Rules and Moderator information

[Marcus]

Of course, as more and more people join me and DrC in putting AM on ignore, a series of individual bans accumulates ... and as it continues there is eventually nothing but AM writing obscenities on the walls of his lonely little cell for nobody but himself to read (no doubt using whatever substances are readily available to him in there).

Though I suppose the mods will be obliged to look in on him from time to time, just to make sure he is not breaking any rules ...

Agreed. But I feel for the visitors who read here without logging in. They have no way to block anything, so they get the full onslaught of the trolling, including the ridiculous, egregiously stereotyping and often bigoted titles of most threads started by this contributor, which sadly take up the majority of the first pages, given how prolific the poster is. The current situation does not reflect the posting style of 99% of participants here, and makes for a very bad first impression.

[Res Ipsa]

Of course, as more and more people join me and DrC in putting AM on ignore, a series of individual bans accumulates ... and as it continues there is eventually nothing but AM writing obscenities on the walls of his lonely little cell for nobody but himself to read (no doubt using whatever substances are readily available to him in there).

Though I suppose the mods will be obliged to look in on him from time to time, just to make sure he is not breaking any rules ...

Agreed. But I feel for the visitors who read here without logging in. They have no way to block anything, so they get the full onslaught of the trolling, including the ridiculous, egregiously stereotyping and often bigoted titles of most threads started by this contributor, which sadly take up the majority of the first pages, given how prolific the poster is. The current situation does not reflect the posting style of 99% of participants here, and makes for a very bad first impression.

I don't think visitors have access to Prison or Telestial. When I'm signed out, I don't see either forum.

[Res Ipsa]

Here's a reminder for the teeming masses of Shades' original ruling re: sexual harassment. Bless him. I'm sure he'll reply here in a couple of weeks.

Your requests have been granted:

1. We have a new Universal Rule in place. #11 reads:
2. Sexual harassment will, of course, be considered a personal attack and will be treated accordingly.
3. A new off-topic forum with celestial rules has been created.

posting.php?mode=quote&f=7&p=2756142

Here is the full text of Shades's ruling:

HARASSMENT: Everyone naturally considers being called out as "harassment." If we prevent newcomers from calling out old-timers, then FAIRness demands that we prevent old-timers from calling out old-timers, too. As I said before, if you want moderators to clamp down on what Atlanticmike and Cultellus dish out to us, are you willing to allow moderators to clamp down on what you dish out to Ajax18? Or do you want the freedom of speech to carry on as you have been? If the latter, then you must grant the two of them the same privilege, because it is IMPERATIVE that newcomers enjoy all the same rights and privileges that old-timers have so as to avoid the creation of an elite class such as what exists at the Mormon Dialogue & Discussion board or Recovery from Mormonism.

NEVERTHELESS, we can safely curtail the sexual harassment that's been seen here of late. Therefore, from this point forward, any criticism or "calling out" that expressly identifies a poster's gender will be either moved to the Telestial or Spirit Prison forums or deleted from within the post, whatever the moderator feels is best to preserve context. "Pussy hats" are fair game, since those are physical objects that people wore whilst protesting, but comments such as "Your husband must be sick of you" or "Are you on your period?" will be moved or deleted because, like I said, they identify a person's gender (well, maybe not the "husband" thing anymore, but you get the idea). To summarize, NO MORE SEXUAL HARASSMENT WHATSOEVER in the Terrestrial or Spirit Paradise fora.

[Marcus]

Agreed. But I feel for the visitors who read here without logging in. They have no way to block anything, so they get the full onslaught of the trolling, including the ridiculous, egregiously stereotyping and often bigoted titles of most threads started by this contributor, which sadly take up the majority of the first pages, given how prolific the poster is. The current situation does not reflect the posting style of 99% of participants here, and makes for a very bad first impression.

I don't think visitors have access to Prison or Telestial. When I'm signed out, I don't see either forum.

