If you are here to ask that question, let me go ahead and answer it for you right here.
Our policies and guidelines for every part of the site, including all its direct services -- boards, chat, SMS/text -- are listed clearly in several places on the main site, linked to on every page. When users register specifically for a board account, you may recall reading some text then clicking "I agree" before your registration was approved.
Some of the things you and others agree to, either when registering or when using the site in any way, include agreeing that you understand that if you do not follow certain policies of ours, you understand your use of any or all of the site may be suspended or removed. You also agreed to understanding that, while we do not tend to do this, we have the right to edit or remove posts or ban users at any time, even for no reason whatsoever.
We very, very rarely ban users, especially given our high level of traffic. It also is not something we do in haste: before any user is suspended or banned, we have already generally issued not just one, but several requests for them to abide by our policies or limits.
We used to contact users by email when banning, but found that given by the time we banned someone, they were usually acting really beyond the pale, and then just continued to do so via email. It is both nonproductive and counterproductive for us to do that, especially since we know that when banned, the people who have been banned usually know exactly why. If and when they email or come round asking, in our experience it most typically is just to play more games or harass us in new ways.
But in the event you have been and don't, you can review our guidelines -- http://www.scarleteen.com/user_guidelin ... acy_policy -- or review below the three most common reasons people get banned:
• Because of harassing staff, volunteers or other users in some way
• Because of breaking our policies with fraud: just recently, for instance, we discovered a user we set strong limits with after providing them a lot of service on the boards, using multiple identities to try and bypass those limits in our other services. So many kinds of not okay.
• Because of a refusal to accept our clearly -- and often repeatedly -- stated limits or limitations as a service or organization.
Know that if and when you get banned, you then try and come back around more with new handles or using new IPs, in time we will report you to your internet service provider for harassment, which can result in you losing your ability to use that ISP at all, to access anything, not just Scarleteen. Providers tend to agree that using their services to harass anyone is not acceptable use of those services.
Our guidelines ask little of people, and when folks don't follow them, it not only makes our jobs harder as staff and volunteers, it can also impact the level or quality of service users following the guidelines are getting, which is really uncool and inconsiderate.
The great thing about the internet is that there are so many places to go, so be it here or anywhere else, if you don't like or can't live with our policies, that's totally fine. You just need to go somewhere else, then, and if you won't, we will push the clicky little buttons that make it so you just can't come here.
(Originally posted by Heather on the old boards here: http://www.scarleteen.com/forum/ultimat ... 00506.html)