Changes

[Moka]

Okay, so along with getting our act together as staff, which I will personally oversee, I think a radical change is needed to our rules and the way we handle warnings and bans.

I openly welcome member feedback, but I would like to propose something.

First, perhaps an explanation. Our current rules are extremely intense and complicated for everyone, including the staff. They got this way through additions and modifications over the years of members posting questionable material, and in return, we have to keep trying to cover every possible situation with the rules. The result was a pile of unhelpful and unclear rules such "Discussing moderation actions in public forums". Splitting them up into slight, general and severe is confusing as well.

Our banning protocol is unfair, too. Banning the member for X amount of time doesn't really help them see what they did wrong, it just makes them angry.

So, I propose we reinvent evrathang. How about this? We let members acquire many more warnings before we even consider banning, but along with that we get our act together and start actively moderating the forum by removing content deemed unacceptable and warning the member. No more PM warnings, just helpful board warnings. Also, as I mentioned in another topic, any member who reports something will receive a status update PM from staff or a PM explaining why the post in question was acceptable.

Banning would be done more on an ad hoc basis, like if a member receives a warning for swearing but then goes right back to swearing, we're gonna have to do something other than another warning. Before a member is permabanned, I think the staff should personally reach out to the member and try to work things out before banning them forever.

Before we start coming up with new rules, I'd like to get a reaction to this first. I would also like to get a lot of feedback and ideas (especially from members that feel like they have been mistreated by the current system). Please spend some time to think about it on your own before posting.

TL;DR: Oh, if you started here you probably shouldn't post in this topic.

[Noah]

[AdAstrα]

I think this sounds great

[Tabby]

fine

[Woeler]

works for me

[FlipMode]

The kitty in my sig loves you for this, Moka. And I do too.
This is long over due, but better late than never!

[SophieCub]

Sounds good to me. ^^

[Azdgari]

[WildSimba]

I honestly think swearing should just be taken off of the rules. It's such a minor offense, and can be easily removed by a mod. lol Honestly, I've seen just about everyone on here say at bad word at one time or another, so I find it a bit silly that we have a rule against it. (Especially since this board is meant to be PG themed, and I've even seen the F word being said in PG rated movies, in severe moderation, if people get offended by it, then that's their problem, because we warn them in the rules themselves that there might be some questionable content on the forum). Also, saying you can say any word up to Damn is a very gray area too, because everyone's perception on bad words are different. I say that the only swears that shouldn't be allowed are racial slurs, or ones that are otherwise directed at someones culture/religion/ex. In other words, I still say you shouldn't be allowed to make a topic calling someone a female dog because they didn't finish your art request fast enough. lol

I think moderation actions should be allowed to be discussed, if the moderator and the member the action was taken against consent to it. Other then that, it'd be a bit unfair to just suddenly make everything we do public. People step out of line sometimes. But anyone they want to know, they'll most likely tell through PM or whatever messenger they have anyways.

I think instead of more warnings, since those almost never get across to people, to instead have the staff give more detailed PM warnings for now on. Official warnings are fine if you just want to follow protocol, but they almost never are detailed enough to get a clear enough message across. I think giving plenty of PM warnings, and then consistant breaking of the same rules should result in a warning and whatever ban. I think if we do this, and give the members more freedom to do things like swearing, then people will stop complaining about us being so strict, because we would be giving them plenty of chances to change what they are doing.

Minor things like memes should be allowed, if it's not intruding on a conversation. But in the funny pictures thread, I think just about anything should be allowed as long as it's not being offensive towards a specific race/culture/religion/ex. But I'd say swearing in moderation is just fine, even slightly sexual jokes in moderation doesn't sound bad to me.

Also, that foreign language rule is stupid. No offense, but that rule might of been nice a few years ago, when people posted in different languages all over the chatroom, but it's hardly an issue now, and I think it's good enough just to let the mods tell them to stop when that problem arises, instead of having a rule over it.

Also, to quote the wisest post I've seen on this forum in years:
[quote="Azdgari"]tl;dr I think everyone here is too dramatic and needs to take it easy.[/quote]

TL;DR You lost the game.

EDIT: To add onto the more detailed pm warnings thing, I think for now on all the staff should get together and write them, or that they should be posted in the staff area before we even send them out, so that we can edit them around and make sure that they are fair and detailed enough.

[Regulus]

I guess I'll join the bandwagon.



I think this is going to work. Although I prefer WildSimba's solution a bit more.