how can one be banned from the forums?

aside from the obvious -- as per the forum rules -- how else can a user be banned?

That's pretty much it. Break the rules and be persistent about it. If you get a warning from a moderator, do it again.

Is this a goal you have?

If you don't know, you will likely never do anything that would warrant it.

Foul language, personal attacks, spamming, devious practices or politikery behind teh scenes can get you on the radar.

If you do something that is against the forum rules behind the scenes and think you can get away with it, think again.

So be nice and don't cause trouble?

not a goal, just a question. !

i love POTN too much!!!

behind the scenes?

Lots of stuff goes on in PM's. Personal attacks, stirring up trouble. I used to run a forum and man, the PM stuff was amazing.

People that will talk smack in the open usually think it's just their opinion being vented. People that take it to PM and do $hit really are the devious ones that have an agenda. If you have to "hide" it away from public eyes, you know it's not right.

so if i were to have a political conversation or use foul language on PMs I could get in trouble? (not attacking but a friendly debate (if thats possible in a political debate ) and not swearing at someone but just using the word)

I ran a forum for a while. I gave it up in the end because people didn't seem to want to use it all that much. In the end I'd get 20 registrations a day from spambots, 2 or 3 of which then managed to post their durge. I'd end up spending half an hour deleting spam, banning IP addresses and so on. From contact with the originating ISPs, it would appear that none really cared about forum spam - RoadRunner was one of those. I had a ton of spam from Asia, Russia and Poland.

Occasionally I'd edit somebody's post if they were trying to flog something but that was about it for the problems I had.

If you don't ban a poster's IP address when you ban the poster then they will come back under a new name.

As far as PMs went, they were not permitted on my forum.

the_incubus wrote in post #4116605
so if i were to have a political conversation or use foul language on PMs I could get in trouble? (not attacking but a friendly debate (if thats possible in a political debate ) and not swearing at someone but just using the word)

Doubtful, but if you carry on calling someone an idiot or XXXXX or XXXXXX or even XXXXXXXXXXXXXX and threatening them with XXXXXXX or saying that you'll do XXXXXXXX.

ah ok. Thats what i thought. Thanks.

Jason, youre such a XXXXXXXXXXx, I can't believe you said XXXXXXXXx to me. How could you do that? You heartless XXXXXXXXXXx.

just kidding.

rhys wrote in post #4116640
In the end I'd get 20 registrations a day from spambots, 2 or 3 of which then managed to post their durge. I'd end up spending half an hour deleting spam, banning IP addresses and so on.

You should have installed phpBB's "Registration Auth Code" MOD. I was getting a ton of spambots every day, too. But I made this small, easy modification about three or four months ago, and haven't had one single bot get past it yet.

Grace wrote in post #4116754
Jason, youre such a XXXXXXXXXXx, I can't believe you said XXXXXXXXx to me. How could you do that? You heartless XXXXXXXXXXx.

just kidding.

Grace I dig you 'cuz you are so XXX.

thomascanty wrote in post #4117055
You should have installed phpBB's "Registration Auth Code" MOD. I was getting a ton of spambots every day, too. But I made this small, easy modification about three or four months ago, and haven't had one single bot get past it yet.

vBulletin's CAPTCHA (or what the name is...) is pretty good at stopping spambots when configured properly.

As for how to get banned. One sure way of getting banned is to create multiple accounts with the intent of falsifying or hiding identity. But banning is never done lightly and discussed extensively between moderators. Only exception is spammers who get banned on sight.

tommykjensen wrote in post #4117077
vBulletin's CAPTCHA (or what the name is...) is pretty good at stopping spambots when configured properly.

I do like vBulletin a lot more than phpBB, but my forum is tiny. Really, the only active users are me and a couple friends. I use it mainly as a blog to announce new galleries in the travel and hikes sections of my web site. If it got more use, I'd definitely switch to vBulletin. But for now, it just isn't worth it to me.