Suggestions for Improvement

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edo's suggestion looks good to me, so im in favour of it
 
GalacticPetey said:
What post are you talking about? I don't remember religion being brought up.
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i could have sworn i saw chill say something about religion, but i guess i was mistaken. my bad.

i'm personally not a fan of stopping people from talking about their religious beliefs, or really from stopping people from talking about whatever they want. if they're actively attacking other users or believe themselves to be superior, they'll get banned regardless! every single time someone's acted like that (to my knowledge), they've eventually been banned. so i don't really see how this is a problem that needs to be solved, and therefore i would be against this

...but it doesn't matter too much to me either way.
 
The entire point of the suggestion wasn't to stop discussion of religious beliefs, though; it was to prevent discussions of them from breaking out into flamewars, and then having people act like they can get away with religion-based insults.

In my opinion, there's no reason not to implement it if all it does is close a loophole while still allowing calm, intelligent discussion.
 
Dr. Javelin said:
i'm personally not a fan of stopping people from talking about their religious beliefs, or really from stopping people from talking about whatever they want.
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Again, that is not what the rule does. It does not stop people from talking about religion. It stops them from using it as an excuse to demean others, inside and outside religious discussions.

Just like the no flaming rule does not prevent you from criticizing another person if you stay civil, this rule does not prevent you from discussing your spiritual beliefs if you stay respectful to your opponent.

if they're actively attacking other users or believe themselves to be superior, they'll get banned regardless! every single time someone's acted like that (to my knowledge), they've eventually been banned. so i don't really see how this is a problem that needs to be solved, and therefore i would be against this

...but it doesn't matter too much to me either way.
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The keyword here is "eventually". Because this subject is not adequately covered by the current set of rules, it is very hard to take counteractions against this sort of attack. For users, these instances are hard to report because there is no rule backing them up if the attack is indirect enough to not count as a flame. For moderators, it is hard to protect users from these attacks because they have to really stretch the no flaming rule for the attacks to count as offenses (at least this is the impression I got). The offending parties are banned, yes, but usually only way after the offense happened, and usually only because they slipped up in a whole other area and then the previous attack only counted as a minor infraction that marginally affected the ban. OR it had to happen so often that the mods eventually had to react.

As it is now, you can get away with this if you word your insults cleverly, space them out enough, and don't commit any other offenses. This should not be possible.

If the mods are forced to bend the rules that much to fulfill their primary purpose of keeping the community healthy and free of hatred, then the current set of rules are inadequately supporting them. If grayzones like these are discovered within the rules, we should do our best to remedy them.

Also, the clearer the rules are, the less rule-stretching becomes necessary, the more transparent the entire moderating process becomes, which immediately benefits all users, including yourself.
 
Miles Prower said:
Dr. Javelin said:
i'm personally not a fan of stopping people from talking about their religious beliefs, or really from stopping people from talking about whatever they want.
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Again, that is not what the rule does. It does not stop people from talking about religion. It stops them from using it as an excuse to demean others, inside and outside religious discussions.

Just like the no flaming rule does not prevent you from criticizing another person if you stay civil, this rule does not prevent you from discussing your spiritual beliefs if you stay respectful to your opponent.
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If that's the case, I'm all for it.
 
Miles Prower said:
Again, that is not what the rule does. It does not stop people from talking about religion. It stops them from using it as an excuse to demean others, inside and outside religious discussions.

Just like the no flaming rule does not prevent you from criticizing another person if you stay civil, this rule does not prevent you from discussing your spiritual beliefs if you stay respectful to your opponent.
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I understand that it's not stopping people from talking about religion, but isn't demeaning others in any way the definition of flaming? Which would make it a bannable offense already?
Miles Prower said:
The keyword here is "eventually". Because this subject is not adequately covered by the current set of rules, it is very hard to take counteractions against this sort of attack. For users, these instances are hard to report because there is no rule backing them up if the attack is indirect enough to not count as a flame. For moderators, it is hard to protect users from these attacks because they have to really stretch the no flaming rule for the attacks to count as offenses (at least this is the impression I got). The offending parties are banned, yes, but usually only way after the offense happened, and usually only because they slipped up in a whole other area and then the previous attack only counted as a minor infraction that marginally affected the ban. OR it had to happen so often that the mods eventually had to react.

As it is now, you can get away with this if you word your insults cleverly, space them out enough, and don't commit any other offenses. This should not be possible.
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Hm. I haven't really seen any incidents where this has happened and it wasn't filed under flaming, but that's probably just me.
Miles Prower said:
If the mods are forced to bend the rules that much to fulfill their primary purpose of keeping the community healthy and free of hatred, then the current set of rules are inadequately supporting them. If grayzones like these are discovered within the rules, we should do our best to remedy them.

Also, the clearer the rules are, the less rule-stretching becomes necessary, the more transparent the entire moderating process becomes, which immediately benefits all users, including yourself.
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Filing "demeaning others with religion" as "flaming" doesn't look like bending the rules to me.
 
