Poll: New Forum Rules: Yay or Nay?

[IceForce]

I personally wasn't offended by the recent "Yahtzee Incident", but I was by the moderators response to the people that were offended, that Yahtzee or any other site content creator can say what they want, gloves totally off, yet forum users aren't allowed to feel outraged when they feel they've been insulted. I feel that kind of thinking not only promotes a very unhealthy forum atmosphere, but also actively discourages users from participating in forum discussions.

While I agree with you that the double standards here are damn frustrating, I can't really see how it can be fixed.

The controversial and vitriolic content creator content on this site, is the content that generates the most traffic for this site.
So it would be counter-productive for the Escapist to start censoring its content creators.

On the other hand, the forums here have a lovely "Don't insult others" rule.

This rule of course, completely flies in the face of a lot of the official site content.

Since official site content is unlikely to be censored (and staff/creators don't ever seem to get warnings), the only thing that can be done to fix the situation, is to scrap the "Don't insult others" rule, and just allow everyone to post as many insults as they please.

Either that or change the rule to say "Don't insult others, unless its a content creator and they've insulted you first".

 

[Dr.Susse]

And the Forum games sits awkwardly aside some of the rules as it has for a long while now.

It seems to be very hard to write an exact wording of a set of rules that simply lays out a set of understandable rules.
I'd say the new code of conduct does a fine job insomuch that it is logical for the most part, The parts of the Escapist forums I've been since 09 have been great and this seems like an effort to keep it civil no matter how big the site gets. so Yay!

 

[Thaluikhain]

All the assurances about how offensive posts aren't allowed won't change the fact that backwards attitudes which are rampant in the gaming community will never be moderated. Basically if we have another gender thread and someone says "A key that opens many locks is a master key but vaginas that can be opened are bad locks" or whatever, that this is incredibly degrading to women is ignored. If I quote that person and say "You're sexist" I'm crossing the line though. Then it's anyone's guess when voicing concerns about the apparent apathy of the mods regarding bigoted attitudes becomes "disrespectful".

Ah well, we don't need minorities stealing our hobbies anyway.

Yeah, second that. All very well tweaking the code of conduct, it would help if the mods would actually enforce the rules as written though. Too much to ask for, I guess.

 

[Colour Scientist]

I'm a dummy, so I didn't notice any difference, except the bit about warnings seems to imply that I should of gotten that Neo badge.

You still will.
It goes by posts on the forums now, not by post count in general.
Which is bollox considering we've been around for so long.

So, if you click in the posts tab on your profile, it'll tell you how many you have.

For example, I've only ever had one warning and my post count is over 7000 but half of that is from user groups so I have to wait until my forum post count is 5000.

Right now, yours is 4679 so presumably you'll get your badge in 321 forum posts.

 

[major_chaos]

Can't say I'm a fan. First of all I'm a bit worried about our new community manager seeing as how I feel Gallery of the week or whatever it was called never exactly cast him in a positive light to my eyes. ("best boobs" was juvenile at worst and poorly timed at best, and "best racks" and "8 EA games that don't suck" both came off as needlessly snide)
As for the CoC itself I still have several issues:

Offensive Posts
Please read what you wrote before you post it and think if anyone else could find it offensive.

This is so amazingly vague that its either going to be functionally meaningless or frequently abused.

Have Respect for the Site and its Content

This entire section is fairly nasty. I can see why the Escapist can't really moderate its content creators seeing as many of them have being incendiary as a selling point, but the double standard still rubs me the wrong way, especially considering that the part about content creators being held to the same standard if they post is an outright lie as another poster pointed out. In addition experience tells me that "constructive criticism" here means "not criticism at all". The part about giving a negative image is a downright scary level of unnecessary censorship and I imagine will mostly be enforced on unpopular opinions.

Have Respect for the Moderation Team and the Rules
The moderation team works very hard to keep the forums clean, and the rules all exist for a reason. If you have a problem with the moderation team or the rules, there is an appeals system in place for that. Publicly airing your grievances or mocking and disrespecting either the moderators in their official capacity or the rules will only get you further warnings.

