I thought retro bans were select, IOW, for rare instances of someone deserving a thread ban. Not something to be thrown around as a threat by a thread creator.
What exactly are the rules on retro thread bans?
there are no rules. It is a courtesy some of us mods extend.
Lets review how all of this started:
Step 1: We allow users to request to have their threads closed.
Step 2: Given people can request their threads closed, in the old days if some retard didn't ban all the people they wanted, instead of retrobanning, they would instead request their thread closed, and then they would repost the same thread with a new updated ban list.
Step 3: The site ends up more cluttered, with redundant threads all over because someone forgot to ban an individual
Solution: We started doing retro's for people. It doesn't take a lot of time on our part, and people should still be motivated to ban up front because us mods wont always be around or respond in a timely matter, or we will sometimes say no.
I agree it shouldn't be thrown around as a threat by the thread creator, or used as a gotcha tool or to troll. I have denied people in the past, or I have told people "no more bans after this" etc.
So lets say this is getting out of hand. Maybe we should stop doing retros. In that case, we go back to what I just outlined above.
- or -
we could go a step further, and stop granting thread close requests too.
In that case, now people will just abandon an old thread, start a new one, and now we have multiple active clone threads going on the same topic. And us mods will have to choose between allowing a bunch of spammed cloned threads everywhere, or having to judge/notice/do some bullshit rule enforcement on counting how many threads someone has started, or if their new thread is "basically the same or not" or "slightly changed" and it just opens up other huge cans of worms, because most people on this site are idiots.
Retros seem to be the path of least resistance.