An owner of a website community can effectively chose to do anything they wish with their members with and without notification if they desire unless there is a clause in the paid membership agreement that says that notification will be given prior to a banning. There is none. Therefore, the argument is moot as to why paid members are banned without notice.
To run a community - you need to deal with (1) fraudsters/cheats and (2) trouble makers/trolls on a daily basis. The best thing tool you have to do this is instant banning. It is always a judgement call, and the owners do have full rights to make the final call based on their what they perceive to be threats to the community or conflicting interests.
DNF was started in April last year as a casual place for domainers to hang out - to learn from each other, to ask for help, to get connections, to do business with others, and to basically have fun/jib/banter with similar minded people.
I don't think this has fundamentally changed much. This is not a DK private board where the culture is closed and guarded.
Nonetheless, there will be times when there is a need to put members on 'Chill-Out' mode. Many times, members could had have a bad day at office and then come here to let go steam. On professional forums, it takes mods/adminstrators with great skill to diffuse situations through timely and counselled postings, PMs to the offenders, and then make the reasons for terminations fair and as a notice of last resort. Skilled mods/admins know that it is not good to cut the nose to spite the face. Stopping the damaging postings of errant members is only a small part of the equation.
The signals these actions ripple out to the community is often the most crucial part. Was it fair? Was it fair? Was it fair? ad infinitum - is a signal that this situation was not managed as well as it could have been.
Done with Iraqi execution brutalness, bad karma can be the only consequence. People remember, and when the time comes, they will flee to greener pastures, and the cycle goes, and goes.
I remember how hard NamePopper worked and tried to be a fair and friendly steam diffuser - to the point of himself getting emotionally screwed in the process. If anything, we should all appreciate the efforts of at least one individual here who showed us what a true moderator could be. It is always the easiest thing in the world to slice off tongues, it is probably the most difficult thing in the world, to reform them.
But isn't that what building respect is all about?
