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I have some questions regarding suspended users:

  1. Why do suspended users have a reputation of one?

  2. According to the default reputation of a new user, he/she will have reputation of one and he/she has the privilege of posting questions. When comparing this, this is getting violated when compared to suspended users' reputation. Even though they have one reputation point, they cannot post questions.

  3. As suspended users do not have privilege of posting questions, there is no use of making "Ask Question" visible. This is an unnecessary server hit. Am I right?

  4. As suspended users do not have the privilege of answering questions, there is no use of making "Answer Question" visible.

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  • 2
    You do know the meaning of the word suspended right?
    – Octavian Helm
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 11:43
  • @Octavian Damiean : Ya, terminated for certain period of time
    – damodar
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 11:45
  • 7
    One is the loneliest number.
    – Rosinante
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 13:16
  • As to point 3, no, displaying some additional text on the page doesn't cause another "server hit". There is no additional overhead from displaying the "Ask Question" button.
    – user229044
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 13:57
  • This actually makes it very difficult to check if voting fraud has been corrected properly (which occasionally it isn't)
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 7:59

1 Answer 1

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First, for those who haven't read it yet, you better read the official blog regarding this issue.

Now to answer your questions:

  1. Why do suspended users have a reputation of one?

    The reputation is not only reduced to 1, it's also locked at 1 point. This is done, in addition to "auto block" most privileges, as some sort of intimidation - most people care very much about their reputation, almost like money, so taking it away is almost as hurting as banning from asking questions or posting answers. Even if someone will upvote answers such a person made in the past, the reputation won't be gained until the suspension is over.

  2. Even though they have one reputation point, they cannot post questions.

    That's right, suspended user is not just user with 1 rep.

  3. there is no use of making "Ask Question" visible. This is an unnecessary server hit. Am I right?

    The server get millions of hits every day. There are maybe several dozens of suspended user at any given time - the server can survive this extra hit.

  4. As suspended users do not have the privilege of answering questions, there is no use of making "Answer Question" visible

    Might be true, but probably not worth developing - the developers have more important things to do, that affect the whole community. If you want feel free to start Feature Request asking to hide the Answer section (and Ask a Question button) for suspended users.

Also, since "Why not 0?" is a common question, it's explained nicely in answers to this question: Why does reputation start at 1, and have a lower bound of 1?

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    still can i ask you one more question for the 2nd point you posted. can the reputation be zero for suspended users?
    – damodar
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 12:09
  • I doubt it's even an extra hit on the server to render a button on the client side.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 12:15
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    @Damodar: No, the reputation can never be zero. There's no special case for suspended users. The lowest you can go is 1.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented May 17, 2011 at 12:16
  • Why cannot the reputation be zero, just to get more clarification?
    – pal4life
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 2:01
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    @pal4life, see Why does reputation have a lower bound of 1?
    – brasofilo
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 2:40
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    @pal4life, We want them to come back with new hopes and wisdom. So no need for evey user to see on each post that a user is suspended. 1 is neutral, 0 is a scar.
    – Toon Krijthe
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 15:20
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    @ToonKrijthe Nice way to put it
    – pal4life
    Commented Apr 18, 2014 at 17:13
  • This answer does not explain why 'intimidating' a suspended user is considered a good thing to do. In my view the goal of punishment should be educating and correcting, not intimidating and humiliating.
    – Federico Poloni
    Commented Dec 28, 2019 at 13:10
  • @FedericoPoloni it makes people think twice before doing actions leading to suspension. It's not nice, it's not "friendly", but so are the actions leading to that suspension.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 28, 2019 at 13:46
  • Do you know if there's been any feature request been made, to have suspended users lose their privileges, but without their publicly visible reputation going down to 1, which makes it humiliating for suspended users if their username or picture is recognizable?
    – user1271772
    Commented Jan 15, 2022 at 0:31
  • @user1271772 yes. here it is.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jan 15, 2022 at 17:59

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