Rules and Reminders

[tania.livejournal.com]

Hi guys;

Your friendly neighborhood mod here, writing on behalf of all us friendly neighboorhood mods. First up, we wanted to say how pleased we are that this community trundles along with so little drama (considering the subject matter). Just about everyone here shows a great deal of restraint and respect for one another.

However, no community is so perfect it can't be improved. So we'd like to issue a new rule, and remind everyone of a few of the old ones.

New Rule: No screening of comments. EVER.

This rule has been suggested a number of times, but we didn't think it was a necessary implimentation until we noticed that some people were screening dissenting comments on their own posts. This is a community for open discussion. You don't get open discussion if you screen anyone who disagrees with you.

As you know, Livejournal doesn't give us a way to prevent comment screening, so we're going to have to trust you guys to do the right thing. However, if you notice anyone screening comments, please email one of the mods. Our addresses are on the userinfo page. Not only can we unscreen comments, but we intend to use a three-strikes system to enforce this. If you're caught comment-screening once, you receive a polite reminder of this rule. If you're caught a second time, you get a Stern Warning and two-week ban. If you do it a third time, you'll be permenantly banned from the community.

There are no exceptions to the rule. Even if you see a troll or something incredibly offensive, email the mods. If it's truly trolling - and it's usually fairly easy to tell - we'll screen the comment ourselves.

New Guideline: Don't post about yourself.

If you've been an Artist To Beware yourself, please try to handle it with your clients directly. Making a post about yourself on this community is seen by some of the members as a form of attention-seeking. I know that's not necessarily the case, but nevertheless: if you're truly an awful deadline-breaking scumbag artist, sooner or later one of your clients will grant your wish and post you up here in a fit of impatience.

This is a guideline rather than a strict rule. You're free to go ahead and warn people about yourself if you wish, but be prepared to face criticism in the comments.

Reminders:

- If you see a breakout of flaming in the comments, don't sit back and complain "Where are the mods?" We don't check back on every post every day and we don't get comment notification on other people's posts. Email us, and we'll sort of the issue promptly.

- Flames: This goes without saying, but please try to treat people with respect and manners, even if they really are total goits. People tend to listen to calm comments backed up with logic.

We'll be updating the userinfo to reflect these changes over the next couple of days.

As we're tweaking the rules at the moment anyway, now is the time to tell us if you think there's a big issue in the community that a new rule could help solve. Suggestions are welcome, but please don't be insulted if we don't implement every change suggested. After all, this community really does run itself amazingly well as is. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

NOTE: If you're sitting there thinking "this is about / because of ME", please don't. Whatever you've done, others did it before you and others would have done it after you. We'll only make a new rule if we see a problem crop up repeatedly from more than one source.

Comments

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

I do have one suggestion.

Make screening comments once a temporary ban. Twice a permanent ban.

[tania.livejournal.com]

I want the first instance to be a warning only - I do want to give people the benefit of the doubt. We're sure to see cases where someone simply forgot the rule, or wasn't aware of it.

However, a temporary ban on offense #2 leading to a full ban on #3 is quite a good idea.

[baddakutachi.livejournal.com]

On one of the communities I'm on you can't delete posts or comments unless the mods give you an okay to. The is usually to prevent someone making a flame then deleting it afterwards. How about that?

[tania.livejournal.com]

That one is tougher to enforce - there's no technical way of doing it on LJ, so it relies on honor again. And if someone makes and deletes a comment when us mods aren't around, it literally leaves no trace, making it a very difficult rule to enforce.

However, if any member receives a flame comment in their inbox and turns up to LJ to find it deleted, I'd encourage them to forward the comment notification to us mods. We'll treat deleted flames in the same way we'd treat any other flame: any member caught flaming others too often is going to get a banning. There is NO excuse for flaming; the harshest of criticisms can still be delivered with mild words.

By the same token, I hope all members recognise that someone disagreeing with you is not the same as someone flaming you.

[kassichu.livejournal.com]

Trust me, somebody's going to notice a deleted comment, since somebody's going to have it show up in their inbox.

[tania.livejournal.com]

True, that - so the onus is definitely on the OP to send us any flame comments they receive.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me! I hate screened comments. If you can't deal with stuff being said about you in public, why are you posting in public anyhow?

[ridayah.livejournal.com]

I think that this is a wonderful policy, thank you for implementing it. Hopefully it will go a long way in preventing and reducing the damage of inflammatory and malicious posts. Again, thank you.

[mdetector5.livejournal.com]

*sigh...* Another rule?!

Well, I guess I have to follow this one, then.

[mdetector5.livejournal.com]

I guess this new asinine rule is because of me...

I mean, there's no way to avoid it, so why not do it anyway?