Are you objecting to this rule addition because you don't want it, or are you just arguing because..? The answers to all of your statements can pretty much all be "yeah, it is just you" or have already been answered but apparently not worded in a way that satisfies you.

I'm not opposed to this rule because in my experience as chat mod it is often very necessary to fill in the grey areas of rules because people can and will use them to weasel out of punishments, as well as my personal frustration on this forum with watching complaints and reports of mine and others slide by because of "well technically........"
 
No, the definition of a flame as I understand it and as I have seen other people understand it is a direct, full on frontal verbal attack. You can assert your perceived spiritual superiority and still never fulfill any of these criteria.

You may say my and your definitions clash, that yours isn't any less valid than mine, and call me out on bringing subjectivity into this. But I think the fact that everyone has a different definition of what a flame is is an integral point of this dilemma. To you, filing these incidents under the no flaming rule seems reasonable, but to others it does not. For them, it's a stretch.

So if it is really that ambiguous whether this sort of behavior is against the present iteration of the rules, in my opinion that is all the more reason to clarify.
 
Morty said:
Are you objecting to this rule addition because you don't want it, or are you just arguing because..? The answers to all of your statements can pretty much all be "yeah, it is just you" or have already been answered but apparently not worded in a way that satisfies you.
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I'm just trying to clear things up because to me this seemed entirely redundant.
Miles Prower said:
No, the definition of a flame as I understand it and as I have seen other people understand it is a direct, full on frontal verbal attack. You can assert your perceived spiritual superiority and still never fulfill any of these criteria.

You may say my and your definitions clash, that yours isn't any less valid than mine, and call me out on bringing subjectivity into this. But I think the fact that everyone has a different definition of what a flame is is an integral point of this dilemma. To you, filing these incidents under the no flaming rule seems reasonable, but to others it does not. For them, it's a stretch.

So if it is really that ambiguous whether this sort of behavior is against the present iteration of the rules, in my opinion that is all the more reason to clarify.
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Okay, I get what you're trying to say here.

But couldn't we go even further and clearly define flaming as "demeaning others in an uncivil manner" or something? That would solve your problem, and mine, and Anton's, and would also go beyond religious superiority and deal with other issues in the same vein such as racial superiority, national superiority, and the like. Instead of creating a new rule, we should instead clarify the definition of flaming because apparently it's a gray area, and as you said that's a problem.

We might want to tack on a clause about making sure the "superiority" is not a joke though.
 
Well, if and how exactly this is incorporated in the rules is up to the mods. I'd be fine with it if they wanted to merge it with the no flaming rule, as long as it is explicitely made clear that religious subtext is governed by the rule, to make the rule directly quotable when reporting this sort of subject matter.

I just formulated it as a separate rule to make it easier for them, should they decide to go along with it.
 
Can we can a Preview option for Signature edits? It's pretty annoying to have to Save before you can look at it, especially if you screw it up. :P
 
fantanoice said:
Can we can a Preview option for Signature edits? It's pretty annoying to have to Save before you can look at it, especially if you screw it up. :P
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that's not possible i'm afraid
 
Pokémon Trainer Essentia said:
fantanoice said:
Can we can a Preview option for Signature edits? It's pretty annoying to have to Save before you can look at it, especially if you screw it up. :P
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that's not possible i'm afraid
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It's possible on NationStates forums.

...on a side note, do not go to those forums unless you are very, very brave.
 
Dr. Javelin said:
Pokémon Trainer Essentia said:
fantanoice said:
Can we can a Preview option for Signature edits? It's pretty annoying to have to Save before you can look at it, especially if you screw it up. :P
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that's not possible i'm afraid
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It's possible on NationStates forums.

...on a side note, do not go to those forums unless you are very, very brave.
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I meant it's not possible with SMF
 
Should taking drama from other places and making a topic here be added as a rule against or is it already a rule in some shape or form?
 
Baby Luigi said:
Should taking drama from other places and making a topic here be added as a rule against or is it already a rule in some shape or form?
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while it's important for people to not go overboard, they still need to vent somewhere, so i don't think this rule should be added
 
I'm sure that if it's not already a clear-cut rule, it does exist in some fashion because people have been banned for it before and I remember raising a huge fuss over it a few months/years back in the admin boards (idk how much time has passed, lol).
 
Howl said:
Baby Luigi said:
Should taking drama from other places and making a topic here be added as a rule against or is it already a rule in some shape or form?
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while it's important for people to not go overboard, they still need to vent somewhere, so i don't think this rule should be added
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she said topic, though. i think there's a difference between making a post in the click here thread venting about your life and making a full-blown topic to talk about your treatment in the community or something similar, and i'm assuming the one from earlier is what sparked this suggestion
 
So, should it be added to the rules or...?
 
well, as long as it's contained to one thread, i still don't see the problem

that should be fine, since people can ignore it if they want and participate if they feel the need to do so
 
How about having a "temp banned" rank that goes away once the user's ban expires? Or is that redundant because we have a ban log?
 
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