True. I'll restate my opinion in fuller detail to reflect that:

But I feel for the visitors who read here without logging in. They have no way to block anything, and while they cannot view the trolling that originates or has already been moved from the forums they cannot view, they still get the full onslaught of the trolling that occurs in the forums they can view, including the ridiculous, egregiously stereotyping and often bigoted titles of most threads in the forums they can view started by this contributor, which sadly take up the majority of the first pages in the forums they can view, given how prolific the poster is. The current situation does not reflect the posting style of 99% of participants here, and makes for a very bad first impression.

[Marcus]

Here's a reminder for the teeming masses of Shades' original ruling re: sexual harassment. Bless him. I'm sure he'll reply here in a couple of weeks.



posting.php?mode=quote&f=7&p=2756142

Here is the full text of Shades's ruling:

HARASSMENT: Everyone naturally considers being called out as "harassment." If we prevent newcomers from calling out old-timers, then FAIRness demands that we prevent old-timers from calling out old-timers, too. As I said before, if you want moderators to clamp down on what Atlanticmike and Cultellus dish out to us, are you willing to allow moderators to clamp down on what you dish out to Ajax18? Or do you want the freedom of speech to carry on as you have been? If the latter, then you must grant the two of them the same privilege, because it is IMPERATIVE that newcomers enjoy all the same rights and privileges that old-timers have so as to avoid the creation of an elite class such as what exists at the Mormon Dialogue & Discussion board or Recovery from Mormonism.

NEVERTHELESS, we can safely curtail the sexual harassment that's been seen here of late. Therefore, from this point forward, any criticism or "calling out" that expressly identifies a poster's gender will be either moved to the Telestial or Spirit Prison forums or deleted from within the post, whatever the moderator feels is best to preserve context. "Pussy hats" are fair game, since those are physical objects that people wore whilst protesting, but comments such as "Your husband must be sick of you" or "Are you on your period?" will be moved or deleted because, like I said, they identify a person's gender (well, maybe not the "husband" thing anymore, but you get the idea). To summarize, NO MORE SEXUAL HARASSMENT WHATSOEVER in the Terrestrial or Spirit Paradise fora.

Thanks for posting the early notes, as well as the ruling. If you will forgive a little rumination, this explains, for me at least, why there was a little confusion in my mind over the sexual harassment ruling.

To explain, I recall when Shades posted the first part, especially the first sentence:

NEVERTHELESS, we can safely curtail the sexual harassment that's been seen here of late...

I think what happened was I stopped there and thought, 'that's great, no more sexual harassment,' but it wasn't until the rules came out and I read this

Your requests have been granted:
...
2.Sexual harassment will, of course, be considered a personal attack and will be treated accordingly.

...that I realized there would NOT be a 'curtailing' of sexual harassment, as I understood the word 'curtail.' There would be no decrease or diminishment in the actual sexual harassment, but simply a restriction in where it was allowed. The only possibly new part was identifying sexual harassment as a personal attack, but that seems pretty obvious and was likely the rule all along (I hope), so it just felt like although the rules were presented as not allowing sexual harassment, nothing actually changed. If the deletion part is new, that helps.

Given how few female posters there seem to be and how specific the sexual harassment of them has been, it just didn't feel like the issue had been adequately addressed.

Anyway, just my thoughts.

Regarding mod choices whether to delete or move personal attacks, personally, I'd vote for deleting every time, if only to improve the level of discourse here in general.

If the mods will permit a question, is there a framework for deciding delete vs. move? Do you think Shades might be open to always deleting if personal attacks occur anywhere but the two allowed forums? Kind of like how family-related attacks are always deleted? I can ask this separately, if it would help, but, probably more importantly, can we bribe you into considering it by adding pool tables to that mod-only Casino game room I heard about!? Or maybe spot you guys a couple free rounds of fantasy quidditch?

