I'd just like to take this opportunity to mention hostmask bans.

If you've been banned, and you are ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE it's not your fault, i.e.,

- you have not uploaded anything resembling pornography,
- you have not recently called a whole lot of people *@&*, #^@, &^*, or "brazensix",
- you have not spammed the forums repeatedly,
- you have not uploaded anything that was drawn/written/skinned/done by someone else,
- you have not gotten into a fight with someone all over your respective pages,
- you have not tried to hack the site,
- you have not called me "old", [okay that one's not really ban-worthy but don't do it. ]


..then chances are good that you are part of a hostmask ban. This basically boils down to "one or two losers screwed it up for a whole lot of people". For the uninformed or uneducated in the ways of the internet, this means that we had to ban a whole lot of people to make sure we got that one loser.

"Well," you say, "just unban ME." Not so fast, sugarpants. We NEED to make sure that we keep the group banned until we can talk to the internet company involved, ferret out the culprits, and take care of the problem. Then, and only then, can devious access be restored to the rest of the group.

And now, for your questions:

1. Why am I banned? I did nothing wrong!
Please see above. Chances are, you are a subscriber of an internet service in which a group of people was banned to stop abuse from one or two people.

2. Why did you ban so many people?
Many times the abuser will use more than one IP address, or continually sign up for new names as fast as we can ban them. Banning the entire ISP or section of the ISP ensures we can make it stop so that the site abuse ends.

3. Why can't you just unban me and my friends, if you know we didn't do it?
Currently we are looking into better solutions for this type of situation, but as of right now, we have no other options.

4. How long before I'm unbanned?
Well, there's no real set answer to that. Sometimes it takes a few days, sometimes longer. Trust me, we will unban the group as soon as we feel it's safe and okay to do so.

5. What do I do in the meantime?
unfortunately, there's nothing TO do but sit and wait. I realize that it's hard to do without DA - we admins are addicted to it too. But hopefully, soon we'll have a better solution.

6. This isn't fair!!
We do apologize. It might seem unfair, but I think we'd all like to have a site we can interact in and that is abuse-free. Until we can find a better solution, this is all we've got.

Thanks for your cooperation while we try to make DA a better place for everyone.

--
Kit Lange
Former $Core Staff
Nature Photographer
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[link]
Right-wing conservatives are hot.