Why was I banned?

[Morning Glory]

I was banned this morning on my android phone using parent's wifi, even as a guest, no reason listed. Clearing cookies/deleting browsing history did not help. Able to log in using mobile data. Weird.

Update.  Today the forum is working fine on wifi but I was briefly banned when it cut out and switched to mobile data. One of mom's neighbors must have been an issue lol.

[SunnyDays]

Since I got my newish phone (iphone 11 vs old 6), I've been getting regularly banned on it when in a nearby city, where I am for 10 days a month.  I get the message that I've been banned for being rude, whether logged on as a guest or under regular user name.  I can sometimes get in by clearing cookies, and when this does work, it can work for days or only until I change threads.  Totally unpredictable and super annoying.
Everything is fine on my phone at home.

[chasesfish]

I was using the forums as normal while traveling and now I’m shown as this screen name being banned on my laptop.  Still works on mobile.  Cleared cookies, back to my usual IP address, and still banned on that device.

Any advice is appreciated.

[chasesfish]

Required full cache / history cleaning in Chrome and logging in from my regular IP address.   Fortunately MS Edge worked when Chrome would not.

[cleverscreenname]

Not familiar with the internal workings of this particular forum, but...

Generally there's a way to create a special section of the forum only visible to those who are banned. I think that'd make things quite a bit easier to "debug". Instead of saying "log in from a device that will allow it right after you got the message on a different device/ip, so we can see what's going on" it's more like "just post here, we can see exactly what's going on the exact moment you post."

I've seen at least one forum where there's a dedicated section for this, and each user can only see the topic they've created (thus no issues with every single banned user seeing what every other banned user is posting. I don't think you even had to be banned, it was named something like "chat with a moderator" or some-such. So you'd hop in banned or not, start a topic, and only you and mods could read it. Never used it, but sounded cool.

I love this idea, great job, let's hope they implement it.

[chasesfish]

I was using the forums as normal while traveling and now I’m shown as this screen name being banned on my laptop.  Still works on mobile.  Cleared cookies, back to my usual IP address, and still banned on that device.

Any advice is appreciated.

FYI - I think the either the Southwest inflight Wifi or the Hyatt Regency at LAX has their IP address on the ban list.  I recreated the problem...

[elysianfields]

Mods - you're apparently banning based on IP address.

I use a VPN and was banned for "political trolling", which I certainly haven't been doing.

When I changed connections to a different country and cleared cache, I regained access.

Many users of a particular VPN will share IP addresses, so that's not fair to well-behaving users to ban on that basis.

[nereo]

Mods - you're apparently banning based on IP address.

I use a VPN and was banned for "political trolling", which I certainly haven't been doing.

When I changed connections to a different country and cleared cache, I regained access.

Many users of a particular VPN will share IP addresses, so that's not fair to well-behaving users to ban on that basis.

I think it’s clear to everyone - moderators as included - that the current method both can be subverted by bad actors (i.e. banned members) and that it has an annoying tendency to block people who haven’t done anything wrong.

But the question then is: how do you a better job without a crap ton more work or a heavy burden on all members (like identity authentication?). Just banning member accounts is pointless if that person can set up a new one within minutes - some of us remember the same idiot being banned four or five times.
Serious question: is there a better way that preserves anonymity and easy (and free) sign-up?

[Dee18]

I just tried to access the forum on my phone and received the message:
"Sorry Dee18, You are banned from this forum!  This ban is not set to expire." 

I have no idea why I received this message...or even if I am really banned.  My only recent post was advising someone considering buying a house on a slab to be sure to have a safe space for a tornado.

I am posting this from my laptop where I was reading the forum before heading out for some errands.  If anyone can tell me how to get un-banned, or whom to contact, please do.  Thank you!

[nereo]

I just tried to access the forum on my phone and received the message:
"Sorry Dee18, You are banned from this forum!  This ban is not set to expire." 

I have no idea why I received this message...or even if I am really banned.  My only recent post was advising someone considering buying a house on a slab to be sure to have a safe space for a tornado.

I am posting this from my laptop where I was reading the forum before heading out for some errands.  If anyone can tell me how to get un-banned, or whom to contact, please do.  Thank you!

Judging on your posts I don't think you are actually banned, but have fallen victim to joining a hotspot shared by someone else who had been banned.

It sometimes takes a few days, but what seems to work is to close your browser, then delete all the history from that browser, and then the machine on/off.  Try again in a day or two.

For inquiries you can always contact a moderator

[Dee18]

Thank you Nereo!  I was able to clear the cache for the website and all seems well now. 

[SnipTheDog]

Can't reply to the topics, so I guess that I'm banned too.  Oh well.

Using a VPN, so I'd expect that set of IP addresses would get used a lot.

[2Birds1Stone]

I'm using ProtonVPN on my laptop and cell phone and just got locked out of my account on my phone.....I have no say in what IP gets assigned to me.

Is there any way to prevent this from happening proactively? I'm afraid of getting locked out on both devices with 0 ways of reaching a mod for help (esp now since to sign up with a new user name you have to pay)