Bolded the parts I have issues with. The first one bothers me because all I can think of is "please contact us in private where there is zero oversight, accountability, or witnesses so we are free to behave however we want or simply ignore you" and the second because it comes off a tiny bit self-aggrandizing.

Discussion of ... pornography is never allowed.

Considering the things that Jim and Yahtzee say on a reguar basis you will have to forgive me if I find the notion of this being a "PG-13 site" a bit quaint.
And now I wait to see if I get moderated for this post. I would be a bit sad, but not the least bit surprised.

its disgustingly easy to avoid getting any mod wrath, just don't be a knob-head and you are okay.

I have four warnings and thus I think you are indirectly calling me a knob. I find that is offensive and gives me a negative image, thus I demand you be moderated. twice. [sub][sub]P.S I'm being sarcastic[/sub][/sub]

 

[JoJo]

OT: I voted nay, its still way too ambiguous and some is just bad, especially on not allowing international users to talk about things that are openly legal in their home countries. Even so considering this is supposed to be a forum of like minded people we cant even have fair neutral discussions on things that effect our hobby and interest such as piracy without one half of the discussion having to worry that an ornery mod will take the stick to them.

Hell even in their own rules are kinda fucked. In the United States, Pedophilia is not even a crime. It is a damn mental disorder, Child molestation is the crime. Perhaps if the Escapist didnt want to be so hypocritical and less offensive they should label the actual crime, instead of targeting someone for an illness.

For better or worse, I'm pretty sure they mean the illness pedophilia rather than it's colloquial meaning of child sexual abuse, which is of course is already prohibited under the 'Illegal Acts' section. You probably won't know this since it happened well before you joined the site but that rule was originally added because there was a particularly controversial user back in 2011 who claimed to be a non-offending pedophile and it caused no end of flame wars until the staff put down their foot and banned anyone from talking about it. That's why the rule is written as it is, though it isn't very clear for people who don't know the context behind it.

I skimmed over it and it doesn't look all that different than the old CoC so whatever.

Yeah, most of the changes are either explanations or encoding rules such as necros which have already been enforced for a time, so I imagine there won't be much noticeable difference in how things are moderated around here.

 

[IceForce]

You probably won't know this since it happened well before you joined the site but that rule was originally added because there was a particularly controversial user back in 2011 who claimed to be a non-offending pedophile and it caused no end of flame wars until the staff put down their foot and banned anyone from talking about it. That's why the rule is written as it is, though it isn't very clear for people who don't know the context behind it.

Wait what? Am I reading this correctly?

They banned a particular topic because it "caused too many flamewars"?

In that case, I wait in earnest to see when Anita Sarkeesian becomes a banned topic on this forum.

 

[IceForce]

I would also like an answer to this one from the moderation team. Can we expect the staff to be held accountable in situations such as the above? After all your rules do say

they would be held accountable, just as any other forum member of The Escapist would be.

If enough people ask, hopefully we'll get an answer.

I got moderated for calling the UK a joke, but there are tons of posts that call out America as bad things for various reasons.

Which is the opposite to what you'd think would happen.

Given that this site is based in the US, you'd think they'd be more strict on negative comments about the US, than any other country.

 

[DiscoRhombus]

I'm going to go the unpopular opinion route and say I don't care about the fact The Escapist treats their content creators differently to their regular users. If that's a problem to the mods they can see the evidence in Iceforce's post about lack of mod action.

I know that Yahtzee said something which caused quite a few Escapist users to get up in arms. The fact is he's an offensive guy, he says at least one thing a week to offend someone... the only difference you're usually on the side that goes "yeah, he's right, those guys are stupid". This time the insult landed and people just want to argue about it and prove just how valid and worthy their online presence is. I can tell you (as a comment making member of this site) that he's right. User comments are generally (not always, but generally) a cesspit with little to no worthy contribution to a topic. I get very little from reading the forums here. I mean no offence to anyone on the forum but practically every topic here has been done to death a hundred times or more on a hundred different gaming boards. There comes a point when there's not much left to say on a subject.

