On the whole our community’s well behaved. But every now and then we need to we lock the accounts of people who are in consistent or major breach of our community standards. A few of you have asked about this, so we thought it best to explain how the process of locking accounts works.
If a commenter consistently breaches our community standards (or does so in a major way) we email them, explaining they’re at risk of having their account locked and why this is the case. This lets us have a discussion about the ways people are commenting.
If a user continues violating our standards, their account will be locked. This will last one month, six months or indefinitely. We’ll let readers know the time frame when their account is locked.
If we can’t contact you, we won’t be able chase you. That means it’s your responsibility to keep the email address in your reader profile up-to-date.
We dislike locking accounts but having a safe, interesting community is our first priority. Banning people is part of that. However, we’d much rather people follow our community standards so we can keep more accounts open.
Let me know if you have any feedback. And, as always, I remain your first port-of-call for complaints or issues.
Cory Zanoni, community manager