Moderation & User Rules

[Moxie]

The moderating staff has been working on making forum policy clearer and more accessible to all users. As a result we have drawn up these guidelines for consideration. The idea is that all users will be able to refer to these guidelines to get an understanding of how the forums are moderated. We would like as much feedback as possible about what everyone thinks about the guidelines before we settle on a final version, please be specific and focus on how you think these guidelines can be improved.

edit - this is the current version of the rules as they stand. We still encourage discussion and proposals for new rules and improvements -dyalander

-Mods will delete spam threads

-Admin will delete bad user names
*Note: when any new username is registered the admin is required to click a box in their setting order to allow posts from that user, this will help prevent the above situations from arising*

-Users are entitled to one username at a time. When a mod notices a user using two usernames, the mod should PM the user to ask which one they want to use. When the mod gets a reply they will pass the information along to an Admin who will lock the other account. If there is no reply within 48hours the username used last will be left unlocked.

-Mods delete double posts and also, in the "Trick Tips" section, mods may also merge posts about the same trick.

-Mods move threads to more appropriate forums where necessary, as defined by the forum descriptions.

-Mod Edits will be in red and will explain (briefly) why it was edited. Mods must sign all edits. Example: [Mod edit: derogatory language -Dyalander]

-Mods will PM the person after editing their post, and ask them not to do whatever they did wrong again.

-If a mod edits large chunks of someone's post, the mod will make sure to quote the post first and post it in the Mod/Admin forum so we know what was said if a problem arises later.

-Mods can fix people's code errors. Example: [img]http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/5387 ... l5.jpg[img] needs the / at the end.

-When a Mod moves someone's post, that mod will send them a friendly PM letting them know where it was moved, and why.

- There may be no direct references to methods of obtaining drugs illegally. Any post containing such references will be edited or deleted.

- While coarse language is permitted derogatory remarks regarding religion, race, nationality, gender, sexuality and physical/mental disability will not be tolerated. Such remarks will be edited or deleted.

-Where threads degenerate into ongoing abusive personal attacks they may be locked. Users who post such attacks may have their posts deleted and repeated attacks will result in a ban.

-Threats of violence will not be tolerated, such threats will be deleted.

-Posting pornographic material and/or links is unacceptable and mods will remove such material from posts or remove the entire thread if necessary

-“Spammingâ€

[PegLegHolly]

im glad this was done and things are made clearer! thanks modified moderators and admins!

[Spontaneous Spaz]

im glad this was done and things are made clearer! thanks modified moderators and admins!

i think its fine, i'd follow those rules

but what would you do to a person that constantly breaks such rules, but is an important part of the community?

[PegLegHolly]

whether they are important or not shouldnt be part of a discipline decision. if they break rules constantly they should be treated just the same as someone who hasnt been around as long. everyone is important in the footbag community and people that have been around longer shouldnt get special treatment.

i like the direction these guidelines are aiming for.

[RawSko]

yup, sounds good to me.

[hacksterbator]

-Admin will delete bad user names
*Note: when any new username is registered the admin is required to click a box in their setting order to allow posts from that user, this will help prevent the above situations from arising*

"bad" is a pretty vague word. what defines "bad"? is it a name that has innapropriate language like "shredfucker69" or "jew-killah", or is it a string of letters and numbers that seem non sensical, like "gh56ar3373p"? i think user names, except those that are derogatory or use innapropriate words, should be left alone.

also i'm still not big on the "real name in signaure" clause, although i understand the reasoning behind it.

[sen]

Bryce, what do you mean by important? How's important? Would you're idea of who is important be the same as mine, or anyone elses? I also don't see why it matters if they are <i>important</i> or not. EVERYONE should follow these rules and make modified a nicer place to be.

[wolfpac444]

"bad" is a pretty vague word. what defines "bad"?

"Bad user names" are those user names that correspond to spam bots. Basically, we delete any accounts that appear to be created from an automated script with the intention of spamming. The board gets or used to get around 10-15 of these bad users per day.

[hacksterbator]

"Bad user names" are those user names that correspond to spam bots.

thanks for making that clearer, mike!

[dyalander]

If you come up with better wording for that or any other guideline, please suggest it, we want to improve them. Also suggest any changes/removals or new guidelines for everyone to discuss.

[Z on the rocks]

sounds cool

[bluntobj3ct]

yep, awesome. i <3 every rule on there.

[Colin]

So "shredfucker69" and "jew-killah" are still fair game?

Hello new accounts!

[Moxie]

[Mod Edit: Last two posts moved from here.]

[slapdash21]

but not what i wrote. thanks.

here it is, again, because it is pertinent to the discussion.

"i think mods have too much power/moderate excessively. if this is everyone's forum who's on here, why should someone i never agreed should have any authority be able to ban me, change what i say, have secret forums, etc.
mods should be chosen by the entire community, and do little more than organization and whatnot.
all flaming should be contained in one sub-forum. how, you ask? any post, or part of a post that constitutes flaming should be moved by the mods to a single subforum leaving only pertinent helpful information where it belongs. just an idea. i think eventually it would lead to people not bothering to flame in the 'information' threads, but fill one subforum with pure flammage. any fights started in the 'information subforums' (equipt, shred symp, general, etc) would be completely moved to the flaming subforum where the argument could be continued at whatever level wanted and of course that forum would be properly labeled to protect newbs to the forum. if you dont want to go in that subforum because you do not like flaming, you wont ever have to see it. if you enjoy a good roast, i'll see you there.

because despite everyone's claims that 'just respecting everyone isnt that hard' there are some people on modified i cannot and will never respect in the least."

[Jeremy]

And that's what I was agreeing on - which is probably a little unclear now since your original post is in a different topic and my post saying I agree is before yours in this topic.

[Moxie]

I'm sorry, I did mess up by trying to move just a few posts from the other thread to here. I should have just quoted them and asked people to move the dissussion here. It makes more sense to move them back, and put the quotes in here. I quoted only what I thought would be on topic in here, let me know if I missed anything.

It's no surprise that this has happened. The fact is there are fewer girls on modified now than there were 2 years ago.

The only significant thing that has changed since then is the introduction of the secret girls only forum. Since it was introduced with the sole purpose of encouraging girls to post on this forum more, they've actually started posting on here less, the treatment of girls on the forum has got worse and the shreditas.com website has become inactive.

While it is impossible to do more than speculate as to if the girls only secret forum has attributed to this or not - I feel, as the person who suggested that idea, talked to a lot of girls (and guys) about it and made it happen that it's completely failed in its objectives and that it was a mistake in creating it.


I also think that Emily has absolutely no experience running internet forums - nor do any of the other current mods and admins and I think modified has definitely gone from being one of the best run internet forums to just as bad as all the rest. Rather than saying "I'm sure they're doing the best they can etc." maybe it would be good to set some key performance indicators and some goals of what the forum should be achieving. If the mods and admins are incapable of achieving these goals they should be replaced - maybe in an election since this forum should belong to the people who post on it and not the friends of past admins.

The reason I bring this is up is mainly because I want female footbag to be encouraged and I feel very strongly - as do a number of other people of both genders - that the secret forum is actually having a counter-productive effect.

I'm sure there is a small portion of girls who post in that forum who would like it to stay but the decision should not be based on what we think is good for them but what we think is good for female footbag overall and indeed for footbag overall.

I also think the other 5 secret forums should be deleted (if they haven't been already) or at least all of them apart from the mods/admins forum - I think that one should be public too but it's not a big deal. This is obviously a side issue and I don't really think it has much effect on footbag, just on this forum - which I can't say I really care about either.

Hey Jeremy.

