Rules

[Temanin]

See what happens when you complain enough? Hmm? Hmm? Thank you, Silvion.

Yes, now on to rules. What should be the #1 rule around here?

[Silvion]

respect eachother's opinion"is an important rule, as is "No faul language" along with "No spamming on the boards"."Also a rule about double posting, if you want to add something to what you have said, just modify your olod post.

[Temanin]

1. R-E-S-P-E-C–T
2. No Foul Language
3. No Spamming <insert definition of spam>
4. No double-posting

(Obviously these will be elaborated later)

Looks good so far. Tony, I'm sure you have a few.

[Tony]

I do have some and I think it will benifet the board for later.

1. Keep at least 3 pages of threads in each board. When you hit 4, you can either delete the oldest threads or let them continue. (this lets people know that we are active and need to keep the bandwith open, but not too open)

Now I know some may not want this, and some will, but I'm going to suggest it. We take all of our names off the boards. Then we choose the boards we want to govern, even if they are in another catagory. And there can be more than one Mod on that board. (example, Tem, Bob, and Silvion all govern History).

2. Keep posts more than just a few words. Don't just put, "Hey thats cool!". That is too short. But then if that is all you want to say, don't drag it out.

I can't think of anymore right now. I'm sorta angry and I can't think.

[Tony]

Let's see what we have so far (for the members. We have to make our own set of rules (punishments, bannings, ect)),

1. R-E-S-P-E-C–T (i.e. No flaming)

2. No Foul Language

3. No Spamming <insert definition of spam>

4. No double-posting

(NEW) 5. No one liners (also under spam)

(NEW) 6. Post eligablility - keep all posts readable and understandable.



Now as for spam. We need a definiton to give to the members so they know what not to post. I believe spamming is this,

[/li][li]Posts that try and make you funny when really it dosn't.

[/li][li]Useless comments that do not pertain to the subject being discussed.

[/li][li]One-liners are spam.

( Person 1: Do you remember that chapter where *blah blah blah*?

Person 2: No

^ #2 just Spammed ^ )

Please, add anything else you consider spam also and we'll compile it all together.

[Victor]

Okay, I have a couple suggestions, although I don't know how they'd translate into rules.

If a debate is getting out of hand, a moderator could order the participants to take their argument to Private Messages or some other communication medium. Since people tend to get hotheaded in the heat of the moment, that would be an efficient way to give them one chance to give them one chance to shape up and take the argument and hostility somewhere more appropriate.

Also, rules should only be enforced if everyone is aware of them. Which would mean things like stickying a list of rules to the top of each board.

And perhaps punishments should be varied based on the severity of the offense? There could be a sort of "Mod-court" to judge what the punishment could be.

EDIT: The things I consider spam are:

Off-topic posts
Advertising where it shouldn't be.
Many (say four or more) topics with little or no focus made by the same person over a small span of time
Everything Tony has listed

[Tony]

The PM thing is perfect for that. And if someone decides they don't want to argue anymore and the person is harrasing them, then we take measures.

Sticky-ing the rules in each board is perfect and mabye a little annoying, but oh well. But each board could also have additional rules added onto them. So every board must have a basic set of rules, but each board can have more rules. Like customs in countries. Most countries have similar customs, but others have different ones too.

That "Mod-court" would be a good thing. People can come and complain about so and so who did this or that and us Mods can decide the punishment.

As for punishment I was thinking the three strikes and your out thing. First strike, you are warned and are watched for any other mistakes. Second strike, a talking to and a banning for a day. And the Third stike, permenent banning. Now we don't always have to use that. If they are small things like double posting then mabye a few Second strikes, but we'll only ban if its serious.

[Tony]

Another rule. Threads can only go up to 5 pages and then they are locked. If someone wants to continue the thread they can make another one.

And are we only going to have three pages of threads per board?

[Temanin]

But what if the thread is in the middle of a conversation? As in, there are four of us on and we are all posting in this one thread very quickly, as we sometimes do. What if we are talking about something and all of a sudden it turns over to five pages. Are we to just stop and start a new thread about the exact same thing and begin again?

And three pages works for me.

[Tony]

Well, why not? If its a good discussion then someone will start the thread again.

[Silvion]

I don't think thats a good idea. I like the one about 3 threads per board though.

[Tony]

-_- Okay. I guess it isn't a good idea after all.

[Temanin]

If you went with the 5-page thing, you would have to stop you 999 bottles of beer song shortly, and start another thread. Now that's not a good idea, eh?

[Tony]

Yeah I guess. Oh well it was idea.

But what about locking a thread if it gets off topic too far? Like on the brink of spam.

[Temanin]

How about locking it, and adding a post saying why it was locked. Inform the folks that it will be locked for 24 hours, then reopened. If problems continue, it will be locked permanently.