Grey is the new blue - homeworkers for the ban corner

Hey everyone in the ban corner, if you're feeling up for it, come join us for some weekly forum homework.

We drop a new topic every single week. This week’s theme is dream.
If you want in, just write something based on the prompt and post it over in the ban corner. Our friendly mods will handle moving it over to the main homework thread for you.

Just a heads up: don't use your entries to complain about the mods or any general forum drama. If you do, we won't accept them.

Current topic link:
Comments here:

(Mods, let me know if this belongs here or if I should move it over to the KZB.)

Thanks for the heads-up, I actually already missed a few votes. You forgot to include the closing dates, though. Come back and remind us when voting actually ends.

Whoa, slow down there—not a single vote has even been cast in this new round yet. Doesn't matter to me, though; the last round is ancient history.🙂 I hear Joseph's story is top-tier.

News on the monitor

This round stays open until Sunday at 10 PM. After that, we move straight into voting through Tuesday night. As soon as our winner drops a new topic, the next round kicks off immediately.

So, here’s the deal with the new schedule: we’ll be posting from Wednesday through Sunday, then hitting the polls on Mondays and Tuesdays.

New week, fresh topic.

Alright, for all you folks hanging out in the ban corner, make the most of this downtime. Head over to the KZB and drop a story under the "Roads" thread. 🙏
You’ve got until Sunday night to get your stories posted for this round.

I’m heading to the ban corner next week just to turn this whole theory into reality, because honestly, someone has to step up for the sake of every future homeworker out there 🤣

Here are the lists for the first six rounds (for now).
Check everything from post 18 onwards. (I cleaned up the previous ones a bit)

Comment (move to appropriate section):

The motivation levels of the folks already posting over at the Homeworkers can't really be applied to those currently in the ban corner. I guess they might need some extra incentive—maybe if someone hits the top three in a poll, their strike gets cleared or their ban gets shortened?

They shouldn't really be competing directly with the main Homeworkers site. Maybe a separate thread for the gray area users would work better; if they feel like their chances of hitting that top three are slim, they'll probably just wait out their ban instead.

Regarding the rule about not mentioning the moderation team—well, obviously, we shouldn't allow any petty bickering with the mods through the Homeworkers. But, I don't know, maybe there should be a little room for a protest sign hanging from a balcony that says "Chuck, you're driving me crazy! Just delete this already!" It seems like we could afford to be a little more flexible there.

And honestly, it feels like we all need to grow a thicker skin... (much respect to Chuck 👍)

Anyway, out of all the recent ideas floating around, this one was definitely my favorite. I was thinking—man, we might actually be looking at a new golden age for the Forum. This could be what future users look back on as the "good old days," especially when they eventually complain about how the Forum isn't what it used to be. ☕

As it stands now, though, this whole thing feels like nothing more than an overly complicated link back to the original Homeworkers. Like most of the ideas brought up here, it seems to have been watered down by the extreme cautiousness of the moderation team and Scott Long71.

Linda King said:Just like every other idea I've brought up, this one got shut down because the mods and Scott Long71 are being way too sensitive.

I'm not totally sure what you're getting at here, but ever since I realized the lockdown era would be the perfect time to get more homeworkers involved since everyone had extra downtime, the admin team hasn't tried to stop me once. Honestly, it’s the opposite. Every time I reach out for something the blue team can't handle—like setting up polls or locking threads—someone jumps in to help.

And nobody is breathing down my neck about my idea to let people in the ban corner participate. If I say it's cool, then they're part of the group. Any special rules against them would just be straight-up discrimination against the regulars.

I’m not talking about the original Homeworkers; that system works perfectly and has honestly exceeded all my expectations. 🙂

But, if I recall correctly, there was some talk about offering reduced bans or similar kind of incentives for those gray-status Homeworkers. That seems crucial if we want to make sure even the very last troublemaker gets caught. Since nobody really talks about it anymore, I guess you could say the idea has just sort of fizzled out.

Personally, I’d probably keep the gray status as its own separate category, but hey, it's your call. (I don't mean to discriminate against them, it's more like providing a little safe space for them, I suppose). 😍

That’s just how you see it, I guess... Look, we talked about all sorts of stuff on the homeworker chat, but that wasn't actually what I was planning to pitch. If homeworkers had a shortcut to some kind of amnesty, they’d definitely be abusing the system left and right. On the flip side, if you aren't getting anything out of this besides participation points, and some random gray user shows a bit of actual enthusiasm, you're basically just boosting the odds that someone—maybe Linda King, Scott Long71, or a speaker...—will decide they’re actually contributing something valuable to the Forum.

stormytiger4 said:..If homeworkers were some kind of shortcut to getting an amnesty, I guess they’d definitely be abused quite heavily.