Before addressing any of your points, could you just let me know if I understood them correctly? After reading your two posts, I took your main points to be:

1. There are fewer girls on modified than there were 2 years ago.
2. The reason for this is the existence of the Shreditas Only forum.
3. In 2 years, the only significant change on modified was the creation of the Shreditas forum.
4. The existence of the Shreditas Only forum has led to female footbaggers being treated worse than before.


5. Modified went from being one of the best-run internet forums to being one of the worst.
6. The reason for this, is due to the supposed lack of experience that Emily and the rest of the moderating team has.
7. By implication, you think that previous admins and/or mod teams did a better job of moderation than the current staff.

8. There are many girls who are strongly opposed to the Shreditas Only Forum.


Before I address any of these assertions, I just wanted to be completely sure that I correctly understood the main points of your last 2 posts. I think I boiled them down to the above 8 statements. Let me know if I misunderstood any of them, and if not, I will then proceed to address them.

modified hurts the development of footbag. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.
.

Does this mean that if modified sucks, it's our responsibility to make it better? If so, does leaving the forums only to come back and make posts like your last 2 mean that you are part of the problem?

I'd just like to say that people have some of the same retarded comments come out of their mouthes in real life as well. The protective barrier created by the internet make it seem like they have had a few drinks and lost their inhibitions of becoming a complete douche.

I've thought this whole thing is being blown out of proportion by both parties. The whole thing would have been a non-issue if some etiquette was observed and people were less sensitive on both ends of the argument.

I agree with Jeremy about the abolishing of secret forums. Secret forums create a sense of exclusivity and hierarchy that isn't needed in a generally friendly and welcoming community such as that of modified. Are people in 'Shredder's Annonymous' better than the rest of the community? Is the fact that there's a 'Shreditas' forum' supposed to instill in the rest of the mostly male community that girls are better than guys and only girls are privaleged with the ability to read the forum? I know the original idea was to keep the offensive, insensitive male comments out and encourage a female community, but why?

Who dictates who gets to be in what secret forum? Don't you find that level of moderation a little excessive? Why create segregation and hierarchy when we are all supposed to be fellow footbaggers enjoying the sport. All information should be accessible to the public I feel, including the Mod/Admin forum. Non-staff should not be allowed to comment in the mod/admin forum, but like all responsible government, information should be accessible so that there is a level of accountability on the mod's part as well.

In terms of the secret shreditas forum, the secret forum is not really used. It segregates the females from the community. New shreditas come and look at the forum and don't see a female presence and leave without joining. You know a little about my opinion of the forum. I don't post in there because after looking at it, I thought the forum was counterintuitive to the original point of the forum: to have a strong, visible scene of females together who can discuss. So guys sometimes say inappropriate things. We get offended in real life too. If the image of the modern female is supposed to be strong-willed and strong-minded, then a female should be able to handle herself when she does truly get offended by a male comment. Like Chris should have done, if females are offended, they should be assertive and confront the person who did the wrong. People should realize that words can hurt, but that doesn't mean that we can't fight back. Why just discuss who offended whom and why in the secret forum? Being submissive and only discussing it amongst the 'girls' isn't going create more awareness on the topic. If the female members on this forum aren't speaking out on when people are being insensitive, the male members on the forum aren't going to know. We can't assume that they should just know.

Beyond periods and sports bras, I'm not sure if there's anything that needs to be a secret. Even those, anyone over 13 should know about and can essentially be discussed in health/injuries and bags/equipment respectively, although admittedly, it's less comfortable to talk about boobs and vaginas amongst a male audience. If there was a women's health subforum that was exclusive, I might understand the point to that.

In the end, it's still all about equality and the invisibility isn't helping.[/i]

Hey Jeremy.

Before addressing any of your points, could you just let me know if I understood them correctly? After reading your two posts, I took your main points to be:

1. There are fewer girls on modified than there were 2 years ago.
2. The reason for this is the existence of the Shreditas Only forum.
3. In 2 years, the only significant change on modified was the creation of the Shreditas forum.
4. The existence of the Shreditas Only forum has led to female footbaggers being treated worse than before.

