Remove/block a member without banning

[Travis]

Something that comes up every so often in one of my networks is the need to remove an account, whether it be from someone who has decided to leave, someone who created a duplicate account, someone who forgot their password but no longer has the same email address, etc.

Unless I am blind, my only option seems to be to ban them, which is not only overkill, in some cases, it isn't even what I'm wanting-- sometimes I just want to remove the old account so they can start again. Having a delete member would be quite helpful.

Along the same vein: at times it would be nice to have an option between sending someone a PM saying "please change your behavior" and out right banning them. I would love -- LOVE -- the ability to "freeze" an account for some NC-defined period of time, along with a message. "I am sorry, but due to your continued violation of our community standards, your account has been frozen for a period of 48 hours..."

[Evan]

Hey Clark!

They can't log in but they CAN still delete their content. Our Terms of Service gives members the ability to delete their content, so they'll still have that option if they've been suspended from your Ning Network.

We don't plan on amending our TOS, but we can look at other solutions, such as saying "This post has been removed" for forum posts when someone has been suspended, but keeping the replies underneath.

Hopefully this solution is a big help for the meantime though.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Clark P]

"This post has been removed" would be a help.

But why can't you change the TOS? You (and your lawyers) get to write it you know. ;-) If you kept the scope of the materials we have permission to use very narrow (only written forum posts and written group forum posts), no perspective or current member would even bat an eye. It would NOT be a huge hubub like Facebook's change of TOS.

I just thought of another workaround... but I'm afraid to tell you because you'll then remove the content from there too. :-(

The workaround is to change my forum from threaded (where people don't need to quote the original post for readability) to the flat style where they are almost forced to quote the person they are replying to.

This way, in conjunction with the "This post has been removed" insert, people could almost still read what was originally written.

This is a usability nightmare for users though as the quoting feature as it currently is in the flat forum kinda sucks. It puts HTML code into the members reply. Most people are so confused by that "gibberish" they just don't post. Or they delete it when they really did want to quote the previous poster... they were just thrown off by code in their reply that they didn't put there.

What do you think?

(I think threaded forums are vastly superior, but might consider a flat one if it would keep my content more intact. I'm just scared of the changeover... what happens when I change the style on my Ning site?)

[Evan]

Hey all!

Just a note, check out this related discussion here.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Evan]

Hey Deborah!

You can't add content for another member on your Ning Network, so you should either ban this person or ask them to login and update the account (they should be able to click "Forgot Pasword"). If that's not possible, contact the Help Center and we'll do our best to help.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Evan]

Hey Deborah!

You can either keep them removed, or unban them so they can sign in and update their profile. Those are the two options available, and that seems like less of a pain then setting up a new account from scratch. If they really want to do that, they can sign in — then leave the network, allowing them to join fresh. Hope that works in this case!

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Travis]

Question, then: if banning them removes them but leaves their account and unbanning them restores the account, is there anyway that we can just remove them entirely, like they never existed? I've had about a half dozen requests to do that on my network for various reasons, because they want to free up their email and reuse it, etc. and end up having to walk them through deleting their own account because I don't see a way for us to just do a real delete. Now that "ban" is potentially being tweaked to be more of a "suspend", will we also see a real, straight-up delete?

[Evan]

Hey Travis!

Sorry, we don't have any plans for that.

If the member wants to remain on the network, you can end their suspension. If they haven't been suspended and they want to remove their account, they can simply leave the network. I understand people may occasionally simply ask to be removed, but I think most people can simply be suspended or reinstated.

That being said, I'm happy to hear your feedback.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Travis]

Good to know. Its not a big deal, but sometimes I get a member who just cannot seem to find the "leave network" and, even so, that doesn't seem to work the way they want, either-- they seem to want to delete their account entirely and start again from scratch. Why, I have no clue, but... :-P

[happycamper]

I look forward to the day we can suspend for ever how long we feel is needed. Sometimes we need to give the member to cool and banning them for lets say one day would give them the chance to do that.

[Tawana]

THNAK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!! I brought this same question up over a year ago to Ning. I have some members to this day that have new email addresses and no longer had the old email account and I had to ban the original membership and they had to create another one because of this. ALSO I have some now who are still showing as members of my network but they have a new internet provider therefore they have a new email address and they want to be active on the network again but the don't want to lose all of their photos, friends and other information by having me ban them and they start all over. For this reason they can no longer access the network which I am not happy about. I agree, this needs to change and soon.

[Evan]

Hey Cartia!

Unless the person somehow obtained other members' email addresses (the only way to do that would be if they asked for them), then there's no way for them to send messages to members if they're no longer on the Ning Network.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Evan]

Hey Tawana!

Members can always change their email address. The only case where they couldn't is if they both forgot their password AND no longer have access to their email. In that case, they can contact the Help Center and we might be able to help.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager