Posting guidelines Options

[myndzi]

It has come to my attention recently that the kind of posts that we've been letting people get away with for various reasons are more detrimental than I, at least, knew. I've had PMs describing significant groups of people who just don't like this place because of the attitude of some of the people around here. For this reason, I am going to be taking a more active role in moderating these forums.

Here's the deal, guys. I'm not gonna lay a set of specific rules down so that you can nitpick over them and complain if I'm not consistent. I am going to ask a few general things of you, and I am going to enforce them with fairness to the best of my ability.

These are taken directly from the most well-moderated forum on the internet.

Put some effort into your posts.
"Ask yourself: 'Is my post or reply actually interesting, funny, or contributing to the discussion at hand?' If not, don't post it."

Don't threadshit, don't troll, don't be a humorless dick.
Threadshitting doesn't contribute anything, and it sabotages the opportunity for other posters to make a bad thread good again. Trolling doesn't help either -- this includes personal attacks, intentionally shitty arguments, spiteful fakeposting, and generally acting like an unfunny shithead. Remember: just because someone is posting like a complete idiot doesn't mean you can just call them a stupid asshole - you need to take the time and intelligently or humorously point out why/how they are a stupid asshole.

Don't be the trash of the internet
Acting like a creep, bigot, or self-righteous asshole is especially frowned upon and will almost certainly result in a banned account. If you've got some horrible opinion about a culture, race, gender, sexual orientation or individual, please keep it to yourself and do not post on these forums.

Lastly:
Respect the moderators
If you have a problem, concern, or information relevant to a moderator decision, the appropriate way to deal with that is to contact a moderator or admin in private. "Moderator sass" as Something Awful puts it will be dealt with the same way as any other breach of conduct.

Self-bumps
Most people are courteous enough that this doesn't need to be spelled out, but if you bump your own thread just so that people will see it, I'll expect you to have a good reason for doing so. Significant changes or new content for example. If your thread is useful but went unnoticed because of poor timing or something, I'll let it slide at least one time - but that's subjective judgement territory, so be responsible.



What this means, specifically, for you folks is that you need to clean up your act. If you don't like a thread, don't post in it. For a couple of you, quit being creeps to our female members. Despite what you think, this is not a democracy, it is a private site held by a private party and you are owed nothing. You've been granted permissive posting privileges and it hasn't worked out. I expect to be giving a lot of warnings for a while, and it's too bad that I don't have some kind of probationary feature like SA does. This means that I'll just have to use bans.

If you want this place to be worth coming to, do your part to help make it so. I welcome you to post more non-Tetris-related threads about whatever you want to discuss, and I encourage worthy discussion. I'm not going to suddenly ban everybody. I will do my best to be fair. That said, most moderation decisions are subjective. If you have a legitimate complaint or argument, you may contact me via PM, Skype, IRC, or whatever. My Skype username is the same as my forum name and IRC name.

[SirJeivus]

Well said. I may start posting more on HD if this is the case, and if the community adheres to these rules.

[Rosti_LFC]

I support the use of the term "shithead" in these posts.

[myndzi]

In case it wasn't clear, these rules of conduct will apply to the shoutbox, PMs, blogs, comments, and any other portion of the site where users communicate.

No, I won't be banning people for saying "COOL JOB BRO" on videos, but you get the picture.

[XaeL]

I support the use of the term "shithead" in these posts.

Me too, i thought that was an interesting way to express the the rules. Very clear.

[ohitsstef]

I like these rules, Myndzi. (ignore what I said, I finally saw the guidelines :] )

Just a suggestion!

[clincher]

In case it wasn't clear, these rules of conduct will apply to the shoutbox, PMs, blogs, comments, and any other portion of the site where users communicate.

No, I won't be banning people for saying "COOL JOB BRO" on videos, but you get the picture.

Could you clarify on the PMs? Do mods have access to every PM being sent on this site?

[myndzi]

I meant that more along the lines of, "If you harass someone in private and they tell me about it you're gonna be in trouble."

Technically, however, yes; any person with full ftp access to a website like this will also have access to all the communications on it. Most software likely provides an easy way to do it, but the hard way is always there too. That doesn't mean that people are reading your PMs for fun, however. That would be a very big mistake.

So in summary, the technical answer to your question is, "Yes, but that's not in any way unusual." The answer to the spirit of the question is, "No, nobody's going to be reading your PMs."

[Alexsweden]

I think I like this. I personally dont have a problem with plp fooling around in the shoutbox. But I still agree with the rules.

[myndzi]

The shoutbox is the front face of our community to the rest of the web. If anything, it should be the place where we are the most well-behaved