I received the above message when attempting to login as a guest earlier.

Can any Admin please advise why?

I had the same, blocked as a guest,STRANGE ??????

to me its telling you guest on your ip have been abusive so it has been blocked to try to deter this, i maybe wrong but im sure admin will post later to comfirm it

I hardly ever log in as a guest and im certanly not abusive,will be interesting to see the reason why its been blocked

The wording suggests a "network" ban rather than a single "IP" ban.

If I were guilty of being abusive, I would have to be a bit dim to initiate a thread on a public forum under my member name drawing attention to it.

This could be because you have too many players on your single IP so I think it is to prevent more players coming under you IP to reach the maximum.

Same as adidas, I'm not sure if I'm right, but I'm giving it my best shot to answer you.

Kev (adidas) is right, someone has logged in as guest from the same IP address as yourself and gotten themselves booted for whatever reason. To prevent guests from simply logging back on right away, it's standard practice for that IP to be blocked.

Agreed, the wording is bad, I'll ask Nick to improve it.

Then here is where it gets confusing.

I have never been booted in the 3yrs or so I have used this site.

I'm on a fixed cable i.p.

There is only me at that i.p. on a hard-wired ethernet connection not wifi.

If I were the subject of an i.p. ban I presumably would not be able to log in under my username, play games and post this.

I assume there is a record of this alleged abuse incident which can be revealed to me.

Some isp's allocate i.p's in blocks, (ranges) and on occasion that a site admin may wish to block an ip they may have to resort to blocking a range. (I wondered if this was what the "Network" reference was in the alert message).

I recall an incident on the NME boards where the admin ended up blocking half of Leeds in order to attempt to ban a single troll because of the way the isp handled ip's in ranges.

Edited at 18:03 Thu 11/06/09 (BST)

We have two tiers of IP bans, one for guests and one complete. The former being the case here.

Not sure further details on this belong in public, who is on which IP most certainly is private info, so I'll have the admins look into it for you.

Thanks janmb.

I appreciate that under normal circumstances such a scenario would not be discussed in detail on a forum. If I were not absolutely certain that this was a glitch I obviously would not have raised it here and invite public embarrassment.

If admin' wish to continue this conversation through personal message I'm fine with that if it helps get to the root of the problem.

There is a chance you have a dynamic IP. (You mention you're on a fixed cable IP, am I right in saying I'm wrong?) In this case, your IP today could be a misbehaving guest's IP yesterday. I've got a dynamic IP, and I often see YouTube search results showing videos I've supposedly looked at in the past, or Wikipedia notifications that my previous edit of some page or other was reverted because it was poor.

As above, it seems you're on a fixed IP, but my explanation could come in helpful for other users in the same predicament.

While it's a possibility, even if he does have a dynamic IP, what are the chances of a funkypool user having had it before him? Remote at best.

I am seeing a lot of speculation and theories being offered up but no specific answer to my original request as to why my i.p. has a guest ban on it.

Now there appears to be an assumption of guilt stance being adopted.

A: I know that no such infraction or booting took place.

B: May I draw your attention back to the fact that _chaos has experienced the same phenomenon.

If you want a straight answer ill try and give you it.

The reason could possibly be that you are on an dynamic i.p, and it changes regularly. So someone might have been booted off as a guest before on an i.p, which now you have that i.p which you didn't before.

That could possibly be one of the reasons.

That may be because there is no reason to ban that IP without something actually happening to get it banned in the first place.

If you are so sure you are not on a Dynamic IP, then the only logical conclusion is because you have been banned before. (Guilty until proven innocent in an average human's mind. I'll send you a youtube link all about it if you're interested).

Another remote explanation is because someone played FP on your PC and got banned themselves without you knowing.

I could send you a youtube link of a cat jumping into an empty box. It's funny and entertaining but still has no relevance to my query.

Pile in though folks.
Anyone else want to take a stab at this in the absence of a factual response?

Here's a few suggestions ......

1: There was a disturbance in the Force. . . . .

2: It was a reaction to the MP's expenses scandal. . . . .

3: The same thing happened to Ronaldo and that's why he's leaving to join Real Madrid . . . .

4: You are a member of the Illuminati and reptiles are not allowed to play as guests . . . . .

5: OMG H@XX0rz!111eleventy!!! . . . .

6: There was a glitch in the software . . . .

7: It is a sign of End Times as prophesied by Nostradamus . . . .

8: The Java update a couple of days ago has caused a problem or two. . . .

9: The Matrix has detected your presence Neo and is fighting back . . . .

10: We knew it was a bad idea to make Amy Winehouse a mod that day . . . .

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! ^^^^ Funniest post I've seen all year, and I've seen quite a few!!

As for your your query, I wouldn't have a clue, sorry

I was only trying to help...

Don't go taking the hump m8.
There was obviously a huge serving of tongue-in-cheek in my post.

I hope I never have occasion to have to face a jury and see you sitting there though.