First Round Vote To Ratify Unstuck Posting Rules

About Unstuck
1

So we moved out and got our own place—no more listening to the parents’ bullshit, man! Now we can do whatever we want–no rules! But it turns out, we may want one or two because not all the roommates agree on everything.

Here we go.

The process here is a vote on each of these proposed rules. You have the option of accepting it as written, saying no thanks–I don’t think we need that rule at all, or yeah that seems like a good rule to have but not the way it is written here. Let’s discuss more.

Any choice that receives 70% or more is considered passed at this stage.
Any rule that misses this threshold, or if the majority opinion is to discuss further will end up having its own thread to debate.

That phase is not determined yet, but the hope is competing interests will be able to either come to a consensus or submit the rule that expresses their wishes to be offered to the community in a two to three option second vote.

Some perspective before voting:

  1. That something is not expressed in the rules does not mean it is implicitly acceptable.
  2. We will never create a set of rules explicit enough or complete enough to eliminate drama or conflict.
  3. Most of the problems we are discussing have not shown up here yet, so remember…
  4. We can make adjustments, additions, and clarifications later as needed…the criteria here is not a perfect law that is impossible to circumvent or that covers every possibility. If the letter of the law is being weaponized either to drum out a poster or by a poster to get around the spirit of the rule, that is a problem of its own.
  5. If you do not care all that much about a specific rule because it won’t confront you none, don’t sit it out! You may be in the majority and I encourage you to speak up with your preference to either push it through or push it out. The rule nits are going to have plenty to debate and you will be doing the process a favor by voting DGAF.

Let’s go!

These rules should be lightly enforced, seldom needed and are up to the moderators to enforce using their judgment. This is a community that welcomes others to join and participate in good faith. We prefer that the bulk of moderation comes first from the individual posters exercising good judgment, second from the community at large, and as a last resort through moderator action. If you find the following difficult to understand or abide by, then this forum is probably not the place for you.

  • I like this intro as written.
  • This needs to be discussed/rewritten.
0 voters

1. No personal attacks. Many subjects we discuss here are sensitive and passions will run high, but when a debate turns into a personal argument it is not good for anyone.

  • I like rule 1 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

2. No hate messages. These are classified as attacks based on what someone is rather than what they have a choice in. Not every group is exempt from generalizations, but messages that disparage based on Race, Ethnicity, Sexual orientation, National Origin, Gender (including transgender) or Disability (including claiming someone is in one of these groups as an insult to them) is not tolerated here. Any content such as Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, misogyny, antisemitism, white supremacy, etc is prohibited

  • I like rule 2 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

3. No posting debunked conspiracy theories - especially as they relate to genocide or tragic current events.

  • I like rule 3 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

4. No posting of other’s personal details, or PMs, without explicit and prior permission.

  • I like rule 4 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

5. No obscene pics, gore or pornography. Further, if there is anything that may be considered not safe for work use spoilers or do not post it in order to keep our forum available to our users.

  • I like rule 5 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

6. No threats. This includes threats of violence, exposing personal information or harassment. Any post that expresses a direct, indirect, or veiled threat to anyone - whether it be another member, some other individual, or a group in general–or an incitement to violence–will be dealt with severely, may result in an immediate permanent banning, and may be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency.

  • I like rule 6 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

7. Discussions of violence. Posts that entertain the demise or serious harming of a specific person or political group for any purpose (whether it is to express anger, incite a rebellion, or to troll people) are subject to heavy moderation starting with deletion, warnings, temporary bans, up to permanent exile. If your post contains a violent scenario in which a person or groups end up dead, make it as fantastical and preposterous as possible, post it at most once in a while, but ultimately, consider not posting it at all.

  • I like rule 7 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

8. Don’t use the forum rules or features as a weapon against posters you do not like.

  • I like rule 8 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

9. Post in good faith. Trolling is ubiquitous on the internet, and no one wants to moderate a little light taunting, sarcasm, cheerleading for one’s favored party, team, or candidate, or a certain degree of devil’s advocacy. Plenty of things that could fall under an umbrella as broad as “trolling” are part of a healthy online community. But, we believe in facts, so repeating lies in the face of their proven falsehood is likely to be moderated. It’s not hard to tell the difference between someone who doesn’t understand the argument another is making, and someone who’s deliberately misconstruing that argument for their own amusement. There’s a difference between posting passionately about a subject and spamming a thread over and over. Posting citations to support one’s arguments is encouraged, but throwing down a litany of citations, declaring victory, and not addressing any follow up is a bad look. These are just a few examples of bad faith, and expect the moderators to take action if you are engaging in it.

