Hello,
Today, for the first time in my 20+ years on this site, I got (automatically?) suspended for trying to provide a resource link to someone (where bases were listed together with their requirements).
This is horrible user experience both for someone on and off the site and for someone new, because it lets a user perform the action and there is only find out with a hard reaction from it.
There is no warning, just try and you find out. Most sites either have a black/white list or just mark them as external as warn you if you try to access them.
The goal is to keep retention rate and further educate your users on how to better use the site.
To this effect, I have the following suggestions, to move from instant suspension to one or more of:
1. Show a graphic warning/popup/banner (not the warning percent on 1st offense, still same behavior) to the user
- this can be either soft warning message or hard disable the send button with a more prominent warning message, until the problem link is removed from the message
- in this warning, the user could at least learn to check again before trying to send
- in this warning, either a link or a direct list of what is allowed could be shown OR, to keep your site secure, just mention something to the effect of "your message appears to have a forbidden link, please remove it to be able to send the message"
2. Inform the user if he keeps trying to send the message and then apply the 1h suspension for obvious spam attempt if he still clicks it a few times - add a flash effect to the warning on each click before
3. Disable "Send Message" function in Inbox and do not send the message
- the user will see a banner with a proper warning for why this function was suspended, where to learn more about it without leaving your site and for how long the function is suspended for his/her account
- the banner would be visible both in the Inbox - list of messages and the Reply function
Thanks for suggestion feedback/consideration.
This post was edited by Alexandru on Feb 5 2026 06:14pm