[tania.livejournal.com]

I can assure you there've been plenty of people in the past who've posted 'Beware Of Me' posts. It's not because of you. I'm sure you had good intentions, as do all the artists who make those posts. In fact, that's the point: you were flamed unnecessarily and we'd like to prevent that from happening to anyone else. :)

[mdetector5.livejournal.com]

Hm, now that you say it, and in retrospect, it is a somewhat decent rule...

[arshes.livejournal.com]

Since you're panning this as "Somewhat decent" can you then suggest how this "somewhat decent" rule can be up to standard where it is a "GOOD" rule?

What I'm saying here, is that while the mods have to be on their best behavior, it is somewhat frustrating when they're trying to be helpful to you, and your attitude is rather negative towards them. You could sound like less of an ingrate in your posts?

[mdetector5.livejournal.com]

Well, okay.

I have been an ass to most everyone I come in contact with online, yourself included. I didn't know of that rule beforehand, and whenever I see that there's a new rule/reminder of an old rule, I get kinda... defensive, thinking it's because of me and whatnot.

That's why I get in such bad... situations with people; I don't know when to leave well enough alone.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Contrary to your opinion, the world does not revolve around what you do and things can happen for other reasons than because of you.

[arshes.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm being too sarcastic here, but can there be a rule about a certain person posting?

Seem everything is about "him"

I think I recall you saying that rule was in effect for a while and you're just reiterating it.

[tania.livejournal.com]

People are more than capable of making themselves look silly without any help from us mods. :)

[arshes.livejournal.com]

Haha agreed.

I suppose Reminder is defined in the dictionary as "new rule" XD

[tania.livejournal.com]

My bad, I should have stuck that one in the above category - will fix now. :)

[arshes.livejournal.com]

Oh no, you were right, I'm saying that the person above said "this is a new rule" I see this as a REMINDER. I don't think this is a new rule despite someone protesting a bit much

[tania.livejournal.com]

Technically it's not on the userinfo page, though, so technically I can't say it was an existing rule even if one of the mods previously warned people about it.

I edited the post to list it under 'guidelines' in the end. Essentially, people aren't BANNED from posting about themselves but they oughta be warned that if they do, they're probably in for a world of hurt. *wry grin*

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

Actually, it is in the userinfo page:

Although this community allows people to defend themselves if they are accused of being a bad artist or commissioner, we ask that you not post about yourself unless you have some extreme circumstance that may call for it - like losing all of your customers' contact info in a computer crash, sudden and/or long-term hospitalization, etc. If you are slow with commissions in general, slow with mailing, or have any other relatively common issues when it comes to dealing artwork, it is recommended that you provide this information to your customers at the time they commission you for work, rather than leaving it here where they may not see it.

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

Though not as a rule, per se, just a request not to make these types of posts.

[tania.livejournal.com]

My bad, I missed that somehow. Ah well, saves us having to type it all up again. ;)

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

*nods* I'm working on the wording for the screening rule. Pretty much using what you just posted, since it's so well-put.

[kaputotter.livejournal.com]

New Guideline: Don't post about yourself.

Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[theblackdragon.livejournal.com]

iawtc x 9999999999

[leahtaur.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This community really is well-run considering the subject matter, thanks to both the restraint of most of its users AND well-written rules and level-headed mods. :) No complaints here.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

"New Rule: No screening of comments. EVER."

Finally!
Now if we can just get a rule against deleting comments.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Oh, and could the moderating be more consistent?

I mean, I get it if you guys don't have a lot of time to babysit the comm but after I toned down my language (by about a million degrees) and call someone a "cretin" I have a mod jumping down my throat but in the meantime a person who appeared in the comm only to defend some whine was calling people assholes, drama sluts, cock licks and numb nuts and the mods were NOWHERE TO BE SEEN!

[thaily.livejournal.com]

In fact, upon reviewing the rules again I'm a little more annoyed about the fact I got a slap on the wrist for using the word "cretin" as the rules don't state that swearing is forbidden, just to put it behind a cut.

3. If your post is going to have explicit swearing, LJ Cut the entry. Yeah, I may be a hypocrite saying this, but some may not want to scroll through and see "F**KING F**KER DOESN'T F**KING PAY THE F**KING C**T!!!!!11" in large, bold letters.

[tania.livejournal.com]

The rules need review - they were written years ago and have gone more or less unchanged since then. We're working on it. Thanks for bringing this one to my attention. :)

Personally, I'd prefer to discourage name-calling (it's a weak and lazy way of getting a point across in writing) but we can't ban it outright, given that if the OP is complaining about an artist who swore at them in chat, that swearing is the POINT of the post and will be evident in the reposted chatlog.

