Has there been an increase in suspensions on MSE lately?

Question

I have recently noticed several "high-rep"⁽¹⁾ users (who were pretty active over the past weeks and months) are currently suspended, adding to plenty of other suspensions I've noticed since October 2019.

In my subjective perception, it feels like a significant number of users have been suspended recently, but without any insights into statistics that is pure speculation. So, this question is an attempt to get some hard data. Ideally, the more details, the better, with normalized data, if possible. For example:

1. What are the ban statistics from the beginning of the Monica incident until now, as compared with one or more previous years during the same fall-to-winter period?
2. How many users have been banned?
3. How many were banned without prior warning?
4. What is the distribution of the the reasons given for the recent suspensions?

Note that the existence of a suspension during the previous 12 months blocks people from becoming a moderator.

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Update: See 2019: a year in moderation

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^{1: I am not talking about "trolls or spammers", only about well-known users that have a long history of providing constructive, insightful and helpful content on MSE.}

Answer 1

In my subjective perception, it just feels like a high number of users are suspended these days, but without any insights into statistics that is pure speculation.

That's always a bad starting point (without statistical data), but I can at least confirm your (subjective) observations.

Thus I am simply wondering: is the current rate of suspension still "within the normal" given the "storms" that shake this place lately? Or is the community witnessing an unseen outburst of suspension-worthy posts here on Meta SE?

At least since October 2019 there are several, well, let's say dramas with regard to the community vs. Stack Exchange, Inc. going on.

Such dramas attract trolls, but also serious contributors here.

For trolls, suspension reasons may be obvious.
For the serious (and maybe experienced, and dwelled well) contributors saying the forbidden¹ it seemingly just becomes just a slippery slope.

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¹⁾_{There were some recent changes regarding the Code of Conduct, which has severely changed the moderators' (staff CM's or community elected) sensitivity about wording in any kind of posts.}

Answer 2

I was about to ask a similar question. Without going into too much detail, I would slam a big Yes on this first.

Though, that's a very quick jump to a conclusion. I give this answer based on the following assumptions and my observations:

• There are many spammers and random trolls around the Stack Exchange network that get banned or suspended every day. Their activities are generally unaffected by regular activities in the real community - drug ads are still coming at a consistent rate. We ignore this kind of bans.
• Many high-profile Meta users are suspended recently. Not to name any, but I can assure you all those I've seen who are suspended for a month or more are respected by most of the community, and some are even previous elected moderators (for years!).
• Recent conflicts makes some people more irritable than before (including me), and sparking and incendiary remarks appears to come up more often than before, when heats used to cool down very quickly.
• As pointed out by user Reinstate Monica (267185) in comments, moderators and CMs have been more sensitive about language. I always see (highly-upvoted) answers deleted unreasonably, or at least I couldn't figure out why they were deleted.

Concluding from the above points, I'm not surprised to see that more active contributors are rejected by SE (suspended, posts deleted or otherwise received unwelcoming signals). So in general, yes to your guess, but statistically I'm not able to give an answer.

Answer 3

Maybe. I'm not sure what's the normal number, but there are currently over 200 users with a reputation of 1 on MSE and some relatively active posts, of which over 20 users have a few posts with score higher than 5 and sometimes a very big absolute score.

See the query 1-reputation users with a meta posts with more than 5 votes , where you'll quickly notice that there is some noise.

Answer 4

It's only fair to see this in the proper context, although I will, unfortunately, have to extrapolate from anecdotes and subjective interpretations.

The consistent "theme" with the recent unending string of dramas on SE is that they create an impression that at least SE doesn't care about the community, if not worse (repeated soulless and/or inaccurate statements about Monica, massive resistance against community input on the CoC, consistent negative comments about the community in blog posts, firing of Community Managers, etc).

That impression in turn leads to people like me not seeking to be banned, but not caring if I get banned or not either. Want to ban me? Sure, go ahead. So I don't have any incentive to limit myself.

In summary, it seems only logical that if more people don't care about getting banned, more people will be banned. And following that, more (at least semi-)justified bans might make it more likely for moderators to assume bad faith where they shouldn't have, leading to even more bans.

What got me 1-week banned was protesting, by repeatedly describing the events in detail, Robert Harvey's 1-year ban for civilly proposing an alternative CoC. Don't bother looking for it, the question about the alternative CoC is gone, as is the question about the deletion of that question, and the question about the deletion of the question about the deletion of that question.

Answer 5

Yes, there was.

As I see it, the moderator team and/or SE staff gave "us", the ordinary users, a grace period where we could rant and post (almost) anything on our minds without being suspended for that. Heck... "even" I got a warning during the first days of the crisis. But not suspended.

However, for a while now, that grace period is over. To maintain order, the mod team must be very strict, otherwise the site will fall to chaos.

While I think some of the suspensions are not deserved, I do agree with the above idea in general. I want to see this site still up and running in a year, not closed due to total chaos.