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Disclosing why an account was auto-closed

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equity78

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TheDomains Staff
TLDInvestors.com
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@Mod Team Alfa can you say why OP had account closed?
Unfortunately, we are not at liberty to disclose specific details or information about members accounts, however, an auto-closed account can happen for one of the following reasons:
  • Member requested their account closed
  • Member exceeded the maximum allowed negative infraction points
In either case, an account will display "Auto-Closed" under their username.

We hope that helps.
 
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Unfortunately, we are not at liberty to disclose specific details or information about members accounts, however, an auto-closed account can happen for one of the following reasons:
  • Member requested their account closed
  • Member exceeded the maximum allowed negative infraction points
In either case, an account will display "Auto-Closed" under their username.

We hope that helps.

It doesn't help, the community should know if someone left on their own, or they were banned because of infractions. That member might contact people outside of Namepros and it would help to know if they violated Namepros rules enough to be banned.
 
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Hello,

Accounts being closed due to infractions does not necessarily mean they are a threat outside of NamePros; for example, they may just struggle with English as a second language and have accumulated a lot of rule reminders and infractions for small things.

If we considered them a concern or potential threat in some way, then their account would also typically be restricted.

We will look into a way to show the restrictions on an account regardless of whether it is closed. However, there are other circumstances that would not fit into either category, such as when we close a duplicate account; their primary account may have restrictions but not the duplicate that was closed. It wouldn't be a perfect system, but it would help provide a little more information in some cases.

In that spirit, the account you're asking about does not have any restrictions at this time. We cannot go into further detail beyond that, nor would it serve a beneficial purpose to do so.

Thanks for the idea.
 
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Good news!

This was a significant undertaking that required significant parts of our forum software to be rewritten, but we've done it!

All members now have an "Account" field on their profiles (under the Information tab) and as part of their member cards (the overlay that appears when you click/tap on a username).

