Steve118x indefinite ban from boards

Tenshot

A work colleague of mine, Steve118x, was permanently banned from Boards yesterday. When he visits the site, he gets this message:

"You have been banned for the following reason:
A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer.

Date the ban will be lifted: Never"

Steve joined Boards yesterday to comment on the Late Late Toy Show thread - he had been spotted on-air (as the "long-haired boffin") and wanted to respond. I saw his initial response but not the follow-up discussion, which has since been deleted from the thread.

Since Steve can't access Boards at all now, I said I'd inquire on his behalf as to the reason for the ban. I presume it was because the thread was getting too commercial? I don't think there was any confusion as to Steve having any association with the product being discussed, since it was pretty clear he was directly involved with it from the outset.

Bond-007 (TV forum mod) said that the ban had been carried out by a senior mod and suggested I ask here if I wanted more info.

Basically, a total systemwide ban seems rather harsh, unless something way over the top was posted (since the full thread is now deleted, I have no idea if this was the case).

So, can anyone shed any light on what triggered the ban? Steve isn't too fussed one way or the other - he's not a regular boards user anyway, and wasn't intending to stir anything up, he just wanted to respond to comments made by other users about him and his product. Consequently, he's a little bemused by the whole thing.

(PM me if you'd prefer to avoid discussing this here.)

Thanks,

Eddy

Ruu_Old

The post was reported by a number of users as being a shill and looked too commercial (users who wish to advertise can contact one of the adminstrators). Posts like these come around every day so I can see why many users felt this was another user advertising their business and why we reacted in this manner.

The ban was set at 7 days sitewide by one of the moderators until I came along and made it permanent. Since you have come here and explained the actions, I've reduced the ban from permanent to 7 days.

Tenshot

Thanks for the clarification and ban reduction, Ruu; I'll pass it on to Steve.

Eddy