This worries me..

[SnowyCheetah]

A friend recently got two warnings and a temporary ban (if I'm remembering correctly) for an offense I won't discuss here. Apparently one of their offenses was to discuss the warning they got in the chatroom. Apparently we are not allowed to discuss staff action taken against us publicly.

...

What?

...

The only reasoning I can think of for this rule is that the staff don't want anyone to know when a member has action taken against them. Whether it be the staff fearing that a member might misrepresent the staff, or that it might cause drama.

1. Drama is dealt with daily by a thing called the "lock" button that moderators can use to close a thread. It's very effective and usually results in peaceful dropping of the subject. Its only necessary use is when a rule is broken or when drama has arisen in a thread.

2. If a member misrepresents a staff member out of discontent at having action taken against them, such a thing can be cleaned up and any reasonable member will know who is telling the truth.

Sorry, but this rule, based on the above facts, makes me feel like MLK is becoming a dictatorship. This is like... if I weren't allowed to publicly discuss getting a speeding ticket. If a mod takes action against a member, it should be for a good reason. If the reason is good, regardless of what the member might say about it, truthful or not, there shouldn't be anything to hide.

...right?

Anyone care to explain this to me?

[WildSimba]

I think the rule about confidentiality should apply to staff not talking about it, not the member involved. So yes, I totally agree with what you said. It's definatly not right for someone to get temporarily banned/get a warning in general about this, because really, it's the members right to tell people if they want people to know. Totally, this make the forum look like a dictatorship, and it also makes it seem like the right staff aren't currently in place. Any good staff member would definatly know that if drama arises, it can be solved easily, eigther with their powers, or by gentle persuasion.

Definately, the rules should be looked at again more careful, if problems like this are already arising. To be honest, I didn't really like the changes in the first place, they just made the forum seem less entertaining, and more just a dictatorship. Forums should definatly have Easy/Simple to follow rules, or else things will begin to deteriorate. As a wise man on this forum once said (Mike I believe), these new rules are just spreading red tape across the forum.

[Panda-chan]

^ agreed with both
It's exactly as sno said, if the mods are doing as good as a job as they should be when handing out warnings, there should be nothing to hide. Why all this secrecy? It's creeping me out to be honest. We should be able to discuss/question staff actions just as freely and openly as we can any other forum changes that affect us so long as we do it without causing drama. We exercised this right in the past when we peacefully asked to get the sig rules changed after the staff altered it without our consent (okay maybe it wasn't peaceful LOL, since a number of members were really pushing it, but the mods quickly resolved the issue and had said members punished). So what I'm saying is, why put red tape over the entire forum for what could potentially go wrong, when it would be so much simpler to punish those that cause the trouble when it happens? Moka, you know drama is bound to go down no matter what changes you make around this forum, especially when you implement such restrictive rules as this, so quit being so paranoid about it and accept that drama has to happen at some point as it does on all forums. Ban/warn the few that make this place hell instead of tightening your grip on all of us, because then it just makes MLK look like a dictatorship and makes the few good members turn on the staff too lol.
I'm cool with the fact that Moka didn't need our consent to add this new rule to the Universal Rules. That part makes sense. It really just makes the mods look like secret police that hunt down misbehaving members and ban them. And if anyone else dares to speak out against their actions, they are silenced too. So it's like a dystopia in which everyone acts like everything is perfect in the forum when in reality they are all being controlled by a repressive admin. I dunno if I went too far with that statement and I'm sorry if I offended anyone but I feel like it needed to be said.

[FlipMode]

Very glad that this has been bought up. First of all; in this incident the member got a 24hr suspension for getting a 2nd warning, also this was not the ONLY rule that member had apparently broken, just thought I would clear that up.

As for the subject at hand, one reason why I quite liked this rule is because I would prefer a member who had an issue with my decision actually ask me about it, not their friends who were not involved.
If you guys had a problem, you should have said something before (I can not read minds... not yet anyway)
But at the same time, I agree with just about everything said so far. Personally I think this should be okay as long as it is not done so in a rude / disrespectful way. The problem here is that if falls under the "do not post anything that may lead to arguing" thing...

Now about that; I think that whole rule needs to be gone. Ironically I just finished forwarding this idea to the staff, see what you guys think of it?
Basically the whole rule just should be gone, and if a thread leads to arguing then deal with it and the perpetrators as and when it happens.
Like the other day there was this thread saying "do you believe in god?" and I closed it because it was about religion. But here is the thing; there was no arguing going on, in fact the posts were polite and neutral... It just did not feel right locking it >.>.
So we get rid of that rule, and the one about discussing staff decisions and just have everything fall into the "do not be rude / disrespectful / racist" rules... Thus getting rid of this whole censorship idea. Does that sound fair? Anyone want to expand on that?

[TheIvanMuse]

I'm not gonna hide behind false statements,yes,it was me who gave the warnings to the member. The main reason behind this is because the member has posted something in the chatroom that would lead to arguing and whatever not. It could have all been solved with just politely PMing the mod that the member had a problem with and it would have all been dealt with. Without any warnings and without any drama.
If you have a problem with me doing that,feel free to PM me and I'll explain the whole story,because I'm sure that after you heard the '''second side'' of the story that you'll see how my actions weren't any form of dictation whatsoever. And yes,the member wasn't banned permanently,it's only a 24 hour ban because of the 2nd warning.

[SnowyCheetah]

Ivan, the issue was not your mod action, it was the fact that it was supposed to be hidden. Mods can do what they need to do to prevent drama but that shouldn't include hiding their actions.

[TheIvanMuse]

It wasn't supposed to be hidden,what am I supposed to hang out a sign why someone got a warning for something? That wouldn't be fair to the member that got the warning,I'm not gonna go around randomly telling people that I warned someone,right?
I'm not hiding my actions,as you can see I'm openly telling everyone on the forum that I am the one that gave the warnings.

[SnowyCheetah]

I do not expect you to do that. The rule I am opposing forbids members themselves to discuss staff action against them. In other words, it's not directly you that I have a problem with.

[TheIvanMuse]

That is not correct,the rule you are opposing forbids members to discuss staff actions in public forums. However,you are free to discuss the actions with a staff member via PM.

[SnowyCheetah]

Why not public forums? It's hella secretive, that's all I'm saying.