The "Account" field has the following possible group values (each is shown when applicable):
  • Guest: The account has been unregistered, which means it is both banned and deleted. Generally, this means it was deleted before the registration process was completed, e.g., because it appeared to be a spambot registration and we did not allow it to fully register an account.
    • Note: In the future, we may allow guests (people without registered accounts) to do slightly more than read on NamePros. If we do, then "Guest" could also mean that an account is unregistered and never attempted to register. These accounts would not show "Account Closed" unless they were banned from participating as a guest.
  • New Member: The member may not have established themselves on NamePros yet, or the account may have certain restrictions on it that cause a demotion from Established Member to New Member.
    • Note: If an account level is due to a demotion, then the account will show a status (e.g., Restricted) or state (e.g. Account Closed) on it, in place of New Member in the user title and in addition to New Member on the profile page of the account.
  • Established Member: The member has established themselves as a real person on NamePros.
    • Note: Accounts may become ineligible for this account level if they have certain active restrictions (e.g., restrictions that enforce greater rate limits).
  • Top Contributor: The member has earned VIP status.
    • Note: This will not display on an account while it has any active restrictions.
  • VIP Member: The member has VIP status. The member may have been grandfathered (i.e., qualified for VIP when its criteria was different) or granted VIP status (e.g., for being prominent in the domain industry).
    • Note: This will not display on an account while it has any active restrictions.
  • Upgraded Members: The member has paid for an account upgrade.
    • Important: Upgrades do not bypass account restrictions.
  • Account Closed: The highest priority group and will show first. Indicates that the account is banned. This could be for any reason, including (1) it's a possible spambot, (2) the member continues to create disallowed accounts and this helps to block the creation of additional accounts, or (3) the account was closed years ago before this new system existed to specify the reason, and we do not yet have an automated way to determine why the account was closed, so it could be closed for any reason, such as being a scammer or a harmless request by a member to close their account.
    • Reason: The way accounts become closed has changed many times over the years, across different forum software, so we tried to standardize everything as best as we could, but this group may still contain members that need to manually have their account updated to our current procedures and policies.
  • Account Closed (Disallowed): Indicates that the account is not allowed. Generally, it means the account is a duplicate/secondary account and either (1) they must upgrade it or upgrade their primary account to re-open it, or (2) the member is not allowed another account, regardless of upgrades, due to restrictions on one of their accounts.
  • Account Suspended (Warnings): The account has been closed temporarily due to exceeding the threshold of warning points.
  • Account Suspended: The account is closed temporarily for an unspecified reason. It is unspecified for the same reason as Account Closed.
  • Restricted (Market): Banned from the marketplace.
  • Restricted (Spam Risk): Self explanatory.
  • Restricted (Proxy Risk): Self explanatory.
  • Restricted (85-100%): Indicates that ~85-100% of functionality is restricted, e.g., cannot edit posts, vote in polls, create polls, add attachments, tag, or link. The member may pose a high risk to others.
  • Restricted (Posts): These accounts cannot create threads, post replies to threads, update their profile statuses, or post on member profiles (including their own).
  • Restricted (50-70%): Indicates that ~50-70% of functionality is restricted, e.g., cannot edit posts, vote in polls, or add attachments. The member may pose a medium risk to others.
  • Restricted (15-30%): Indicates that ~15-30% of functionality is restricted. The member may pose a low risk to others.
  • Restricted (DM): The account cannot start, add members to, receive new, or reply to conversations ("Direct Messages"; "DM"). The account is not restricted from receiving messages in existing conversations.
    • Exceptions: The account can always reply to conversations that include a NamePros moderator. The account can always receive new conversations from NamePros moderators.
  • Restricted (66% DM): The account cannot start, add members to, or reply to conversations ("Direct Messages"; "DM").
    • Exceptions: The account can always reply to conversations that include a NamePros moderator.
  • Restricted (33% DM): The account cannot start new, or add members to existing, conversations ("Direct Messages"; "DM").
    • Exceptions: None.
  • Restricted (Chatroom): Banned from using the chatroom.
  • Restricted (Polls): The member cannot create or vote in polls.
  • Restricted (10%): Indicates that ~10% of functionality is restricted, e.g., cannot use reactions (Like, Dislike, etc.).
  • Restricted (7%): Indicates that ~7% of functionality is restricted, e.g., cannot write Trade Reviews.
  • Restricted (5%): Indicates that ~5% of functionality is restricted, e.g., cannot add a signature or edit an existing signature.
  • Account Closed (Temp. Account): The member was allowed to use a temporary account, e.g., to contact Tech Support to regain access to their primary account.
  • Account Closed (Requested): The lowest priority group. The member requested to have their account closed and may request to open it again at any time.

The highest priority group above will appear as their user title (underneath their username throughout the forums) unless they have a custom title set. We tried to choose the priorities based on which information we believe is most important compared to other information. For example, it's more important to know that members are restricted from the marketplace than it is to know that they're new, but both can be seen under their "Account" information.

Top Member may show as the user title if both (1) the member's highest priority group does not include a default title, such as the PRO group, and (2) the member has earned at least 1,000 trophy points.

In short, this information shows every member's account level (e.g., Established), state (open, closed, or deleted), and status (whether restricted), including some details about how/why its that way if the account is restricted/closed.

Notes:
  1. This is not a complete list of reasons why a member may be in a group.
  2. Some members may be in the wrong group, but we were careful and spent a lot of time confirming that many members (possibly all) are in the correct group(s).
  3. This does not specify whether an account has active reminders or active warnings due to rule violations, but that may be added in the future.
  4. We will try to update this post if information in it changes.

Please contact us if you notice anything that looks out of place or like it may be incorrect so that we can double check it.

Thanks!
 
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New Member: The member may not have established themselves on NamePros yet, or the account may have certain restrictions on it that cause a demotion from Established Member to New Member.
That is confusing and possibly unfair towards new members with a clean history.
 
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What's the threshold for New > Established? Something like 30 days + 15 posts?

Also .. DM 33 and 66 seem like they're effectively the same thing (I think it's just the wording and the "(or start)" in DM 33).

