Originally Posted by Dovster

I was reading some very old threads and was surprised by the number of posters, many with literally thousands of posts each, who have apparently been given lifetime suspensions. Note that I am NOT referring to duplicate user names or to hit and run posters who come on here for the sole purpose of making a handful of obnoxious posts. I am talking about people who had a great number of posts before being kicked off of FT.

The difference to me is comparable to the driver who travels 200 miles per year and another who is on the road for 30,000 or so miles. If the first gets even two tickets, he can be seen as a public danger who should not have a license. The second is far more liable to make mistakes, simply because of his increased exposure, and even with 10 tickets may well be a very safe driver.

I would like to suggest a general amnesty for anyone who has at least 1,000 posts and has been suspended for over a year. A large part (the largest part?) of FT's value is in the content supplied by posters. If somebody supplied a lot of value, then isn't the site better off allowing him to return? As the most valuable posts are the various ones which actually deal with travel, and a great number (I am again guessing) that most of the objectionable posts which resulted in suspensions, were on forums that are not travel-related (chiefly Omni, Omni/PR), or are only loosely connected (eg:Travel Safety/Security, and the now-defunct Talkboard Topics), that any objectionable posts, past, present, or future) from these forums should only result in suspensions from those forums. After all, no matter how obnoxious posts may be (even repeated multiple times) that poster may be making very helpful posts concerning flights, hotels, and destinations.

Obviously, if a poster repeatedly violates the T&Cs on the core forums, his suspension should be site-wide.