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Public Revelation of Banned Members

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Public Revelation of Banned Members
jannah
12/10/02 at 22:30:16
[slm]

There was some concern about the public revelation of banned members so I thought I would write something on it.

In the past we've had this problem where a member needed to be deleted for various legitimate reasons: ie breaking the constitution, using the message board for inapproriate things:  ie propoganda of certain groups, stalking certain members, etc. Now previously, we would ban the member and leave it at that. No explanation, no announcement, no background information, no evidence, nothing. Thinking that the said person could reform, that we shouldn't reveal their 'sins' or should give them a chance elsewhere to be normal etc. etc...

However, as time goes on, we've come to know that these banned people through other various means (ie other message boards, personal emails, chat, in one case a newsletter!) spread fallacies and outright lies about their banning, the issue in question, the website and in more than one case about me personally.

So how should we handle the situation? Ideally, when people hear about these things they would come to us and ask, 'what's your side of things? is this how it really happenned? is this true?'.  However people tend not to do that. I'm not sure why. Perhaps once they hear it they don't even bother. Or perhaps they don't want to offend us by asking. Or perhaps they realize that they shouldn't have been 'hearing' what was said in the first place so don't want to ask about what really happened. So, is it fair that one side can spread their lies and information and we remain silent (guilty) and let the doubts creep in on people? What's worse is when these things enter the real world and start to affect our personal relationships in the community and with other people. When things remain hidden they start to fester and all kinds of backbiting, untruths etc spread.

If these cases were in real life we could just avoid the person and life would be easy and if they spread lies since people know us in person they would be able to judge and hear our side. However, the nature of the internet, our not being able to address or defend the accusations and the easy accessibility for anyone can also make it easy for one side to spread only their malicious messages.  

I don't know what the right solution to this is. But because of the public nature of the board, our relationships on it and the Islamic internet, the only way right now to keep things clean and for people to understand decisions that have been made is to publically post what really happened here with all the evidence and let it go at that. If those banned people want to discuss their 'injustice' etc to others then it becomes their issue and we've already done our part by addressing the issue and making the steps we took public.

I hope this helps people understand the reasoning behind this. For more discussion please Madina message me.

Jazkamullahu khairan.
12/10/02 at 22:30:30
jannah


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