  • I like rule 9 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

10. Be considerate of unpopular opinions.

  • I like rule 10 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

11. Accept these limits. Posting or acting in bad faith to demonstrate a disagreement of the rules or moderation is uncool and not a valuable contribution. Posters who make it a point to find the line frequently should consider other places for their posting that accepts content outside of these guidelines. Likewise, posters who feel that the community standard does not meet their personal moral need or comfort level are free to discuss that as it comes up, but also to find a more suitable community that better matches their tolerance levels

  • I like rule 11 as written.
  • I do not want this rule at all.
  • I want this rule, but it needs discussion and rewriting.
0 voters

Edit was a freaking apostrophe error.

4 Likes
2

Rule 4 should be other posters’, not others. I already gave my input on rule 10.

4

#3 is fine except to add that not everyone will always know if they are posting a debunked conspiracy theory. Like that time Trump was calling the president of Italy President Mozzarella. Apparently, that was fake and never happened. But I believed it LOL.

5

This. Especially, if MSM is the barometer for whether something has been debunked or not

7

I am just blanket voting that every rule needs discussion because I don’t think the way this is being presented is conducive to discussion. Talk about some rules may drown out talk about other rules.

Let’s start with rule #1. I would like either an attempt at a definition of what a personal attack is or an explicit statement that it is mod’s discretion to take the Potter Stewart approach to identifying personal attacks. Rule 2 tries to do this by defining what hate messages are.

Rule 7. I think this should be about discussions of illegal violence. I should be able to entertain the idea of a war that leads to the demise of certain people. I should be able to entertain the idea of shooting people for trespassing in houses that may or may not be white on the outside if they don’t vacate the premises when they should. Discussions and advocacy of legal violence should be permitted.

Rule 9. What is good faith? Having been wrongly accused of trolling, I actually think it is hard for some people to not be able to tell when someone is arguing in good faith.

Rule 10. I’d want to add: be considerate of people you think are factually or morally wrong.

9

You could have just eliminated this stage.

11

I’ll think more about this, but I didn’t vote on a lot of things because I didn’t feel like either saying “I don’t want this rule” or “I want this rule, but…” let alone “I like this rule as written”.

I like vague rules with no specific threat of punishment like #10 or even more generally “be kind” or something.

12

My idea would have been to warm up by having a pro forma debate on the easy rules first before tackling the more controversial ones. It would help establish a mindset for how we want to think about rules. I think that’s what you should do with round two, have a debate on the rules that are closer to passing before working on the stuff that divides us more.

1 Like
13

I misvoted on the intro. I support as written. On #1, it should at least read “personal insults” instead of “personal arguments.” We have shitloads of arguments that are personal, and those can be just fine.

2 Likes
15

11 seems completely unnecessary to me, but I’m in the minority so whatevs.

16

It’s possible the change your vote if you misvoted. Click on hide results, change your selection, then click on vote.

1 Like
18

Treat the middle option as “This rule needs further discussion” and ignore the “I want this rule” part. Change your vote later if this thread satisfies you one way or the other.

19

For #10, we should add, “However, those with unpopular opinions should be mindful not to hijack unrelated or only tangentially related threads with arguments over their pet issue. Also, repeatedly and severely hijacking threads intentionally can be considered bad faith.”

6 Likes
21

I think it more or less makes it clear that moderation is a matter of judgement. Can you be moderated for violating the “be kind” rule? Well, that depends on a lot of things. We’ll see. But you should know it’s a possibility.

Some rules, like “don’t post a PM or someone else’s personal info without permission” I think are easy enough to just be cut and dry like that.

4 Likes
22

I sort of agree with you. I voted for revision mostly because I want to stew on it for a bit to see if I want it at all, if I or someone else comes up with revisions that improve it, or if I decide just to sign off.

1 Like
23

I considered that and it’s not a bad idea. I might do that.

24

I chose discuss for several items but I want to reserve the right to vote no if the rules don’t change in a way satisfactory to me.

25

Some of them are wayyyy ambiguous/vague like the US constitution

26

#5: Bring on the Porn, Gore, and Violence!

27

This was way too ambitious to do all at once and each of these items should have been their own thread. All of a sudden there appears to be some urgency to tackle this all at once and it’s unclear as to why.

Even the first item seems confused. The first sentence ends with:

Ok. Seems reasonable. But then later in the same paragraph:

These seem to be at cross purposes. Do they exercise using their own judgement or is there a sequence where direct moderation comes last?

I very much appreciate the work JT and the others put into creating these items. The eagerness to have a discussion and vote on 12 items at once tho hardly seems to do justice to the effort and comes across as trying to run a set of “rules” roughshod through “governance.”