While I don't care personally about this biased treatment I do understand the issue that others take with it. The Escapist has made its name on hate and vitriolic content from Yahtzee and Jim... and I love it. It appeals to me because I am a pessimistic, bitter and vitriolic person. My question is how can you expect your forums to be this perfect, utopian place when your most popular content is designed to appeal to that side of people?

Note - I know not everybody comes here for Yahtzee and Jim. I do however and I know there are many others who first got started here because of one of these guys. The only other show I watched was Extra Credits, so now hate is all I have left in my Escapist life!

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

The following sentence is also a little unhelpfully vague: "Discussion of ad blockers, pedophilia, illegal acts, and pornography is never allowed." Does this mean that discussing a crime in the news would technically be against the CoC, since we would be discussing an illegal act? Probably not in practice but it could be interpreted that way.

The sentences previous to that are worse, I think -
Illegal Drugs in the United States
Illegal Acts in the United States

Speaking as a Brit I don't like the idea that I could be discussing something which is perfectly legal in my country but then get rapped by the mods because it's illegal in the US (eg getting drunk on my twentieth birthday). Chances are that the mods would take nationality into account, but still...

 

[josemlopes]

Everything else on the list is illegal in the United States, so admitting to using it is admitting to a crime. Since The Escapist offices are in the US, they abide by all the same laws.

I don't think Adblockers are illegal in the United States, but I know what you mean

Does this mean posts laden with profanity would be banned? If we're trying to take "PG-13" then, as per the MPAA's guidelines:

A motion picture?s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context.

How are we to interpret this?

Don't go nuts with your swearing, then? =P

If you're post consists of mostly swears and slurs, chances are you're going to get a warning for that. There's really no need to overdo those things.

However, a few fucks here and there is probably fine.

This is a forum that covers a lot of video-game/movie stuff, stuff that is mostly rated "M for Mature", I really dont see the point of trying to claim it as a PG-13 forum where even most of the stuff posted by the content creators isnt rated as such.

 

[CriticalMiss]

I've brought up the following examples before, asking why nothing had been done in these cases, but I got no replies:

Low content: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.398156.16275670
Calling another user a troll: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.834524.20420620
Calling another user illiterate: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.829148.20201954

Not meaning to be rude, but to me it doesn't look like staff are "held accountable" when they make oopsies on the forums.

Thought I might throw another one on the pile that bothered me:

Low content: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.831696.20307819

Which got ignored, but obviously content creators can do no evil unlike we lowly peons. Maybe they have a seperate Code of Conduct, one written on fancy paper. With gold edging and everything! It's probably even got pictures.

Otherwise it's fairly ok. The 30 day limit thing seems a bit short and I'd rather someone necro-posted an old thread instead of starting a brand new one that adds nothing. As long as what they say is relevant and actually adds something worthwhile, not an 'I totally agree!' post.

 

[JoJo]

You probably won't know this since it happened well before you joined the site but that rule was originally added because there was a particularly controversial user back in 2011 who claimed to be a non-offending pedophile and it caused no end of flame wars until the staff put down their foot and banned anyone from talking about it. That's why the rule is written as it is, though it isn't very clear for people who don't know the context behind it.

Wait what? Am I reading this correctly?

They banned a particular topic because it "caused too many flamewars"?

In that case, I wait in earnest to see when Anita Sarkeesian becomes a banned topic on this forum.

Well, those aren't quite equivalent... they banned that topic because one particular user kept bringing it up, it's hardly PG 13 in nature and it's not really relevant to a gaming forum, whereas Anita Sarkeesian is a hot topic across the gaming world and something many people want to discuss.

The following sentence is also a little unhelpfully vague: "Discussion of ad blockers, pedophilia, illegal acts, and pornography is never allowed." Does this mean that discussing a crime in the news would technically be against the CoC, since we would be discussing an illegal act? Probably not in practice but it could be interpreted that way.

The sentences previous to that are worse, I think -
Illegal Drugs in the United States
Illegal Acts in the United States

Speaking as a Brit I don't like the idea that I could be discussing something which is perfectly legal in my country but then get rapped by the mods because it's illegal in the US (eg getting drunk on my twentieth birthday). Chances are that the mods would take nationality into account, but still...

