it is a community and as such people within that community should be able to know the whereabouts/be able to reach people they 'care' about within that community....or at least know their status should they want to...
Can you send/receive PMs when banned?
No ....you can't even view forum...you just get a message saying you are banned and can't access....mine told me when it expired when i first tried logging in to discover was banned....but i didn't really clock it when i tried again it just said you are banned guest and the ban is not set to expire..
you get an email with a link to a pm from mods but you can't view the pm because you can't view forum...the text of the pm is in email body though although it says you can't reply to email and offers link ironicallly to reply on email to reply but you can't....
I think banned people can plead their case to admin/mods by e-mailing You are not allowed to view links.
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I sent an email to that address 7 days ago and received no response .....i appreciate it has been xmas but still...some acknowledgement would have been nice.
I think one of the challenges this forum faces is that there is talk of a community but it is so vast spread over continents and timezones etc. that it struggles to build a real personal touch in how that community interacts with the admin/mods and vice versa...
For my money none of the mods really spend enough time actually participating in any discussions to understand some of the relationships, senses of humour or whether what they see as an offence is really an offence or just banter from people who have certain relationships etc on the forum...
I also think the global spread and different types of sense of humour make a tricky mix at times that possibly the mods aren't as clued up on as maybe would be ideal...as tricky a job as it is of course!
I am aware that the policy here is very much one of 'do as you are told' but i believe that a more collaborative approach with the membership would help breed a healthier environment, community and atmopshere.
I'd like to think my comments are received as they are intended and that is positively and with a desire to see a better community here.