Bitcoin Forum

Top Definition. shadowban. Banning a user from a web forum in such a way that the banned user is unaware of the ban.

It would be nice if the new forum could have an option implemented that enables admins to ban people in a way that they still can log in to their account and are not notified that they are banned. If they post something only they themselves can see that they're posting whereas everyone else would not see any trace of this user. This prevents the user from creating new account(s) as they believe they're still taking part in the discussions.

I don't think it would help in that regard. What would prevent the user from logging out of their account, navigating to the thread they just posted in, and then looking to see if their post is visible? Also, if you're thinking along the same lines of a Reddit shadowban, would a shadowban be permanent? I wouldn't see much use in having a temporary shadowban, as it wouldn't really be a ban for the user at all. Their posts would be hidden for a week or two, and then be shown again after that.

temp bans are warning, dude. and sometimes (rare. only saw it twice, I think.) someone gets permabanned by mistake.

I dislike this idea. It is counter-intuitive when it comes to banning. Most of the bans here are either because of spam (bots and permabanned people) and signature spam. Letting either one of those groups of people post under the impression that they have not been punished does not make sense.

Exactly.

I'm not sure yet whether or not I'd be happy to see a feature like this be implemented, but here's my thought: if those two groups of people were shadowbanned because of their posts, it would certainly be a punishment if/when they realize that they've been wasting their time all along and none of their posts have meant anything. Of course, with signature spammers, they would realize that they were shadowbanned after a week or month (depending on the campaign), but even in their case, it would mean a punishment of a wasted campaign period plus the shadowban (effectively a ban from the forum).

i'm open to any criticisms to my thought.

I assume that in this type of shadow ban, their posts that were made during the shadow-ban never become visible to the users and never count towards anything (even after it expires). Is this correct? Only in such a case could this be acceptable.

Yes, unless I misunderstood the OP.

Yes. That's exactly what I had in mind.  Please excuse the confusion I've caused here.

     & I was not necessarily thinking of a temp stealth ban but sort of perma ban.

I still don't see the point in this. How is one "participating" in the community when everyone 'ignores' them and they're unable to establish communication with other members (via PM)? What I possibly see happening is some people getting mad about not knowing that they're banned and e.g. thinking that they'd get paid by their signature campaign, and then stronger retaliation (more spam and whatnot).

If a poster disturb you, use ignore button. It's just under his user name...

I don't believe this is the point of the function that the OP suggested. The point would be to give this sort of ban to offenders (such as spammers) so that they believe they are still taking part in discussion on the forum, when really they are not (perhaps lowering the chance of them making alt accounts/ban evading).

However, there are problems with this as suggested above. The idea is nice, but it would be impossible to execute as it is intended.

For one, shadow banned users can't be found guilty of ban evasion.
They can willingly evade bans (even if they find out they have been shadow banned) and then claim innocence.