User blog:Light.Runner.Explorer/Banned from Khan Academy

Hey guys! I know that most of you know this but I have been banned from Khan Academy.

For those who do not know this website you can find it here:

https://www.khanacademy.org/

When I was banned, I was not told or even given a heads up about that ban. So it was pretty sudden since before I was banned I tried to "lay low" and not cause anything wrong.

Kitt had told me in a reply to my Help Center request, "If our Guardians need to contact you again, I will deactivate your discussion privileges and, if necessary, delete accounts if you attempt to subvert my decision."

Now I was alright with them banning me if they gave me a reason why I was banned, or what I was doing wrong at the moment. Plus if I actually did recieve another guardian message, this would make a little more sense. But, I neither was told what I did wrong (or maybe I was and they were not clear), I was not warned or told when I was banned, and I never had to recive a guardian message.

After finding out I was banned I made a program letting the community know that I was no longer able to be with them. Yet, I found I am not able to post programs anymore. So GLY said he would be glad to post the program for me. I was happy to see that every message was positive and they all either wished me luck, said they couldn't wait till I got back, or they asked why I was banned.

Sponge in a message to GLY, "It was initially only hidden from the hot list (as it wasn't an appropriate topic or project for that), but the project itself and the discussion also seemed to be detracting from the community's learning experience already, and things seemed to be escalating from there." (I will post the whole message at the bottom so you can see that I'm not cutting anything out)

A side note to this is that a Guardian's job description says, "Send a message (via a user's profile) to users who have been participating in discussion but have made off-topic posts, such as chit-chat, repeated vote/badge seeking, or homework questions." But in Sponge's statement he says, "This isn't a warning message." Now I don't really care about this, but it seems to go against the KA rules for Guardians.

From my knowledge, every comment on there was perfectly fine and I enjoyed reading every one of them. The only two commetns that might have been a problem were, "I don't even know who Light Runner is" and (paraphraised:) "He was probably banned for using hacks/bots"

Now even those were mild in their statements and should not have been hidden from the public. So I guess I am alright with the program being hidden from the hotlist, but there is not a good and valid reason to why Sponge needed to hide/delete all the helpful comments. Maybe it would be better for him to have only hidden the ones that he thought were decending to KA? Another thing that puzzles me is it is not only hidden from the hotlist, but hidden from all of the public to see. Now I am wondering why it needed to be hidden from everyone.

In the Pamela's program I made people made pretty much the exact same comments:

Pamela's: "Why is she leaving?" Mine: "Why is he banned?"

Pamela's: "We should all put #FarewellPamela in our name!" Mine: "We should put #BringLRBack in our names"

Pamela's: "I will miss her! She helped me with so much!" Mine: "I can't wait till he comes back!"

So if here were problems with my posts, wouldn't it be logical for him to have also deleted the posts on the program about Pamela? Sponge stated, "The takeaway is this: Questions or feedback on moderations issues should be directed to Help Center (https://khanacademy.zendesk.com/hc/en-us) rather than having projects made about them." But he never actually said where that was from.

All in all I don't want this to be on Sponge. He felt like he was doing his job the best way he could. I am only pointing out my questions in the past situations. (Hopefully Sponge doesn't see this as an attack in any way)

Thanks for all the support you guys have given me in this problem! I hope it gets cleared up soon. =)

Sponge's full message: Hi, this is Josh (SpongeJr).

This isn't a warning message. I just thought I would offer some explanation to make sure there wasn't any confusion with regards to your project "Banned?".

The primary reason it was hidden from the community is because of it being about a moderation issue, specifically a banning. Unfortunately, experience has shown that the discussion on these projects often gets out of hand rather quickly. It was initially only hidden from the hot list (as it wasn't an appropriate topic or project for that), but the project itself and the discussion also seemed to be detracting from the community's learning experience already, and things seemed to be escalating from there.

There isn't a guideline that specifically says "programs about bans or moderation issues may be hidden from the hot list or the community", but Guardians sometimes have to use their best judgement on such issues.

The takeaway is this: Questions or feedback on moderations issues should be directed to Help Center (https://khanacademy.zendesk.com/hc/en-us) rather than having projects made about them. Sorry for any disappointment. We look forward to seeing more of your projects about appropriate subjects!

-Josh