You are right about the first point but wrong about the others (not to say they are or are not true, just they weren't my point).

I very clearly stated;

While it is impossible to do more than speculate as to if the girls only secret forum has attributed to this or not

5. Modified went from being one of the best-run internet forums to being one of the worst.

Wrong again. What I said was that it was one of the best forums but now it's just the same as any other internet forums. There used to be a feeling of community that this forum had that other forums didn't have. There are plenty of people who post on this forum who agree that for whatever reason they don't like this place anymore. This happens on most forums and it usually happens because they are run badly. Sometimes the problems are fixed and sometimes they aren't.

8. There are many girls who are strongly opposed to the Shreditas Only Forum.

There are definitely some girls who are strongly opposed to the Shreditas Only forum. I don't want to name them because I'm sure they can speak for themselves. Before I proposed the idea and spoke to a number of people to see if it would be a good idea or not, two girls in particular said it would be a very bad idea and I promised them that if it didn't work in achieving the goal of having more active girls on the forum we could always get rid of it. Neither of those girls post on modified any more (although people who know them personally do).

Before I address any of these assertions, I just wanted to be completely sure that I correctly understood the main points of your last 2 posts. I think I boiled them down to the above 8 statements. Let me know if I misunderstood any of them, and if not, I will then proceed to address them.

You did misunderstand them.

modified hurts the development of footbag. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.
.

Does this mean that if modified sucks, it's our responsibility to make it better? If so, does leaving the forums only to come back and make posts like your last 2 mean that you are part of the problem?

I don't know whose responsibility it is to make things better. You are right that in posting here I am part of the problem. I only post here when I think the possible benifit of posting out weighs the negativity of posting. In this case I'm trying to get some action occuring in helping the state of female footbag - which would be a far more significantly positive thing for footbag than any negativity in posting on modified. The other post I'm about to make in the general footbag section is letting people know about a new IFPA set of sub committees - again something with strong importance to footbag outside of modified.

I agree completely with what Peng said - she put forward the reasons for getting rid of the Shreditas forum much eloquently than I could have. Props

Really? The people who made this a solid and worthwhile community have left for the most part. Don't you think the current state is a reflection of the people who occupy it?

How can modified be better? Most of the people don't have much to offer in ways of information, most are new and searching for information that for the most part isnt out there. That leads to people spreading for the most part bullshit or opionins without much backup. What is a better modified to you? Can the things you used to like about modified be brought back with the current community?

david

To answer these questions I think modified can definitely be improved significantly with better moderation and admins. The current mods have removed text from a persons post for saying "I will kick your ass" because it is a threat of violence. Some of them have stated a number of times that the focus of modified should a "resource" and not a community. They have never done a survey or a poll to back this idea up. When I ran the modified survey the overwelming thing people liked about modified was "making friends" and "the community". If they changed their policies back to what the forum policies were before they became mods - with a focus on building modified as a community and being non-confrontational mods I am sure that this forum would be significantly better.

You can see how their forum policy created the situation Emily is complaining about. Chris made a complaint about a signature to her. Instead of trying to understand what he had this problem and trying to find a solution to the grievence she dismissed his problem because she personally didn't find anything wrong with the sig. Mods and Admins shouldn't be making personal judgement calls like that. They should be like impartial judges. So she dismissed his problem and he responded in posting up images of what he thought was a similarly offensive image in order to make a point. That's what happens on every internet forum when you have a confrontational relationship between users and mod/admins. It's happened many times before on this forum and that's why the policy of how we dealt with problems changed and when it changed it worked and we stopped having those problems. When I made the suggestion in the mods/admins forum of getting rid of the shreditas forum and the other secret forums and said 5 times that we should put the matter to a vote with the forum before doing anything because the forum belongs to the people on the forum (the theme of the suggestions I made at that time) the response I got from Emily was along the lines of "You're a hypocrit - who are you to make these decisions? You should at least ask the community if they support these decisions before speaking for them".

