I think there are several levels of severity in plagiarism and not all are equal and in some cases a permanent ban forever can be a little harsh (especially if it was just one silly mistake).
Agreed! But those cases are very rare, I think I've seen it only twice in the past year. I would estimate it's less than 0.1% of the plagiarism cases that deserve a second chance, and I don't think this should be something that's offered to all banned accounts.
You could maybe give people two options for those that are banned for plagiarism: You can either have a sig ban indefinitely but are allowed to post, or possibly even allowed to earn the signature back by getting a sufficient amount of merit (say maybe at least 100), or just pay a substantial fine (at least $100).
Some thoughts:
- Merit can be gained through abuse.
- Instead of removing a signature, it can contain some public shaming saying it's removed because of plagiarism and user has to earn xx more Merit before it's enabled again.
Perhaps @LoyceV or @DdmrDdmr could provide us with some numbers - how many users have earned over 100 merit since the system was introduced?
See this
list (with data from last Friday). This includes Merit abusers and already banned accounts.
What about spammers who are paid for posting?
They are often stealing posts from other users to bump topics, I doubt that signature ban will stop them.
You mean bump bots?
I think the few cases who deserve a second chance wouldn't be banned in the first place if it wasn't for the massive spam from bump bots and signature spammers. Even without plagiarism they only add spam to the forum, and we're better off without them (and their alt accounts).
BTW I saw an identical message about temporary signature ban in some of users profiles:
Banned from displaying signatures until August 02, 2019, 07:05:09 PM
Most of them haven't posted for 6 weeks, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're all owned by the same person. That just means someone stops using a fraction of his spam farm until August, then continues again.
Unfortunately, the "banned from signatures" message only shows in their profile. If it would show up under their posts, it would act as a warning to others.
Alternatives:
- Pay (a part of) the fine to whoever reported that user, that will trigger a real witch hunt by giving a financial incentive to report plagiarism.
- Punish a user after an unban with red trust, like you did with Lone Shark.
- I've made this suggestion before: a user banned for plagiarism can get an unban if he reports at least 2 other users for plagiarism, and those users must have a higher Rank than he had. That motivates the spammers to help clean up the forum.