggie but ... +1.

[DanGarion]

Hah, ok then what I thought Jeff meant is what he really meant!

[Schmidty]

Thanks again for the quick response the other day, Ben. I'm back home from the hospital, and I wasn't able to use the laptop after you unbanned the ip, but I appreciate it.

(No brown-nosing intended)

[MikeVic]

Mystery solved, {long-time user} is Schmidty.