Hello!
If you are the recipient of a recent signature ban and would like to appeal it, please read this post before making your appeal.
Your ban was issued because your recent posting habits fall below forum standards of quality. Substandard posting habits considered in the decision to issue the ban include at least two of the following:
- Unoriginal or low effort replies, including
inappropriate use of AI content.
- Repetitive, previously-expressed or generic comments that don’t add value or encourage conversation.
- Consistent burst posting (regularly writing posts less than 10 minutes apart).
- Off‑topic posting or shallow engagement (doesn't provide insight, analysis or perspective).
- Posting in principle for signature campaign payment and not for the sake of contributing actual discussion.
If you believe your signature ban is incorrect
or you've made some improvement to your posting habits, please feel free to explain your case by opening a topic in Meta with the words "Sigban Appeal for (username)" in the subject line. Thanks.
Update July 26:
In order for sigban recipients to have a better understanding of the reason(s) behind their ban, I developed a simple utility that displays basic information about where an account's "post health score" falls in a range of active users on the forum (please note that scores are only updated about once per month):
Along with this information are messages triggered when certain subscore thresholds are met, meant to inform the user of ways in which they might be able to improve their score. Please note that the generation and analysis of these scores is just one part of a larger process that involves manual review before issuing a sigban.
Non-sigbanned members are of course also able to look their scores up, and encouraged if they feel their posts might need some improvement.
How to use it:
1. Visit
postflayer.onrender.com2. Wait 30-50 seconds for the program to load
3. Type in a user ID & press "Lookup"
That's it.
The server "spins down" if inactive after so many minutes, meaning you will have to refresh the page. Bear in mind not all user IDs will have scores.
The software hasn't been thoroughly tested yet and I apologize in advance if some things don't make sense. Your score definitely won't make sense if you:
1) seldom post outside of local boards or the bounty board
2) have less than 200 posts
3) post a lot of template content
Please report any bugs you might find. Thank you.
Update July 30:
I compiled a list of the most asked questions, along with their answers:
Q: Why is this happening?A:Since they are easy to appeal and don't harm the user's ability to speak, sigbans are a good way of addressing users who don't have any single post which breaks the rules, but whose posts seem to contribute more noise than signal.
Q: Are sigban decisions based on my entire post history?A: A user's complete post history does not play a significant role in the decision, but their most recent 100-200 posts do.Q: How are sigban candidates chosen?A: To be as unbiased as possible, I am using a random sampling method to select users most active on certain boards, but they might also be active anywhere else on the forum. Potential candidates include any active forum member (excluding staff, developers, project maintainers, service representatives, or anyone who generally does not participate in signature campaigns), so long as the majority of their posts aren't in foreign language sections, Bounties, Goods, Currency Exchange, or Lending.Q: Will you sigban users based on pre-existing AI tags?A: No.Q: Will you sigban users for being bad writers or having poor English skills?A: No. It is better to be a bad writer and express original thoughts than be a good writer and express generic thoughts.Q: Can I be sigbanned for only one potential rule violation or weakness?A: No. Your score is based on a culmination of factors and is calculated in such a way that having a single weakness or occasional post deletion will not dramatically affect it.Q: Is it bad to keep posting in a thread over and over?A: Not necessarily. Its entirely dependent on the context of your post. If you are just repeating the same points, using the same words, for the 10th time deep in a megathread, then yes, you probably shouldn't do that as often, especially if the messages under your score suggest the same.Q: Can we send you lists of posts or accounts that we feel are sigban-worthy?A: In the interest of remaining unbiased, it would be better if you didn't. I realize I'm asking you to trust me not to be biased. With the new sigban analytics dashboard made by @TryNinja, it will be easier to tell if I'm doing what I said I'm doing. Meaning, if I start doing something drastically different, it will now be easier to detect.Q: My score indicates I'm not earning enough merit. What should I do?A: "Merit health" is based on your recent merit/post ratio. If you are in the bottom 20% of merit earners, it could suggest a few different things:
1) Your posts aren't connecting with anybody.
2) You're posting in sections where readers are less likely to leave merits, or even bother reading your post.
3) You're posting too often.
Instead of jumping to #2 or #3 as your answer, take a moment to strongly consider possibility #1. Try putting more effort into each post, to communicate something interesting, informative, helpful or exciting... anything other than what you're currently doing.Other important pointers:
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Merit will not save you if your posts are for the most part unsubstantial and you write the same things in the same threads over and over again.
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You run the risk of being sigbanned again after your ban expires if you do not demonstrate marked improvement in your posts. Simply leaving the forum until the ban expires will no longer work.
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The system was not developed to measure how good a poster's posts are, but rather how not good they are. So long as you are in that middle 50% or higher, you are fine,
unless you are using AI to write your posts for you, or are breaking other forum rules, in which case all bets are off.
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Scores are not continuously updated and won't be updated for at least another week or two. I will let everyone know here when they are, in case anybody is waiting.
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The goal of all this is to encourage better conversation on the forum, not to punish anybody for their behavior. This is a novel implementation and I may get things wrong occasionally. Thanks for bearing with me.