I get what you mean, though realistically the mods have always been fairly lax when applying those rules and would only banhammer people who were very clearly advocating drugs or breaking other laws, saying you got drunk underage has never been a problem here.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Why is necro-ing now bannable? I've always thought it was better than making a new thread on the same topic and it's not like it harms anyone...

 

[lunavixen]

I'm still undecided on the new CoC rules, they seem very vague in places and I don't very much like the idea of the double standards i'm seeing. I think the Low Content rule needs to be a bit more explained (i.e. how low is too low?).

I don't agree wholeheartedly with the negative criticism thing, it's a little scary, the no slander part is fine, that's perfectly acceptable, but this bit "This includes, but is not limited to communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give The Escapist, an individual creator, advertiser, site sponsor, product, group, government or nation a negative image." makes me uncomfortable. If someone or something (be it product, person, or nation etc.) is making really bad decisions/laws/comments etc. does this rule mean we can't call them out on it?

That being said, I'm fine with the necroing thing (as I generally don't go past page 1 of a forum anyway) and the targeted harassment and bullying clauses.

I do have a genuine question though, why is any discussion of adblockers not allowed? I don't understand that at all.

 

[AuronFtw]

It's not the words I worry about. It's the people. I got an argument from the staff over the word 'silly' in a post once. Fortunately, I overturned that one, but I don't think it should have ever been considered offensive to begin with.

This. I used the term "idort" in a thread (obviously referring to someone who owns every console, it's been common in gaming discussions for years now) and got a warning because the mod didn't want to do any research and assumed it was a typo of "idiot" (at least, I assume they assumed that; they don't actually discuss anything, they just lay down the hammer regardless of how ignorant they are of the topic at hand).

Even the best-intentioned and most well-written rules can be misapplied by overzealous and unknowledgeable staff.

I do have a genuine question though, why is any discussion of adblockers not allowed? I don't understand that at all.

The majority of the site's profits come from ads. Very intrusive, incredibly annoying, often content-disrupting ads. Even the mention of you blocking them is basically saying you're "stealing" their goods - you're enjoying the content they produce without paying to access it (by seeing ads).

 

[Fijiman]

...Is the "spoiler your images and videos" now an enforced rule or is it still "just good etiquette"?

It's still just good etiquette, but with more attention brought to it. Not everyone has a high bandwidth so loading lots of images and videos in a thread is really going to eat at their internet speed.

This goes for auto-playing videos as well. Just don't do it, please. (Not directed at you, just in general)

Excellent! My consistent bitching about said issue has finally netted some results. Although you would think that more people would have done it before anyway just to cut down on the clutter it also tended to create.

Actually I was talking more about the auto-playing video ads....

Ah, sorry. I wouldn't know about those due to Pubclub. You should talk to the Tech Team [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Tech-Team] about those. :/

I'm surprised the Tech team hasn't been notified of it already and dealt with it. It's even worse than the rollover ads you probably know nothing about because you have Pub Club.

Also,

Also, I don't agree with the 30-day necro rule. That's pretty short

But whatever I guess

There's a difference between clicking on a site video and clicking on an article to read it. =P

As for the 30 day rule, it does seem a bit short, but considering how many new topics are made every day, you'd be surprised how many threads could happen in that time period.

There is always the option of remaking the thread to start the discussion off again, if a Mod isn't willing to bump it for you.

on the topic of thread necroing, a list of non-forum game threads it's okay to necro would be nice.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

At a glance when it forced me agree to them, it didn't look any different from the old one.
Maybe they should format them like patch notes.

 

[Esotera]

We could really use an auto-lock feature so that threads that haven't had a post in 30 days are impossible to reply to. That would stop people coming in from google & performing their foul necromancy.

As for the rule change it really didn't seem different from before that much, a few sections are still a bit ambiguous but there's only one main rule you need to follow round here, which is don't be a jerk.

 

[FalloutJack]

Zoop

Never actually heard that term myself. Obviously, they never heard of it either, which leads to problems.