A New Set of Forum Rules and Regulations

[Mereni]

In the last few days, the Forum Rules and Regulations post has changed several times, and is currently somewhat difficult to interpret. The rules on this forum have always been rather vague and that may be part of the reason so many complain of unfair treatment.

I've posted in spoliers a set of rules below as a suggestion for a new set of rules now that Paradox is gone. They are not significantly different from the rules that are in place now, but I have gone to some length to make them professional and clear in their language.

I would have liked to have PMed this to a moderator or dev, but I feel that such a course would lead to it being immediately ignored. Perhaps a public post giving the community in general a chance to weigh in will help? So, although I know it's probably futile, I'd like to request that replies to this thread stick to suggestions for alterations, yes/no votes, and constructive criticisms rather than trolls and tl;dr. I already know it's rather long.

Forum Rules

These rules are valid for every post in this forum without any exception.

Using the search function before asking questions or posting threads that have probably been posted before is highly recommended.

§1 - General

1. By creating an account you agree to and are bound by these Forum Rules.

2. The Rules apply to the whole forum, including but not limited to: Private messages (PM), profiles and the individual sub-forums.

3. The moderators exist to make sure these rules are being followed. In case a violation happens, the moderation team reserves the right to punish the user accordingly. Punishments are covered by §4.
The moderation team is not obliged to answer game related questions through PMs or in threads. Such questions can be directed to the community by posting in the Help sub-forum.

4. These Rules are subject to change at any time, and they immediately apply to any open case at the moment of change.

5. Each person may only use one forum account. Using multiple accounts is only allowed if a permanent switch is being made form one account to another and with the permission of the moderation team.

6. The users are obliged to follow subsets of forum rules for particular sub-forums if this sub-forum has an etiquette addition to this set of rules.

7. Threads not published in the appropriate sub-forum may be locked or moved to another forum without notice by the moderators.

8. The moderators reserve the right to move individual posts and threads to the Valley of Hinnom if they are deemed in violation of the rules.

§2 – Content Regulations

Behavior violating these content regulations is punishable and this applies to all posts, titles, and other user definable areas including forum account names, avatars and signatures.

1. Do not Re-post, Cross-post or Double-post. Re-posting a locked or deleted topic, or reposting significant content from locked or deleted topics in order to restart a locked discussion, is not allowed. Posting the same topic in multiple sub-forums (crossposting) is not allowed except for announcement-grade threads made by the Developers. Posting twice (or more) in a row in the same thread is not permitted except in case of announcements by the devolopers, or in the creation of guides, or a legitimate bump of an older thread such as a Trade thread. Users are encouraged to use the Edit-feature instead.

2. Do not post in a language other than English. If it is necessary to post in another language, an accurate English translation must be included.

3. Do not impersonate staff. Including posts in which the user points out that someone is breaking the forum rules. Report such an event using the report function. Also, other content which can be mistaken as official or otherwise cause similar confusion (such as posting with 'moderator green' text) is prohibited.

4. Do not Spam. Spam can include, but is not limited to: posts which do not contribute significantly to the thread's discussion; posts which are not related to the sub-forum overall theme; posts which contain nothing but quotes from other posters; overuse of emoticons. The moderation team is the final arbiter of what is or is not spam.

5. No pornographic, racist or otherwise discriminatory or inappropriate text or images. This can include, but is not limited to: overly abusive, sexist, or racist language; disparaging any religion, race, gender, age group, or sexual orientation, threatening persons with actions in real life.

6. Do not post transcripts of private communication without permission. This includes, but is not limited to, contents of forum PMs or emails, as well as conversations via any instant messaging service such as Skype or MSN. Permission from all parties involved must be given prior to posting such material.

7. Do not post personal data without permission. Personal information (such as real life name, address or photo) of a member may not be posted without the express consent of the person or people concerned. Any posting of personal data is entirely at the user's own risk.

8. Do not discuss forum bans or warnings in the forum. Discussion of or objection to forum bans or warnings should only occur through forum PM with the moderators or on this thread.

9. Do not post material which could be considered as illegal by the international law. This includes, but is not limited to, discussion of “warez” or cracked software. Links pointing to such material are also forbidden.

10. No advertisements, of any kind. This includes, but is not limited to, thief game links. Users may, however, start a thread for discussion of a game in the City on a Hill sub-forum. Such threads may be locked or moved to Valley of Hinnom at the moderation team's discretion.

11. No buying or selling for real world currency. Do not sell or imply that you will sell any in-game item, service, or information for real world currency.

12. No large signatures. Signatures are limited to a height 90 pixels, which is about equivalent to 7 lines of text, and a width of 600 pixels.

13. Do no derail. Do not derail a topic away from the subject of the original post. If necessary, create a new thread in the appropriate sub-forum and link the previous thread.

14. Do not attempt to coerce or provoke other users into breaking the above Rules.

§3 – Sub-Forums

1. Trolling. Troll posts, posts of a libelous nature, and posts of divisive or abusive nature are allowed in the House of Burgesses and City upon a Hill sub-forums only.

2. Bugs. All bugs should be posted in the Bugs & Technicalities sub-forum.

3. Help. Fishing for in-game information regarding base locations or other information which may be harmful to another player in-game is not allowed in the Help sub-forum.

§4 – Punishments

1. Any account violating this set of forum rules may be warned, banned, perma-banned, or otherwise punished by staff members depending on the severity of the infraction inflicted on the forum rules. The punishment may be extended to any other account the forum user in question owns, if necessary.