6. The reason for this, is due to the supposed lack of experience that Emily and the rest of the moderating team has.
7. By implication, you think that previous admins and/or mod teams did a better job of moderation than the current staff.

Sorry I somehow managed to miss these points

6. Is definitely true apart from the word "supposed" in there. What experience do any of the mods/admins have on being a mod/admin on internet forums apart from their time at modified? I think only Nic Bathgate has any experience.

7. Is true at times - obviously there were times when they did worse jobs but I think the current mod/admins - especially those that view modified as a resource and not a community - are responsible for the loss of community feeling.

i think mods have too much power/moderate excessively. if this is everyone's forum who's on here, why should someone i never agreed should have any authority be able to ban me, change what i say, have secret forums, etc.
mods should be chosen by the entire community, and do little more than organization and whatnot.
all flaming should be contained in one sub-forum. how, you ask? any post, or part of a post that constitutes flaming should be moved by the mods to a single subforum leaving only pertinent helpful information where it belongs. just an idea. i think eventually it would lead to people not bothering to flame in the 'information' threads, but fill one subforum with pure flammage. any fights started in the 'information subforums' (equipt, shred symp, general, etc) would be completely moved to the flaming subforum where the argument could be continued at whatever level wanted and of course that forum would be properly labeled to protect newbs to the forum. if you dont want to go in that subforum because you do not like flaming, you wont ever have to see it. if you enjoy a good roast, i'll see you there.

because despite everyone's claims that 'just respecting everyone isnt that hard' there are some people on modified i cannot and will never respect in the least.

Jeremy wrote:

You can see how their forum policy created the situation Emily is complaining about. Chris made a complaint about a signature to her. Instead of trying to understand what he had this problem and trying to find a solution to the grievence she dismissed his problem because she personally didn't find anything wrong with the sig. Mods and Admins shouldn't be making personal judgement calls like that. They should be like impartial judges. So she dismissed his problem and he responded in posting up images of what he thought was a similarly offensive image in order to make a point.

This is not how it happened at all. ALL the mods looked at the complaint, which I think was made to Matt (I might be wrong about that) and decided not to remove the signature which offended Chris - I can't speak to why each mod made that descision, I made it because previous descussions re: course language seemed to indicate to me that the community didn't mind swearing on the boards and while it is true that signatures are arguably a different issue, I felt that if swearing is OK then it is OK in signatures. More importantly, I made the point both to the other mods and to Chris, that we are about to post a set of guidelines for the community to discuss which will allow the entire community to decide whether "eat dick" should be allowed in signatures or not. Chris was not interested in the broader community.
The reason this situation arose was not because of this admin or moderation style, which was about getting community consensus about these sorts of descisions (perhaps if we had been faster in posting the guidelines then it wouldn't have happened, but other than that I'd say it has more to do with the user in question.) I too believe mods should act as impartial judges - for this to occur then the community needs to decide in a clear and coherent manner what is and isn't allowed so the mods can simply carry out those community decisions.
This situation arose because Chris was unwilling to leave the decision up to the community, he wanted the signature removed and didn't care what anyone else thought. He decided that sexist and abusive posts regarding Emily, who he singled out of the mod team for reasons known only to him, were the way for him to persue the matter, despite being offered other more community orientated options.
When I became a mod there were a numer of discussions going around, raised by Jeremy, about various issues. I decided that the best way to proceed was to try and tackle them one at a time. I had previously complained about the lack of transparency regarding what mods and users could and couldn't do so decided to start there. When I am sufficiently happy that the whole community has considered the guidelines and had their say, we can move to the next issue. BUt nothing will ever get decided if everytime something comes up, we also bring up 5 other things that are also problems and proceed to discuss them all at once. We will get to the issue of secret forums, but one thing at a time.

