We ban users from the support forums for four reasons:
1) Disrupting behavior
2) Extreme profanity
3) Trolling
4) General idiocy, owning a pirated board, etc.
IIRC, we have only banned a small handful of users under the first three... the fourth has a much wider range of people banned, but I doubt that many would object to their removal. ;)
I don't know the exact circumstances of Marty's ban, and will not speculate on it... it does sound out of the ordinary however. I know of only two users banned for "reporting bugs", both of which were outright trolls, attempting to directly cause trouble by posting a major security issue after we had repeatedly stated that it was being taken care of.
Directly answering your points... we have no issues with almost anything, as long as it is not a direct troll (i.e. a post made to encourage negative responses), flamebait (i.e. started to make an argument), etc... Product vs Product debates have been sort of discouraged for quite some time, as we have found that they almost always degrade into a flamefest. This might not be an issue here, on these forums, as there is a much smaller community base and a might tighter sense of comrodary (sp)... but we used to get John Q. User walking up, starting an argument, then never saying anything again.
If it can be kept civil, such debates are just fine. When they get personal, start to insult products (anyones, not just ours), people, companies, etc, the topic gets locked. If the issue is brought up again and again, the person is told to knock it off, and usually banned shortly thereafter - after they fail to stop.
We had a product vs product debate the other day on UBBForums. It was going quite well until people started insulting each other and the products involved. End of discussion...
"Censorship" is relative. If I came into your house and started screaming and yelling at you, breaking your furniture, and doing other nasties, wouldn't you want to kick me out of your house?
If you have concerns about this, please feel free to ask for clarification directly, either here, on Community itself, or via email to any of the available Infopop employees. We'll be glad to help clear things up.
We are not an evil entity, and are saddened that many feel this way. We want to do whatever is nessecary to clear things up.
Thank you.