[Atlanticmike]

Here's a reminder for the teeming masses of Shades' original ruling re: sexual harassment. Bless him. I'm sure he'll reply here in a couple of weeks.



posting.php?mode=quote&f=7&p=2756142

Here is the full text of Shades's ruling:

HARASSMENT: Everyone naturally considers being called out as "harassment." If we prevent newcomers from calling out old-timers, then FAIRness demands that we prevent old-timers from calling out old-timers, too. As I said before, if you want moderators to clamp down on what Atlanticmike and Cultellus dish out to us, are you willing to allow moderators to clamp down on what you dish out to Ajax18? Or do you want the freedom of speech to carry on as you have been? If the latter, then you must grant the two of them the same privilege, because it is IMPERATIVE that newcomers enjoy all the same rights and privileges that old-timers have so as to avoid the creation of an elite class such as what exists at the Mormon Dialogue & Discussion board or Recovery from Mormonism.

NEVERTHELESS, we can safely curtail the sexual harassment that's been seen here of late. Therefore, from this point forward, any criticism or "calling out" that expressly identifies a poster's gender will be either moved to the Telestial or Spirit Prison forums or deleted from within the post, whatever the moderator feels is best to preserve context. "Pussy hats" are fair game, since those are physical objects that people wore whilst protesting, but comments such as "Your husband must be sick of you" or "Are you on your period?" will be moved or deleted because, like I said, they identify a person's gender (well, maybe not the "husband" thing anymore, but you get the idea). To summarize, NO MORE SEXUAL HARASSMENT WHATSOEVER in the Terrestrial or Spirit Paradise fora.

This is great,! So after reading this ruling, what rule did I break, lawyer dude??

[Jersey Girl]

Here is the full text of Shades's ruling:

This is great,! So after reading this ruling, what rule did I break, lawyer dude??

Read the post.

[Res Ipsa]

Shades vetoed the Fantasy Quidditch, so that avenue of bribery is right out. I started this thread as an open thread for any and all questions having to do with rules and moderation, so your questions are most welcome in this thread.

In answer to your question, the general philosophy of the board is to honor free speech to the extent possible, as long as the speech happens in the right sub-forum. The delete option, as it was originally presented, was applied in cases in which a post that was substantive and otherwise within the rules contained a personal attack that was thrown in almost as an afterthought. In that case, to preserve the integrity of the substantive conversation, the personal attack could be deleted to allow the post to stay in the forum in which it was posted. On the other hand, if the "sting" of the post was a personal attack, it would be moved.

That's the general idea. It's an option that has been used more and less over time. But the intent is to use deletion to benefit the user by allowing a post that breaks the rules to remain in the forum in which it was posted. Using it consistently to make words disappear would be contrary to the intent as I understand it.

I appreciate your feedback on the sexual harassment rule. My initial reaction was that it didn't solve the problem people had been complaining about at all. Most of the sexually harassing posts we were dealing with qualified as personal attacks anyway, so the rule didn't change much in my opinion. But, given the lack of objections by those pushing for the rule change, I didn't express my opinion. In retrospect, maybe giving the new rule a try instead of objecting at the time was a mistake.

[Atlanticmike]

This is great,! So after reading this ruling, what rule did I break, lawyer dude??

Read the post.

I did read it. What rule did I break??

[Res Ipsa]

Here is the full text of Shades's ruling:

This is great,! So after reading this ruling, what rule did I break, lawyer dude??

Mike, straight up. I am perfectly willing to bend over backwards to help anyone who makes a good faith attempt to understand and comply with the rules. I have done so with you. You have been posting here for months and have had plenty of opportunity to learn the rules and to make good faith efforts to comply. This isn't my first rodeo, and have seen every game you've played numerous times. I'm not going to play the Please Don't Eat the Daisies Game with you. I am not required by Shades to explain the basis of my moderation to anyone but Shades. I am willing to do so for anyone who makes good faith efforts to understand and comply with the rules. You have persuaded me over the months that you have been here that you aren't one of those people. So, effective now, if you disagree with an action I take as moderator, your remedy is with Shades. I'm not going to waste my time in hair-splitting arguments with someone who has shown no inclination whatsoever to learn and comply with the rules. I label each and every moderator action I take with the applicable rule. You can read and you can look up the rule. If you disagree, you can appeal to Shades.