A poster sent me threats via DM - why can't I find out if they have been banned?

[DarlingHoldMyHand]

Someone sent me some pretty nasty unprovoked threats today via DM. I reported and MN said that they have "taken the appropriate action" but won't say if the poster has been banned or not.

Why can't I find out if the poster has been banned? They were very unpleasant and I'd just like to know if I need to watch out for them in the future or not.

I can understand why you want to know OP.
It's strange because recently I reported an inappropriate post by someone on a thread and the response I got advised me the post had been deleted and they had banned the poster.
So if I was given that information I don't understand why you haven't been given similar about someone who actually threatened you.

Do you think this person knows you?

That’s really bad that you can’t find out if the poster has been banned. Mind you I’m not surprised.

No, fortunately. They seem quite deranged from the numerous uninvited DMs, but they almost certainly have no idea who I am and I have no idea who they are.

It's more that if they are just being given a temporary suspension I would like to ask that this is reconsidered, as I don't want to be dealing with this again on this site when any suspension comes to an end.

But you know yourself there are literally 1000s of previously banned posters who keep using MN and having to be repeatedly banned, so what difference would it make?

You can block user in private messages, but I don't know if that just blocks one particular name of theirs, or all of them.

I don't know if I did know there were that many to be honest. I have seen a few threads started by previously banned posters who get banned again quickly.

I just don't want this person to be given the opportunity to come back after making these threats 🤷‍♀️

But unfortunately they will be given the opportunity because seemingly there are so many ways to continue posting as a PBP, until MNHQ catch up with them again.

I think if I was as concerned as you are, I'd just name change.

I know you shouldn't have to, but it seems the best solution really.

are these 'threats' serious enough to report to the police? If they are do that. If they're not just name change & change your posting style, any real details & be less open

as you know anyone determined to post/send PM's will just sign up again.

I would absolutely make your profile so you can’t receive PMs, and / or change your username. I agree with the posted above that banning doesn’t do anything because all you need to do is set up an account with a different email

And meant to say I’m sorry this happened- how horrible for you

That’s horrible. There’s some right weirdos on here. I think you can switch DMs off?

I would report it to the police if the poster knew who I was, but given that they don't know me, I don't think there would be any point. I think they are all mouth and no trousers so I'm not scared but I think they are very unpleasant and wouldn't like to see them being allowed back.

I thought MN tracked IPs and wouldn't let people sign up from an address that they had banned previously, but maybe I have the wrong end of the stick.

They disliked a comment that I had left on a thread ages ago and I had changed my name since then but it still came through to me. I will change my username again and do so fairly regularly.

I could switch off DMs altogether but have found DMs useful for some other conversations. I just didn't want to engage with this poster as they were very clearly mentally unwell from the many unsolicited DMs that they sent to me.

I would've blocked after the first one to be honest.

Perhaps just switch off your DMs for a couple of weeks and see how that goes.

Why are you not reporting to the police?

As I say, they don't know who I am so it was a bit of a pointless threat. It would feel like a waste of police time.

There is no point is there? What would they do?

Why don't you email them and ask point blank if that person has been permanently banned or just suspended? Ask them. They should have the decency to answer.

Unless they have a permanent IP I'm not sure how they can ban them, since IP addresses aren't usually static. They could ban an address and the address is temporarily assigned to someone else that logs on somewhere else and that person is banned through no fault of their own. I've heard of it happening with other people (not on here) so I imagine it would be impossible to ban based on IP address. IP address might tell you for example, what country they are coming from, but not their exact location/house/computer/phone etc. My IP address changes regularly depending on what the modem assigns me.

Hello @DarlingHoldMyHand thanks for posting - and apologies that we were not too clear in our initial response to your report. To confirm, this user has been banned. We don’t always share details of what action we’ve taken at the time, partly to protect users’ privacy and partly because our focus is on stopping the behaviour rather than discussing individual sanctions.

Rest assured though, we don’t tolerate abusive PMs and we're sorry you received them.

Thank you :)

I was about to say, they are usually very good at banning users that send unwanted PMs, but I see you have now had a response.