Author Topic: Why was I banned?  (Read 2479 times)

Offline XavierMace

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Why was I banned?
« on: November 10, 2012, 09:58:01 AM »
Since this comes up on a fairly regular basis, I decided maybe I could reduce the number of PM's by trying to give an explanation.  Permanent bans are not something we do terribly often.  You either had to really cross a line or continue to do something after repeated warnings to stop.  Temporary bans are more common.  I personally use those to try to get somebodies attention, a slap on the wrist if you will.  However in both cases when I am issuing the ban, I give a reason why and that reason will appear to you when you try to log in.  In most situations I think you can figure out what you did that earned you the ban.

However, occasionally you will try to log in and get a message that you were banned that either doesn't have a reason or you don't recall doing anything matching the reason.  This is the result of an IP ban.  For those unfamiliar with how IP addresses work, I will explain.  Every device connected to the internet has an IP address.  In most cases, that IP address is assigned by your service provider.  In most cases however, that IP address isn't dedicated or static.  Meaning that IP address doesn't always stay the same and it's not only used by you.  IP addresses on land line connections don't change terribly often.  IP addresses on cell phones change much more often.  If you get a ban notification that you are pretty confident you didn't earn, then you've probably been assigned an IP address that has been banned.  You have three options in this case.

1.  Call your service provider and ask if you can been assigned a new IP address.
2.  Wait for your IP address to change.  On a phone, this should only take a couple of days at most.
3.  Use a different connection.

Hopefully that answers some questions.

Offline XavierMace

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Re: Why was I banned?
« Reply #1 on: October 22, 2013, 10:00:58 PM »
Outlook.com has now been added to the block list to curb some of the spam bots.  If your account is using an Outlook.com email address, it will have to be updated for you to be able to log in with that account.