An open discussion on the "lifetime ban" and "pre-banning" policies

[issues]

And please, let's keep this discussion serious and civil.

OK,let us be serious.

It is hard to take seriously the protests of someone who's moral compass only (apparently) suddenly kicks in when he happens to be the one being effected.
Other than that I am seriously missing the part where you were "deprived" of anything as you didn't actually have that thing to begin with.
As for "fairness",I also seemed to have missed the memo where life suddenly became fair.

I think that instead of shaking a fist at the heavens and railing against imagined injustice,a reasonable person merely carries on and attempts to live to best of their ability and tries to keep the whining to a tolerable minimum.

Btw I'm basically a genius when it comes to people and all I'm seeing here is someone who got his feelings hurt because some internet type had the audacity to blackball him from his pseudo-cool pseudo-fraternity.

This is why we can't have nice things.

like extradry says, how can we differentiate between the 2, if we take one persons word for it we have to take everyone elses, and if you give people an inch they will take a mile.

In a lot of cases such as mine it is fairly easy. I have kept the same username among a number of other trackers and a lot of them as we know share information. In my case they saw that I was in good standing at those places for a number of years since that incident but were only interested in the ban.

Honesty isn't always the best policy. Most trackers basically don't care....you are just a number to them. Just get a different IP, email and username and start from fresh.

That's another thing I forgot to mention that bothers me. Many trackers tout that as their mantra of sorts but it is completely false. They say "lying will only make things worse" but in reality the choice if a lifetime ban or at least try to lie about it. I chose to be honest about it and am still paying for it. Which is another reason why I think these policies need to be rethought.

Is this your first and only account in this forum, issues?

No, it is not. My main account is not banned or anything. I just wasn't sure how this conversation would go and didn't want my main account associated with it. I did not see anything in the rules against this so my apologies if I am breaking any.

[anon]

I just wasn't sure how this conversation would go and didn't want my main account associated with it.

Well, I'm afraid that doesn't do you any favors.

[Bazookum]

As for "fairness",I also seemed to have missed the memo where life suddenly became fair.

Yeah I mean seriously, hasn't this guy ever been screwed over before? I can hardly make it out of bed without life giving me a hard kick in the balls!

But more on topic, in my experience if a person has a good account at a tracker and gets disabled due to inactivity, 99% of the time they will enable it if you just go ask for it. But perhaps if you were so inactive and uninterested in the site that you failed to log in for 1-3 months, you don't really like the place that much to begin with (excepting certain life circumstances that might prevent one from accessing a computer or something).

Also, there's pretty much 2-3 (or 10) decent trackers for every popular medium of entertainment anyway. Just go find another place to hang your hat.

I can't really speak for the policies of certain trackers in particular. That's what the staff of the site in question is for.

[issues]

As for "fairness", I never said anything about it not being "fair" at all. My purpose was to point out that these practices are likely to foster and cause the very behavior that they are trying to prevent. Although, I could see how it could read that way.

[1000possibleclaws]

If it's been 5 years you probably have a new motherboard and a new IP address. I don't understand why you pride yourself in some bullshit online honesty, you should have just started with a clear slate and a new identity.

For a staffer to make an exception for you, would be opening the door to possible future headaches by not following a pretty clear and standard rule. There is nothing for the site to gain by giving you the benefit of the doubt.

[IdolEyes787]

If it's been 5 years you probably have a new motherboard and a new IP address. I don't understand why you pride yourself in some bullshit online honesty, you should have just started with a clear slate and a new identity.

Last time I checked honesty wasn't something that can be neatly compartmentalized.You either are or you aren't and setting or circumstance doesn't enter into it.

Basically,if I'm understanding you correctly, then a person should be fine being " dishonest" when it "doesn't matter" or when they assume they stand a reasonable chance of getting away with it.

Since this seems to be the prevalent opinion that is nurtured "online" then I'm going to just go ahead and assume that we should start building more prisons right now as obviously we are going to need them.

[1000possibleclaws]

If it's been 5 years you probably have a new motherboard and a new IP address. I don't understand why you pride yourself in some bullshit online honesty, you should have just started with a clear slate and a new identity.

Last time I checked honesty wasn't something that can be neatly compartmentalized.You either are or you aren't and setting or circumstance doesn't enter into it.

Basically,if I'm understanding you correctly, then a person should be fine being " dishonest" when it "doesn't matter" or when they assume they stand a reasonable chance of getting away with it.

Since this seems to be the prevalent opinion that is nurtured "online" then I'm going to just go ahead and assume that we should start building more prisons right now as obviously we are going to need them.

How I see it, someones online identities can be separate and independent from each other as well as from their real-world self. (OlegL could be me or some other active user trolling on a joke account.) If the OP abandons his old persona and nickname, he gets the fresh start he wants. The cost is that he loses whatever identity he has developed under that nick, which in this case might be a positive thing?

If he creates a new identity I see it the same as if he was a brand new user to private torrents. All the hoops of being a new user, if there even are any, are still there for him. To get back on topic, having these IP and/or MAC bans is something I agree with, because its a barrier that discourages disposable tracker accounts for cheating purposes.

[mjmacky]

Last time I checked honesty wasn't something that can be neatly compartmentalized.You either are or you aren't and setting or circumstance doesn't enter into it.

What follows is an anecdote I will offer to counter that.

I'm a ridiculously honest person, but you better believe I'm going to lie and manipulate when put up against a system (e.g. IRS, police). For all relationships that are relatively level, and I'm including employer/employee in that formula, honesty is a net gain, which is why I have been so dependent on it. However, when there's a significant disproportion of power, let's say at a traffic stop, is there any real merit in letting the officer know you had a couple beers a few hours earlier. If you're sober, then your sobriety is itself convincing; why add doubt by admitting to consumption in the past 24 hours? The circumstances are such that you have no regard or sympathy to the system that will callously bend you over and rough fuck your ass.

Please take this as a general analysis that is not at all related to torrenting. For that aspect, I'll say this.

Torrent sites do not matter, at all. They are trivial, and by the nature of merely being populated, they are inhabited by a bunch of self-serving twats. Manage all your interactions with them under that generally true assumption. You can act with complete honesty or complete deception, it won't fucking matter what the result is.

Feel free to bitch about it though, for we all go through bouts of utter disappointment in realizing that our surroundings are much more awful than previously conceived.

[IdolEyes787]

In the case of the IRS or the police a bit of self preservation instinct kicks in and supplants the honesty.In situations when your well being is not at stake though,I think it's more of a question of respect.

In the case of bt even though I basically agree with your point of "self-serving twats" and would even add infantile to the mix,I still think as people and as yet unproven to be terrorists or pedophiles or something equally heinous like Rush Limbaugh they deserve the minimal of respect,which to me would be being honest with them.

Btw being twats, I don't except the same level of integrity back from them.

[mjmacky]

I basically agree with your point

When it comes down to the time in the future when you realize that you agree with almost everything I have ever said, ever, how exactly would your suicide proceed?