2. Creating any amount of new accounts to evade a ban, perma-ban or punishment of another account is illegal and will be punished by a permanent ban of the account(s). Posting in the name of a banned person is considered as ban evasion and will be punished accordingly.

3. Topics and posts which violate the forum rules may be moved to the Valley of Hinnom at moderator discretion.

§4 – Complaints

1. If you have a complaint or question about a moderator's decision, the complaint may be posted in the Rules thread in the Announcements sub-forum. Unresolved complaints involving moderation may also be directed to the developers Jorb or Loftar via forum PM.

2. Posting a thread / multiple threads to resolve a situation involving a complaint about a crew member is against the rules. In addition what is defined in §2 will apply.

[Procne]

§2.1 doesn't make much sense. I'm pretty sure you can think of many different situations where Re-post, Cross-post or Double-post is not bad

§2.5 is too general.

[Mereni]

§2.1 doesn't make much sense. I'm pretty sure you can think of many different situations where Re-post, Cross-post or Double-post is not bad

I did add exceptions for some cases. These things were already against the rules as part of the 'no spam' rule, just not very well defined, and that sometimes led to some posters getting warned for spam when doing them, and others not.

§2.5 is too general.

In what way?

[staxjax]

I don't really see what is wrong with having the rules more open for moderator interpretation. If you ever noticed, the only people that whine/*****/complain about the rules are the MM Tribe and their associates (Candy people)...and that is only when their own people get moderated.

[colesie]

The rules are left vague for mods to interprate. Getting as specific as you are just leaves the door wide open for loopholes followed by cries of "mod abuse". Just use common sense.

[Procne]

5. No pornographic, racist or otherwise discriminatory or inappropriate text or images.

The underlined part is very broad and unclear. In next sentence comes some explanation, but:

This can include, but is not limited to: overly abusive, sexist, or racist language; disparaging any religion, race, gender, age group, or sexual orientation, threatening persons with actions in real life.

Underlined part says this isn't everything. You listed some examples, but still it's not clear what exactly is considered "discriminatory or inappropriate".
"Common sense" would be an answer, but this whole thread is based on a lack of belief in common sense of community.

As for §2.1, some more examples:
- in my own trade thread (just an example, don't bother looking for it), if my post is last one and it was made a months ago, and now I make some changes - does that mean I can't post in it to bump it / notify people of changes?
- or more general - if in some thread, where something was discussed / researched / informed, my few days old post was the last one, and I come with some new info - can't I make a new post so that people see there is something new in the thread to read?
- if a thread about specific subject was locked due to derail / flaming, even when subject was appropriate, am I not allowed to repost the topic? Or do you want to force mods to filter out every derail / inappropriate post, even in case of 20+ pages topics which were derailed into flame war on page 3?
- if an old topic was locked because it was "resolved", and some time later some changes happen related to this topic - why can't I remake the topic? Do I have to ask mods to reopen the topic (necro)? What if the old topic contains lots of inaccurate info on first pages, which may confuse newer posters?

[Mereni]

5. No pornographic, racist or otherwise discriminatory or inappropriate text or images.

The underlined part is very broad and unclear. In next sentence comes some explanation, but:

This can include, but is not limited to: overly abusive, sexist, or racist language; disparaging any religion, race, gender, age group, or sexual orientation, threatening persons with actions in real life.

Underlined part says this isn't everything. You listed some examples, but still it's not clear what exactly is considered "discriminatory or inappropriate".
"Common sense" would be an answer, but this whole thread is based on a lack of belief in common sense of community.

If you can think of a better way to phrase it, I'd be happy to change it. But I think we Will have to rely on and hope for some common sense interpretation here.

As for §2.1, some more examples:

- in my own trade thread (just an example, don't bother looking for it), if my post is last one and it was made a months ago, and now I make some changes - does that mean I can't post in it to bump it / notify people of changes?
- or more general - if in some thread, where something was discussed / researched / informed, my few days old post was the last one, and I come with some new info - can't I make a new post so that people see there is something new in the thread to read?
- if a thread about specific subject was locked due to derail / flaming, even when subject was appropriate, am I not allowed to repost the topic? Or do you want to force mods to filter out every derail / inappropriate post, even in case of 20+ pages topics which were derailed into flame war on page 3?
- if an old topic was locked because it was "resolved", and some time later some changes happen related to this topic - why can't I remake the topic? Do I have to ask mods to reopen the topic (necro)? What if the old topic contains lots of inaccurate info on first pages, which may confuse newer posters?

I added an exception for legit bumps of old threads, because you're right. As for a thread being locked for derail, one would hope that the mods would instead remove the derail or flaming to Hinnom rather than lock the whole thread. This rule is meant to apply to threads who's intended subject was something against the rules and they were therefore locked.

The rules are left vague for mods to interprate. Getting as specific as you are just leaves the door wide open for loopholes followed by cries of "mod abuse". Just use common sense.

No, there is such a thing as being Too vague. The rules I have suggested here have areas in which they will need to be interpreted with common sense (one hopes). Right now we have a rule, - Generally be cool dudes and dudettes to each other., which I would interpret as meaning you cannot troll or insult anyone at all, yet that's obviously not what that rule means as evidenced by the other rules in the post... it's a little Too open to personal feelings.

[staxjax]

Isn't there a rule against discussing the rules outside of the official rules thread?

Or is that specific rule too vague for you to comprehend as well?

[colesie]

Isn't there a rule against discussing the rules outside of the official rules thread?

Or is that specific rule too vague for you to comprehend as well?

There is indeed, though the poll and whatnot is nice, Mereni is actually breaking a rule in doing this. Feel free to repost in the rules thread though.