So "suck a dick" is ok but "Kick your ass" is not? Am I the only person that sees that as a contradiction?

The whole approach the mods/admins take completely leads to the problem.

Somebody has a complaint - you look at the complaint and decide that it's not a valid complaint and so you dismiss it. This kind of a policy - in my experience being a mod on 4 different forums for over 3 years - is that it always leads to people feeling alienated and resentful towards the mod/admin staff. It doesn't matter if one person made the decision or 20 people made the decision. Instead of being confrontational, mods and admins job should be to work with the people involved no matter how ridiculous and childish they may be. It should be like a customer service job. If you work in customer service and somebody comes in with a complaint, no matter how ridiculous, you try your best to address their complaint until they're satisfied. In some cases you may not actually be able to do what they want but you don't just dismiss them - you try to have a dialogue and work on it until you can hopefully make them happy. If you don't do this you usually get fired.

Something I said again and again when I was a mod/admin was that having those positions is a job to serve the forum - not a right or a power position. The best run internet forum I've ever seen (which is a video game forum and is also officially in the top 1000 largest internet forums) gives as much weight to the opinions of a general user on if content is appropriate or not as they give to a mod or an admin.

Also as far as I saw there was no discussion of the guidelines. You just posted them and said these are the rules of the forum. Surely the people of the forum should have been actively involved in writing the rules for the forum they post on. Here are my opinions of your rules:


First there used to be a policy on this forum that worked really well where when a mod sees something that they think is uncool - they post or pm the person telling them their own personal opinion - nothing to do with the rules at all. 90% of the time just doing this resolves the issue without having to use any power at all. Why has this policy been removed?

-If a mod, or any forum user sees someone who doesn't have their real first and last name in their signature, send them a PM letting them know that we ask that users have their real name in their signature
**If they respond saying they don't want anyone to find them by using a search engine such as Google, you can tell them that it won't happen. The only time someone will see their signature is if the person looking is signed in to Modified**

None of you guys have seen my signature even though at least one mod has commented on it? Are these the rules or they just what you'll follow when you feel like it? If you're going to have rules you should follow them. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate the signature policies. I know that every other forum I post on or have ever posted on (including modified for a time) had a rule about the size of images in signatures and it's very easy to enforce despite what Emily says. Usually a pixel limit is set - something like this:




Usually people just go by eye and if something looks too big then they'll check it out and send the person a pm asking them to make it smaller. If I had a 28010 pixel signature you probably wouldn't check to see if it's ok or not.

- There may be no direct references to methods of obtaining drugs illegally. Any post containing such references will be edited or deleted.

- While coarse language is permitted derogatory remarks regarding religion, race, nationality, gender, sexuality and physical/mental disability will not be tolerated. Such remarks will be edited or deleted.

-Threats of violence will not be tolerated, such threats will be deleted.

While I understand the first two rules I think it was clear when we tried to enforce the "no using gay" policy that in practice it just doesn't work and indeed we found that a much more effective way of dealing with people's intolerance is turning their usage of that word into a discussion about why it is or isn't ok. While you can't ever convince everybody, I certainly remember people beginning to understand the point. I also think drugs are a very relevant issue for the majority of people on this forum. If somebodies looking for a way to get drugs than surely this is a perfect opportunity again to address the issue rather than sweeping it under the carpet. There have definitely been people on this forum who I felt had serious drug problems and knowing what they're doing now, I really regret not talking to them more about this in the open. A community should deal with issues that occur in the community - even if they are negative - they shouldn't pretend that they don't happen.

The threats of violence rule is ridiculous. It should be changed to "genuine threats of violence" - meaning somebody feels that the threats of violence could become real violence. One of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen on this forum was when Emily removed a bunch of "threats of violence" from a post by Dan Feary and then asked and had him suspended for making those threats. While one of those "threats" was probably over the line (something about punching the other guy in the face). 2 or 3 of those "threats" were "I will kick your ass". I think it is crucial that you keep a sense of perspective. Threats of ass kicking are not threats of violence.

