Yesterday I was banned from another bike forum. Why? Because apparently, I had REPORTED a spammer, and the moderator thought I WAS the spammer. This is what being banned looks like:

You have been banned for the following reason:
spammer

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

The moderator didn't bother to notice that I had been a member for 2 years. The moderator didn't care that I was a paid member. All the moderator did was click a button TWICE without thinking, even though all moderator functions ask "are you sure?".

When you are banned you discover that you can't send a message to anyone to ask WHY, WHAT, and HOW can you restore your good name and access.

So, what's the point of this story? Simple. Don't bother flagging spam, no matter how offensive. Don't worry about children looking at disgusting stuff on the computer. There's no way I can contact anyone on the other forum, but in the meantime my user name is emblazoned with the scarlet letters BANNED.

Just warning all of you even though I believe the moderators on this forum pay more attention than the moderators on the other forum, you need to be careful with what you do.

By the way, I am a moderator on a genealogy forum, so I know what it's like. I know that if I saw a member who posts almost daily was tagged as a spammer I would be sending a question via pm to that member, at least to see if his or her computer had gotten infected with a virus. It's one thing to shut down a spammer who has never posted before, but that's not true in this case.

Any one have a similar experience, and how did you go about solving it?

East Hill