Also .. I don't think it's too crucial for the Restricted % to be exact .. I think 100%, 90%, 60% and 25% might be a little simpler compared to having ranges.

Thanks for posting this
 
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That is confusing and possibly unfair towards new members with a clean history.
New members with a clean history will not have any restrictions shown on their accounts. If someone is demoted from Established Member to New Member, then you will see both New Member and a restriction appearing on their account, e.g, Restricted (Spam Risk).

There are also times when an Established Member will show restrictions on their account because the demotion only happens with certain restrictions.

It's worth noting that these are actually account levels, but we use friendly names for them:
  1. Level 0: Guest
  2. Level 1: New Member
  3. Level 1+: Lower-Risk New Member
  4. Level 2: Established Member
  5. etc.
We may rename them in the future if we come up with better names, but these have been the clearest so far.

Thanks for bringing to our attention that we should clarify that better in the previous post.
 
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What's the threshold for New > Established? Something like 30 days + 15 posts?
We do not share that because then it could be more readily manipulated, but we sometimes manually move members from New Member to Established Member once we determine that they're a real person with genuine intentions. Otherwise, the automated systems handle it.

I don't think it's too crucial for the Restricted % to be exact .. I think 100%, 90%, 60% and 25% might be a little simpler compared to having ranges.
The purpose is to indicate that it's an estimate based on existing functionality, which changes over time. It tries to take into account that we add features, remove features, adjust the restrictions, etc. without needing to rename the restrictions each time.

Also .. DM 33 and 66 seem like they're effectively the same thing (I think it's just the wording and the "(or start)" in DM 33).
The difference:
  • Restricted (33% DM) can reply to direct messages.
  • Restricted (66% DM) cannot reply to direct messages unless a NamePros moderator is a participant in the conversation.

There are three primary capabilities with direct messages (DM's):
  1. Creating a new conversation or adding a member to an existing conversation.
    (If restricted, can never do these with NamePros moderators, either.)
  2. Replying to a conversation that was newly sent or already exists.
    (If restricted, can always reply to conversations that include a NamePros moderator).
  3. Receiving a new conversation from a member. This does not include receiving messages in existing conversations, but moderators can lock existing conversations upon request.
    (If restricted, can always receive new conversations from NamePros moderators.)
The three different types of DM restrictions:
  • Restricted (33% DM) blocks #1
  • Restricted (66% DM) blocks #1 and #2
  • Restricted (DM) blocks #1, #2, and #3

We hope that helps.
 
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So like 26 or so designations. Few observations/questions.

Why not just have a no Trolling or No Spam rule and then hit the Ban Button?

Can you stop those designations from showing up, especially negative ones with an ad buy? How much?

How about a paid influencer designation so some members can be in compliance with FTC guidelines.
 
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Why not just have a no Trolling or No Spam rule and then hit the Ban Button?
For spambots, we do.

For humans, we try to avoid it as much as possible, but sometimes we still do.

Can you stop those designations from showing up, especially negative ones with an ad buy? How much?
No, it's technically impossible with the new system unless new features were added to it. There are no current plans to add that.

How about a paid influencer designation so some members can be in compliance with FTC guidelines.
Members can use existing profile fields/options for that, e.g., the User Title or signature.

So like 26 or so designations.
There's a lot, but we want to be as informative as we reasonably can.

We hope it helps.
 
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What's the difference if it's a spambot or human? Spam is spam. Then why in the world would you "try to avoid it (banning) as much as possible". You're not supposed to avoid banning spammers. How does that help the forum?

No, it's technically impossible with the new system

I guess the timing just worked out. Few days after the restriction was over.
 
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What's the difference if it's a spambot or human?
Humans can typically be taught to stop spamming and start contributing instead.

Spambots have a single purpose and cannot be taught by us.
 
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Humans can typically be taught to stop spamming and start contributing instead.

Spambots have a single purpose and cannot be taught by us.

I think Bulloney and BlackCat have just shown you get more of the same. If there are no real repercussions, there is no reason to change. It also shows other people to have your way. So it is.

Continued: https://www.namepros.com/conversations/3070399/
 
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