Interesting set of answers to date, which surface a bunch of different attitudes:
- The Old Planter: “I’d get on the phone and ask what the hell are you doing to me.” It would not even occur to the peasantry to get on the phone. The peasantry are not convinced that moderators are human beings that breathe the same air they do. It helps, I presume, to have met Quora staff face to face.
- The Loyalist: “Quora does not do bad things for no reason, and I trust I will be vindicated.” There’s a bunch of users who don’t have that level of trust. It helps, I presume, to have met Quora staff face to face.
- The Wronged: “That’s all too likely, given what I’ve experienced here. I’d accept it, and I wouldn’t be that surprised.”
- The Take-It-Or-Leave-It: “Meh, a distraction that’s had its time, there’s a world beyond. More fools they.”
- The Content-Proud: “For God’s sake, at least let me back on so I can archive my writings.” (Good news: they do.)
Two consistent themes emerge though:
- I would not come back under a new identity. In fact, I would not come back at all. (As an exception, Dan, I see, would ask for reinstatement after 6 months or a year. I wonder if anyone’s ever been unbanned after that long. And I wonder if anyone who has not met Quora staff face to face would expect as much.)
- Quora will have violated an implicit contract with me, and would have lost my good will. (Assuming they had it.) Which is a large part of the reason why I wouldn’t come back.
I’ll note that there are people I know who have been banished, fairly or no, and who have come back under false identities. So the first theme is not universally held. I’d say that the second is universally held though: in the instances I know of in regard to returnees, they certainly don’t sing Quora’s praises behind its back.
(And no, I am not going to report them. As I’ve said already: Quora is entitled to demand my compliance to their regulations, but not to demand my enforcement of them on others.)
For my part?
- I would feel even more betrayed. Incandescently betrayed.
- I would republish my content (which I still own) elsewhere, taking a leaf out of Clarissa Lohr’s answer to What would happen if comments feature in Quora was removed and all existing comments simply vanished into thin air?.
- At that elsewhere (presumably my own blog), I would violate BNBR loudly and often. And proudly.
- My sense of betrayal would certainly outweigh my sense of community: I would not make up an identity and come back. Not out of respect for Quora’s Terms Of Service, but out of my own self-respect. Which ultimately should count for more.