The other thing that is totally not mentioned in those rules is an issue that came up and was never resolved in the mods/admin forum where a user posted in the "what's the worst thing you've done to a friend" topic with an account of a morally questionable act with a passed out girl which could have been construed as sexual. While the act was vulgar - I felt very strongly that people should be allowed to post about actual events that occur in their life and I tried to understand the reason it was deleted. For those of you who have been here for a long time, you'll remember that I became a mod here and at .org because of my very strong belief in freedom of speech. I think a community where you're not allowed to talk about bad things happening to you (or you doing bad things) is a worthless community. It is clear that in everybody’s life there are ups and downs. There was a time on this forum where a member had three of his friends kill themselves on the same day and he was very was obviously very traumatised (and suicidal) but with the help of some of the people on this forum, managed to get through it. It seems entirely wrong to me to not allow people to talk about these bad things in their life. What if somebody was raped? Would they not be allowed to talk about here with their friends? In the end, after hours of getting passed the non-sequiturs, we managed to find out the reason Emily removed this comment was because "Something about it just struck me as wrong." She claimed it was not a moral judgement but clearly her later comment suggested that it was. What is are the rules for when mods and admins overstep the mark? How much tolerance is allowed for this? Is the non-inclusion of talking about sexually explicit issues mean that removing that comment was indeed the wrong thing to do?

It seems clear that these rules are not clear at all. Who decides if a remark is "derogatory" or not? What about personal insults? I fail to see how the pictures that Chris was posting fail to meet the guidelines you've posted. The guidelines don't address what Chris was posting at all - if you were to follow those guidelines you would have to allow him to post that image in one topic. So the mods and admins don't even follow their own guidelines, but just decide if they like something or not anyway - regardless of the rules. Just like Emily with the comment I had such an issue with, if it just "strikes them as wrong" they get rid of it.

What is the point of telling people how you moderate the forum if it's not how you moderate the forum?


Regardless of these points, I think the most serious problem I have was the one I brought up to begin with. Confrontational moderating always creates more problems. It always creates a divide between mod/admins and the rest of the forum and it always creates resentment and alienation. We learnt very well on this forum that it wasn't the way to address problems - now the forum is returning to those days. It won't make the forum more liked, it will mean even more people dislike this place and more of the older members will leave. If you don't learn from past mistakes you will be forced to repeat them.

Sorry I didn't realise those images were one image. Could somebody delete the repeated ones. Also I agree with what Peter Bowler wrote.

[dyalander]

Haven't had time to go through everything closely, but the stuff that jumped out at me -

These guidelines are a starting point - they were not posted to be rules to be enforced from the moment of posting they were posted as a starting point for precisely this discussion.

The drug rule does not stop discussion of drug taking, its effects etc, but was designed to draw the line before people start saying "hey if you want some good blow I know where you can get it" etc.

