7 day chat suspension

Question

Why have I received a 7 day chat suspension? I do not recall doing anything harmful or bad for the chatroom, except maybe posting faces, but I don't see how that warrants a 7 day ban.

EDIT

I don't make the best decisions late at night.

Answer 1

Regarding that message

• You must have no idea what the Nazis were/are or what they have done if you think calling someone a Nazi for deleting chat messages or handing out 30-minute suspensions is even remotely acceptable.

  Other parts of the internet may tolerate these insults, but this is not one of those parts. Stack Exchange's prime directive is to Be Nice, and there's nothing nice about comparing us moderators with genocidal mass murderers.

• You didn't just say Nazis, you used the euphemism crazy 1940s germans. That makes it worse. Much worse. As usual with dictatorships, many/most Germans didn't actually agree with what the government was doing and definitely weren't Nazis. Saying otherwise falls somewhere between stereotypes and hate speech.

• Just because you strikethrough parts of your message doesn't mean you didn't write it; you just wrote it with a horizontal line through its center. If you don't mean it, don't write it. That simple.

Regarding your suspension

We usually prefer not to discuss details of a suspension in public, so I won't reveal any details that aren't already common knowledge.

• This isn't the first time a message of yours was flag-deleted. In fact, this isn't the first time you asked here on meta why you were suspended.

• This isn't the first time you were suspended that day. One of your previous messages got flag-deleted for being pure noise, and your reaction to that 30-minute timeout was calling the moderators Nazis.

• You've been asked multiple times to post less nonsense in chat. You've ignored it every time.

Answer 2

You received a 7-day suspension because one of the mods saw your behavior and thought it was rude/inappropriate for respectful discourse. I say one of the mods, because us regular users don't know which one it was, and that is definitely a good thing.

IIRC, being suspended multiple times automatically increases the length of the suspension, which is why it was for 7 days.

The primary directive for good behavior for all of stack-exchange, including chat is Be Nice. To quote some relevant sections...

1. Rudeness and belittling language are not okay. Your tone should match the way you'd talk in person with someone you respect and whom you want to respect you. If you don't have time to say something politely, just leave it for someone who does.

...

3. Don't be a jerk. These are just a few examples. If you see them, flag them:

   • Bigotry of any kind. Language likely to offend or alienate individuals or groups based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. will not be tolerated. At all. (Those are just a few examples; when in doubt, just don't.)

Calling someone a Nazi is certainly something I wouldn't do when talking with someone in the real world. And calling someone "Crazy Germans" is definitely "Language likely to offend or alienate individuals or groups based on race". Especially when you consider that quite a few of the PPCG mods are actually from Germany.

Even if you hadn't made a reference to Nazis, I would still consider calling the mods "mean people" for doing exactly what they're supposed to do rude.

There are many times I have seen a mod enforce a rule that I disagree with, or take a certain action I disagree with. I've even told that to mods to their faces before. However, I still greatly respect them for all their hard-work and maturity, and I appreciate that they're around to enforce all of the rules.

You need to realize that mods aren't arbitrarily making decisions in the moment based on their feelings, or guesses. They are enforcing network-wide rules that many people have spent time refining and clarifying. Whether or not you agree with these rules (or even if the mods agree with these rules) is irrelevant. If you use this site, you agree to abide by it's rules, and sometimes you'll have to pay the price for breaking them.

In the meantime, don't worry about it too much. We all make mistakes. In seven days, the suspension will be lifted and you can continue using chat like everyone else. After that, I would recommend being more careful about your choice of words.

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As a side note, if there were no moderators around when you posted that message, you would probably still have received a suspension because I would have flagged your message if I was around to see it, and I can almost guarantee it would have been validated.