Thread: Banned Without Ever Registering? STAFF PLEASE HELP!

Receiving a message saying that your IP has been banned by the administrator is hardly a suitable welcome message for brand new people who would like to join your on-line community. I have recently decided to get into playing Final Fantasy XVI and I've heard that your website is a great place to share and learn information from others in the spirit of how a good online community should be. On visiting to register FOR THE VERY 1ST TIME, I was dismayed to be confronted with this IP ban message. I'm sorry, but it's beyond me how my IP address could possibly be permanently banned when I've never registered for your website and I initially waited ages before coming back in disbelief to still find the same message greeting me? The IP ban message then allows you to click to contact the administrator, but it then asks you to login to your account to do this which was obviously impossible without an account in the first place, I tried to register, but I was back to square one with the IP ban message which prevented me. Obviously normally to be banned you have to an account to login to as without an account no terms and conditions have yet been agreed to break? I strongly suspect there is a big mistake somewhere and your system is occasionally wrongfully banning completely innocent people like myself who haven't even registered with your website, let alone spammed or caused any sort of abuse. What's more I have never spammed anything in my entire life and I wouldn't even consider it, I have never been abusive or done anything else illegal on-line either that could possibly black list my IP address in any way what-so-ever. I've read of at least one other person on-line with exactly the same problem who again has never registered for this website, he's written on another forum to argue how IP banning can go wrong with this website as an example. I am always polite, professional and there has never been cause to ban me from any website on the Internet since I started using it regularly over 15 years ago. I therefore find that being wrongfully singled out and treated in this way with such a ban quite upsetting. I formally, but politely ask the staff to rectify this error ASAP so I can rightfully start using your website on my own PC with exactly the same opportunity as everyone else!

Since it was impossible to contact the administrator as advised on the ban message, I firstly sent an email message to the administrator's email held on the publicly available "who is" database about this mistake / error, but unfortunately I haven't received a reply as yet. I have therefore now been forced to register for your website for the very first time ever on another machine so I can attempt to contact staff this way to resolve this problem. Registering for the very 1st time on your website with my primary email address and correct information is certainly not a breach of any terms and conditions.

For the sake of security it's probably not a good idea to post my external IP address here, please reply with a best way for me to send you this information so you can investigate.

Thanks in advance.


UPDATE: I've read that you've been having a lot of spamming problems recently where it's been suggested that you should ban IP ranges, I suspect a range or ranges have been banned that also include innocent people including myself. I understand how difficult it can be to stop spamming as I've adminstered forums myself in the past with similar problems, but this needs to be rectified urgently. There should be at least a friendly message explaining about how your necessary anti-spam measures could possibly block the occasional innocent person, detailing what such people should do if this is the case with an apology for any inconvenience. There should then be a working means to contact the administrator if they feel this action isn't justified or when there's clearly a mistake when you haven't even registered for the site so you can easily whitelist these individuals after of-course checking that their exact IP address isn't a specific offender. A nicely laid out contact form would be a suitable solution and this would ensure you get all the information you require to investigate and correct any injustices. With no easy way to contact the administrator without having an account, many people are probably experiencing the same problem and haven't bothered coming forward or they don't have the resources to, so who knows who many innocent people are being unfairly blocked assuming IP ban range problems are the cause.

The admin(or admins) have long since abandoned this site most likely it's being kept alive by the ads. This site has been pretty much dead for the last 6months+(I've been here from the start and I've watched it die off after the origin shell died off). Some of the original members of these forums still play but they don't visit this site anymore.

The only people who post on here anymore are people looking for buddy passes, recruiting for their shells, or just don't seem to realize these forums are dead and make a few posts and never come back(seems the ad spammers quit this site too so spam isn't really a issue anymore).

If your really set on making a account contacting the admin probably won't do a damn thing and I doubt ziss even cares about this site anymore let alone if he's blocking innocent people. If you really want to post you could go use a proxy server to connect to the forums.

There is really no reason for you to make a account on these forums tho there are many other active FFXIV communities out there(the official forums work just try to avoid the general discussion forums).

I hope this helps you.