If you never posted on those forums then how do you know posting abilities previously existed?

    Just curious if there's a location where someone can view all their current privileges.

While some may deserve a instant ban, I'd say they do NOT deserve to get it without motivation. There's always the chance that there's more to the story than a few posts, so anyone getting that harsh punishment should atleast get a chance to motivate whatever dumb thing they did.

You are? It's not about you though, it's about the person getting banned. They don't tell the person they ban anything, and there actually is a chance that the person doesn't know (regardless of the content of those "evil" posts)... While Stardock has no legal obligation to tell anyone anything, there is a moral obligation which reflect VERY bad on the company if they choose to ignore.

I'm not a usual forum-poster in any forum, nor have I ever been.

Thanks to those who tried to help inform and/or gave relevant opinions
I didn't expect the public schools thing to come up, but it's interesting to note that this thread went there briefly...

I think I've gotten the information and opinions I was interested in.

"Spare the rod and spoil the child", if you mean that "spare the rod" part literally, is the lazy parent's way of discipline. Using violence as a display of authority will get you only so far. This method of discipline tends to backfire. The child simply learns that being physically overpowering gives one the right of authority, and you know where that thinking is going to lead the child.

Once the child is physically strong enough to shrug the pain of violence as a disciplinary measure, they might just return the favour to their parents. They'll subsequently use the same method on their own children and possibly friends, resulting in a vicious cycle and on a large scale, a serious social problem.

As with any saying, it can have many literal meanings.  In this case the "rod" being discipline in and of itself.  Which is my intended point, discipline.  There are far too many children out there that don't have any.  I am a proponent of moderated discipline.  That's not to say that I don't spank my children or slap their hands once in awhile.  There are far more non-violent forms of discipline that have a much better effect on a child that physical violence.  Society however, would have you believe that any form of physical discipline is bad and detrimental to the child.  It's not.

Look at how great the U.S. was 50 years ago and compare that to how fucked up we are now.  The children that were raised in that period were respectful, well behaved (mostly), courteous etc.  Its fact.  They called adults Sir or Ma'am.  They said please and thank you.  Now look at most kids today.  They don't know the meaning of please.  They've never said Sir in their lives.  Society has allowed this to happen.  It's our fault.  People blame the violence of our youth on video games and violent music.  Society has made these the standard.  It's our fault. 

"The people in this country need to wake up and take the veil of complacity off of their eyes." RATM 

Interesting thread here!

I am a member of a number of other game forums, some of which are definately more strict than this forum, but never have they restricted a member without warning or explanation( that i know of), it just isn't done.

We should remember that the true measure of a game forum is not based on what they have the right to do, but what they do better than the other guy!

My apologies for taking this thread off topic again.

With regards to your point about the necessity of discipline, we're in agreement. What I disagreed with, is the use of physical pain as the method of discipline, I believe any form of discipline has to be in a form which the child understands the consequences of his/her actions and the underlying implications. Much easier said than done; it's hardly news that parenting had never been easy.

Regarding children's etiquette with their elders, you're right that it's really up to the parents to instill in them the wisdom of being courteous. I suspect that as our lives become more complicated, parents find less and less time and patience to educate their children properly. Just a side effect of modern living.

It's funny, people can be rude over and over on these forums, and then complain that SD did not prevent them from being rude in a more "curtious" way.  Reminds me of what a Sheriff friend of mine use to tell me: How many criminals in the middle of commiting a crime always complained how rough the cops were that arrested them.

I think non-violent, non-spanking disipline is always best, BUT, having watched/babysat my neices/nephews for almost 2 decades, I can tell you the huge problem in America with child raising is that there is a percentage of kids that just don't, and never will respond to the "peaceful" method.  All my neices/nephews responded to time-outs; grounding, and stern talks, but one, would laugh every time you tried that stuff.  He'd even hit you if you tried to do something like put him in the corner. But one firm swack on his bottom, and he straitened up and flew right like a he had just got out of boot camp.  Some kids are just pure alpha-males (or females), and just don't respond to anyone until you make it clear that YOU are the alpha-parent.  Plus, corporal punishment has been used for our entire existance of a species, until lately, and if you ask me, we have some of the rudest kids in history at the time.

Anyway, I may be comming back on these forums now since SD is cracking down on the trolls.  As I wrote long ago on this same forum, SD has started a revalutionary new way of communicating with it customer base, and I was hoping they would do this same thing with forums.  So many times people would respond to warnings about flames/trolling by saying "This is the interenet, you can't stop this, LOL.  But I always thought all it would take is one forum to do things differently to change that, the same way SD communicating with it's customers has changed game companies.

You do have a moral obligation to tell people when you do something that affect them though. Ofcourse, you can choose to ignore it, but don't act as if you're surprised when some angry person figures out a way to trash the forum because of it.

Exactly. And the user who got his writing privileges removed got no notification about it. Which is what this whole thing is about.

And as for we not knowing, sure, we can't know 100%. But I'm choosing to trust the original poster and his friend on this. If the mods DO send information to the user when they ban/change privileges, why didn't they just state "We do send out an email/pm"? That would be quite sufficient to make this thread go away (assuming it's true obviously).

Not me.

I trust Fuzzy.