[Blanko]

I say leave that up to moderator discretion, but always warn the user first.

[Tau]

I say leave that up to moderator discretion, but always warn the user first.

Of course. Like I said, there should be a process. Otherwise we end up with unclear moderation, and the angry noobs will get persecutory delusions again.

[Alchemist21]

Make a rule against the obvious exploitation of loopholes.

[spoon]

Make a rule against the obvious exploitation of loopholes.

Mods should be able to use discretion in this case.

[Hoppy]

Maybe we could have a process to ban members who haven't explicitly broken rules? Like, they could be nominated for bamhammeration by the council and there could be a vote among the moderators or something like that. Maybe there would have to be better checks and balances than that.

No, I don't think that's fair to anyone. People should know if they can be banned for something before they make the decision whether to take the action or not.

A better way of doing this is to simply add new rules as we discover behaviours that are undesirable. That way, the new rule applies equally to everyone. I intend to revise the Manifesto to formalise the process of adding new rules once we have a finalised set of rules.

Well, I mean it for situations like TK. When a poster is taking advantage of the rules, there should be some way to stop them. There are going to be loopholes in whatever we come up with, and angry noobs will abuse those loopholes to no end unless we have a method to deter them from doing so. It would of course only be able to be used in extreme circumstances.

TK was taken care of fairly under the old rules.

[Tau]

Make a rule against the obvious exploitation of loopholes.

I'm a bit uncomfortable with that, though.  I foresee abuse if a single mod can just decide such a thing on their own. I think we'd be better off making them jump through a few hoops first.

[squevil]

The less rules the better. The shorter the better. Then if a rule isnt broken as such but the poster is obviously not good for the site, then mods should use their initiative.

[Tau]

The less rules the better. The shorter the better. Then if a rule isnt broken as such but the poster is obviously not good for the site, then mods should use their initiative.

I agree with this. The rules should be good, but simple and short. Keep it to, say, ten.

1. No personal attacks
2. Post on topic
3. Personal information
4. Don't alt obnoxiously
5. Use appropriate channels
6. Don't be offensive
7. No excessive BBCode or whatever we decide this rule should be
8. Always post in the appropriate board
9. Respect the OP
10. Moderators have discretion to moderate outside the scope of these rules within certain circumstances

Adding more rules can be the job of the council

[xasop]

Adding more rules can be the job of the council

The Council is there to run the Society, not the forum. As far as I'm concerned, forum rules are firmly within the jurisdiction of the forum admins.

Regarding your proposed list of rules; a rule should be clearly defined and have a specified penalty for breaking it, so that there is as little doubt as possible whether enforcement of it has been done correctly. A rule like "don't be offensive" is so widely open to interpretation that it may as well not exist.

My aim in this draft is to keep the set of rules as concise as possible, while still maintaining clarity. This is intended for members' benefit, so everyone knows exactly where they stand.

[Tau]

Adding more rules can be the job of the council

The Council is there to run the Society, not the forum. As far as I'm concerned, forum rules are firmly within the jurisdiction of the forum admins.

Regarding your proposed list of rules; a rule should be clearly defined and have a specified penalty for breaking it, so that there is as little doubt as possible whether enforcement of it has been done correctly. A rule like "don't be offensive" is so widely open to interpretation that it may as well not exist.

My aim in this draft is to keep the set of rules as concise as possible, while still maintaining clarity. This is intended for members' benefit, so everyone knows exactly where they stand.

That wasn't exactly a final list. I was just quickly writing down the rules you originally had and the ones we've discussed since. Obviously they'd be written better than that.

[juner]

The Council is there to run the Society, not the forum. As far as I'm concerned, forum rules are firmly within the jurisdiction of the forum admins.

I think this is completely necessary.  That is how I believe it was laid out in the beginning.  I am happy to confer with council on things, but ultimately there are three admins that are good at putting their personal feelings aside and dealing with issues objectively.

[Tau]

The Council is there to run the Society, not the forum. As far as I'm concerned, forum rules are firmly within the jurisdiction of the forum admins.

I think this is completely necessary.  That is how I believe it was laid out in the beginning.  I am happy to confer with council on things, but ultimately there are three admins that are good at putting their personal feelings aside and dealing with issues objectively.

Oh, okay. I wasn't around for that. I guess the hypothetical addition of new rules will be the admin's job, then.

[xasop]

The process for addition of new rules will ultimately be specified in a future version of the Manifesto. For now, I just want to get some rules up so we have grounds for enforcement.

[xasop]

I have posted a set of rules in Announcements: http://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=977.0

These are enforceable as of now, and I'll be updating the "Don't be a dick" registration agreement to refer to these rules instead. Ideally, I would have posted a revised draft for comment first, but we keep running into problems that require rules to resolve fairly, so I decided the sooner we have a set of rules the better.

[Lemon]

They're pretty good. I like the part about the alts, too. They don't have to be a bad thing. They can be anywhere from harmless funny to contributive.

[Rama Set]

I did not see anything prohibiting the public posting of PMs. Does this fall under the prohibition against posting people's personal information?

[Hoppy]

I did not see anything prohibiting the public posting of PMs. Does this fall under the prohibition against posting people's personal information?

I was wondering the same thing. I believe "Private Message" is private and should be against the rules to directly post someone else's private message sent to you. However you should be able to post the contents in your own words. Otherwise someone could send a PM and inhibit what another poster can say. You should be careful what info you send in a PM.
 

[squevil]

There shouldnt be a rule about posting pms. If its such an issue remove the quoting.

[Pete Svarrior]

There shouldnt be a rule about posting pms. If its such an issue remove the quoting.

Yeah, because people wouldn't just copy-paste them and surround them in quote tags

[squevil]

But if a rule was put in place where we can not quote a pm then the ability to quote it in 1 click should be removed too.