I've worked in customer service for almost 10 years - specifically with customer complaints - and while you can often direct people in a non confrontational manner to an amicable solution, this is often not possible as the customer may simpl ydisagree with the core principle - eg. some customers simply don't think they should have to pay late fees for their videos, I can't politely and non-confrontationally massage a solution out of the situation, there's nothing I can do. Getting back to the Chris situation - although the mods decided not to delete the signature, we offered Chris an number of options to help him achieve the outcome he wanted - he refused them - there is nothing else we can do - we did not simply dismiss his complaint, a number of mods all tried to help him see how he could get what he wanted in a mature and acceptable manner. The "confrontational modding" you refer to never happened in the way you envisage. It simply did not happen that way, there were a number of PM's between various mods and Chris looking to find a solution, he was not simply dismissed, he was dismissed only when it became clear that he only wanted to get his way with total disregard for the rest of the communtiy, we simply said we won't delete the signature but perhaps you should try... He said we could go eat dick.
I've always thought that we can either have elected mods who are free to make judgement calls, or we can have appointed mods who are constrained by a set of guidelines. Its either/or. The guidelines will never be set in stone, they are designed to constrain moderation, mods will always miss instances singled out in the guidelines, all it will take is a single user complaint to fix the problem. Similiarly the guidelines can always be adapted by the community - that way if you have a compliant about something that was removed - or something allowed to saty they offer something concrete for discussion to speak to and for the community to decide upon. So in Chris' case he could have quite easily said - why isn't it in the guidelines for my complaint to be upheld - and either the community will largely agree with him or disagree and the mods can act accordingly. The rules aren't designed to end all discussion about moderation but simply to give it some focus when there is a dispute - so as you pointed out "derogatory" is open to interpretation, ongoing discussion and negotiation will define how that is enacted.
You mentioned the worst thing i've ever dome post that was deleted - as far as I can see by these guidelines it would not have been deleted. The point is that since mods aren't elected the community needs to have a way to constantly keep account of how mods behave. Mods need not be confrontational and these guidelines don't demand a confrontational approach.

[Jeremy]

I am not saying that I enjoy Sam's sig, but in this certain situation the group of moderators feel that we should not step in.

My impression is that that is part of the first PM sent to Chris.

-4. I don't want you to be silenced just because the group of mods doesn't feel that it's necessary to take action. Here are some possible ways for you to go:
-PM him and ask him to change it
-Make a topic about it in the Discussion or Kicking Circle section- depending on how strongly you're going to word it or expect the responses to be. Ask the community how it feels, or maybe discuss why you think images like that are "inappropriate for an all-ages footbag forum."
…
If you do decide to take this issue to the rest of Modified, please feel free to include my responses to your PM, as long as you post your PM. If you need a copy of what you sent to me, let me know.

You may have offered solutions - but they're all solutions with the onus on Chris. He came to you with the problem and as mods surely it is your obligation to settle is grievence.

I am sorry that none of us PMed Sam asking him to change it if he was willing to. We didn’t do that, and that’s our mistake..

I disagree. The mod team agreed that there was nothing in Sam's signature that violated forum policy. Therefore, there was no reason for him to receive a PM from the mods at all. If Chris had a problem with the sig, and learned that the mods thought it didn't violate forum policy, then he should have pmed sam and asked him to modify it if he wanted to.

That's the attitude of dismissal to me. It shouldn't have been a question of what the rules say - it should have been an issue of you doing your job and trying to solve the problem. Presumably Chris came do you because he didn't want bring the issue up personally with Sam. That's an understandable way to feel. I would be embarressed telling somebody I was offended by the word Dick. He came to you asking for help and the only help you offered were things he could easily have thought of and done himself if he wanted to do that - clearly he didn't or he would have. You really think he didn't think of asking Sam to change the sig or posting about it on the forum? What kind of opinion do you have of the members of this forum?

Your analogy about paying late fees is really irrelevent because that's an entirely different kind of problem. Obviously there is a line in what kind of content isn't allowed to be posted. A pornographic picture (and not one of a puppet) should not be allowed on the forum and the forum could easily make the decision to get rid of it (the mods would just have to listen to the complaints - not make the decision themselves). This discussion has nothing to do with things that clearly cross the line and should be removed - and the reason they should be removed is because I am confident the majority of the forum doesn't want to see them on the forum


You failed to answer my point about the fact that neither of the images Chris posted fail to meet the new rules. Why was the image removed from the "modified nights" topic if it actually meets the guidelines you've written?

What is the purpose of these rules if the mods don't actually follow them?

[Moxie]

Jeremy, These apply to Chris and his posts:
[quote=""Guidelines""]- While coarse language is permitted derogatory remarks regarding religion, race, nationality, gender, sexuality and physical/mental disability will not be tolerated. Such remarks will be edited or deleted.

-“Spammingâ€