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I know that the question/answer ban scripts have been specially modified to account for the typical voting patterns on Meta Stack Exchange. In the past two months, the site has seen some of the most extreme post scores along with an uncharacteristic flurry of activity. This makes me wonder how the post-ban scripts are holding up and whether we have lost any contributors to the silent robotic enforcers of quality.

Has there been a significant change in the number of users hitting a post ban here on Meta Stack Exchange in the past two months?

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    Another interesting question is whether any staff members have gotten (or been in danger of) question bans due to how unpopular their posts have been. If so, did SE make an exception to the usual policy and manually lift their ban?
    – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:57
  • @EJoshuaS-ReinstateMonica I thought about that, but I believe that diamonds make one immune.
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:58
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    @EJoshuaS-ReinstateMonica they can remove question ban from themselfs (:
    – Suvitruf - Andrei Apanasik
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:58
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    @SuvitrufsaysReinstateMonica Yeah, I suspect so too. Classic self-dealing in my opinion.
    – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 17:58
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    @EJoshuaS-ReinstateMonica IMO bans based on downvotes shouldn't apply to meta sites in the first place
    – OrangeDog
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 18:01
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    @StopHarmingMonica this has been requested before and declined : meta.stackexchange.com/q/179093/336163
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 18:06
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    @EJoshuaS-ReinstateMonica It's not even possible for SE staff to manually lift post bans, other than by dissociating negatively-received posts. However, it's possible that SE made users with the staff bit not subject to post bans.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 19:43
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    The number of suspensions (not post bans) has definitely increased since November and December though.
    – Mari-Lou A Слава Україні
    Commented Dec 23, 2019 at 9:52

2 Answers 2

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No.

If by post-banned you mean blocked from posting due to scores of previous posts? No. The thresholds here are extremely high as compared to the other sites, and many folks that participated in conversations where things really flared up had quite a few positively-scored posts to their credit, many of which contributed over years, not months or weeks.

To encounter that block, you pretty much either have to be the most interesting controversial person in the world, or here because you have no end-game other than burning people's time.

Or, you might be one of the few that still ends up here every time you want to ask a programming question, and never once tried asking on Stack Overflow. Because that happens.

But, well, time matters too. You need a few posts to have a history to go by. We've seen a lot of folks that never contributed here before join and post something (as in ONE thing), and others using new accounts not linked to their usual accounts, but even with that considered I can't imagine it moving much.

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  • "Or, you might be one of the few that still ends up here every time you want to ask a programming question, and never once tried asking on Stack Overflow. Because that happens." What? I can't wrap my head around how/why someone would do this. Thanks for the answer, it's an interesting read.
    – Doctor Jones
    Commented Oct 30, 2019 at 14:14
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It would definitely be the case that, if there is an uptick in users who are actively belligerent towards staff or are otherwise disrespectful, I'd see more manual actions taken against their accounts.

But as for a script doing it... on Meta Stack Exchange of all places...

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  • Yes, manual suspensions are used in cases of obviously belligerent behavior. That's not really what I'm talking about - what I'm talking about are unpopular posts - posts that are reasonably civil, don't use horribly abusive language, etc., but just get downvoted into oblivion for other reasons, such as being perceived as a bad idea, incorrect, non-constructive, etc.
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 18:48
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    Yeah. Nothing happens to people with one or two majorly unpopular posts. If it turns into a consistent pattern, then perhaps, but I'm not seeing that happen.
    – Makoto
    Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 19:03

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