Well, I suppose a certain amount of, let's say, abuse by someone in the ban corner would actually serve as the fuel for this whole topic. I mean, what's the absolute worst-case scenario here? Maybe someone manages to shave a day off their ban every week, or perhaps they get a strike removed because they cooked up an interesting story that ends up being read by a ton of people. Who is actually losing out in that situation? If it's a real concern, maybe we could just set a limit where a user can only benefit from it once a month. 🤷

(I guess a major flaw in my idea is how easily a poll could be manipulated. You might have people who agree with the banned user showing up just to vote for them, so maybe a different voting system would work better... perhaps forming some sort of permanent council, maybe made up of those blue-chip Homeworkers).

...
On the other hand, if you aren't getting much besides participation, and someone who is usually quiet shows a bit of enthusiasm, it actually might improve the chances that someone (like Nica, Scott Long71, or a speaker...) concludes that they might actually be contributing to the forum after all.

It's a bit of a long shot, I guess...😁

Linda King said:It’s a long way off...😁

Actually, no. Look at Grace Edwards92 over there, writing all these pretty little posts, asking to have her partial credit removed from the GPA and... boom, it's gone.

stormytiger4, what kind of speaker are you talking about now?

Scott Long71 said:stormytiger4, what speaker are you even talking about now?

Yeah, fair point. He always loses his cool whenever he gets mentioned in the public threads. Just delete the post if you have to.

And honestly, Grace Edwards92 is a killer writer. I’m pretty sure her stuff helped her get through those partials. It’s not that deep. 🙏

Grace Edwards92 is just wonderful. 😍 Obviously, she had a few partial bans applied to her account. 👍

But you really can't expect some random person on the forum who suddenly finds themselves in the ban corner to pull those kinds of stories out of thin air like she does (and honestly, plenty of others there do too). Their motivations are just different, I guess. That’s why I mentioned I wouldn't really group them together. Some people genuinely love to write, whereas others just want their warnings lifted and are willing to write anything just to achieve that. Maybe there's actually an opportunity to squeeze some creativity out of them so we can turn it into an active, lively topic, much like the original thread about the homeworkers. But hey, if it works better in its current form, that's fine too.

The main thing is that everything over there stays consistent, and if even the skeptics join in—well, then that's great.

Linda King said:Anyway, if I recall correctly, there was some talk about reducing ban lengths or offering similar incentives for the gray-status homeworkers. That’s really the key part—making sure even the last little troublemaker finds their footing again. But since that hasn't come up lately, I feel like the idea has just kind of fizzled out.

Personally, I’d keep the gray status as its own category, but hey, it's your call. (I don't mean to discriminate against them; think of it more like a safe space for them). 😍

I agree. KZB is one of our most active sub-forums, and there are plenty of gray-status members, so this could actually work. As a first step, I’d suggest shortening a ban by one day for anyone who writes any kind of homeworker piece on a designated topic (nothing fancy like a poll or a contest), provided they don't mention specific members or moderators. It would be a simple way to see if people are actually interested in writing.

Adam Doyle63 said:I’m going to head to the ban corner next week just to help turn this idea into reality. Someone has to step up for the future of the homeworker 🤣

I can jump in and help you test out the concept.

Just so everyone is in the loop—we currently have about 20 users sitting in the ban corner (this doesn't include anyone who asked to be removed or those who received permanent bans) — and about ten of those bans are set to expire within the next 48 hours. The actual pool of "gray area homeworkers" is a whole lot smaller than you might imagine 🙂

Gerald Chavez7 said:Just so everyone's on the same page, we currently have about 20 users in the ban corner (that doesn't include anyone who asked to be removed or received a permanent ban) - and about ten of those bans are set to expire within the next 48 hours. The pool of "gray area" homeworkers is actually much smaller than most people realize 🙂

It’s funny how such a small group can make so much noise. ☕

How many of them are permanent?

And then, nothing. Honestly, if you don't submit your homeworker report to the KZB, your stay in the ban corner just gets extended by another day 🥳 And look at us now, staring at this pool 🎉

Grace Edwards92 said:How many of them are permanent?

... or are we just ignoring them and pretending they aren't even there? 🤔