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

And the rest of the userinfo page could use an update, too. I'm putting in the new rule, and just re-read the info on the community's purpose. From the wording, it sounds as if this community is only for artists to post about commissioners, and not the other way 'round, as well. To quote:

"Here is a place for artists of any kind, be it furry, fantasy, anime, whatever, that have recieved harassment, threats and just plain disrespect from their commissioner or requestees. You can also post positive remarks about commissioners."

Methinks I will take a stab at it this weekend and send it out to you and redfeatherhusky for review/massive editing! XD

[tania.livejournal.com]

As I said in the post, we can't check back on every post in the community every minute of every day. If you see someone using bad language, please send us an email and we'll deal with it right away.

Name-calling is something we act against regardless of severity - from 'cretin' to 'asshole' it's all pointless and uncalled-for. There are much cleverer ways of identifying an asshole than blurting out the word. Heck, usually they do it themselves and save everyone else the trouble.

If the name-calling you're referring to above was missed by us mods, that was an oversight and we're sorry - though again, we need you guys to poke us if we're obviously not around when drama erupts.

Believe me, there's no preferential treatment going on here. We hate you all equally. ;D

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Oh well that's comforting to know ;)

Might I suggest a "mod post"?
A post where people can leave comments and critique which you can link from the userinfo? That way you could get all the complaints in a single post which you can just check daily.

I mean, thus far I've had to leave comments in personal journals and not all mods appreciate that.

I would suggest screening the comments of that post though, so if someone reports misbehavior the person being reported can't go there and troll the person for reporting him/her.

On a different note, what about people who bring in friends specifically to defend them and flame others? Needless to say anyone who comes here with the sole purpose of flaming people should be banned, but what about the person who brought them over?

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

The mod post idea is interesting, and we could all 3 keep up with it using the Track feature on LJ. Definitely something to discuss for the future.

As for punishing folks who bring in friends to flame back? That would be very difficult to prove or enforce...is a person responsible for their friends' behavior, whether they 'brought them in' or not?

[tania.livejournal.com]

I would like to introduce something like that, but there's a blurry line between someone deleting their comment because it was posted in the wrong place (which I do frequently, and which you just did if my inbox tells the truth), misphrased, posted in temper and then regretted, or done out of spite.

It's also intensely difficult to enforce. We mods can't see a comment once it's gone. We rely completely on community members to send us a copy of the email notification if they've received an offensive comment which was later deleted, so we can have A Few Words with the offender.

[saitenyo.livejournal.com]

You could do a circumstantial rule: Deleting of posts is okay for spelling fixes, wrong reply location, icon change (I do this one alllll the time...I have too many icons and accidentally post with the wrong one a lot), etc. but not okay to hide bad behavior. We do a similar thing at the board I moderate: editing is allowed to correct spelling and such, but not to hide rule-breaking or rudeness. We just state clearly in the rules that if we catch a member doing it for something improper, then they will get in trouble.

Technically, you're right, the only way to really enforce it is to hope someone has email notifications turned on, but I think a lot of people do these days. Even if you can't catch every breaking of the rule, having the rule in there and enforcing it where you can might be a good way to dissuade others from breaking it.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Sounds fair enough, though I ditto Thaily, we do need the moderating to be a little more consistent. While I don't agree with name calling in general, even the best of us might get a bit annoyed at certain people who have proven to be less than stellar in terms of intelligence lately and it is a bit perplexing to see a mod come down on someone for mild name calling then not be there when things are really getting nasty.

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

We try to check through posts occasionally. I do it randomly, especially ones with heated discussions. In fact, I track about half the posts here so I see every comment that is posted (as long as it isn't deleted).

However, there are a lot of posts on here and sometimes things do get overlooked. If someone gets nasty and a mod isn't around, everyone doesn't have to get irate back. Just email one (or all) of us mods and we'll hop on it. Our email addresses are posted right on the userinfo page.

I, for one, check my email about every 30 minutes in the evenings right up until I go to bed. So that's a 5 or 6-hour window (from time getting off work until bed) that I am available and right here to be contacted. I even check email in the mornings before work if I have a few extra minutes. And if direct email is too much of a pain, I don't mind at all if someone comments in my most recent journals. I get direct emails from comments in my jourals, too. ^_^

[kerstin-orion.livejournal.com]

OK, new rule is officially posted and in effect.

[grygon.livejournal.com]

New Guideline: Don't post about yourself.

thank you!!!!!

[quoting-mungo.livejournal.com]

No screening, that makes sense.
What about freezing threads? It does sometimes work to dissuade flamewars, and leaves everything intact for mods to see.

Just checking to clarify.


-Alexandra