Spinwhiz said:
Bobic said:
Spinwhiz said:
Scorched_Cascade said:
Spinwhiz said:
Scorched_Cascade said:
Spinwhiz said:
Hi Spin quoting you because I think this is your domain:
rules said:
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. In short, if you say something you better be able to back it up with fact.
Is that bolded bit there ^^^ just standard legal-ese to disassociate The Escapist with any negativity aimed at America/American government by posters or is it an actionable offence? I infer that it's just for when people are being dicks and saying "Lol.America." to a random news post but I thought it would be prudent to check.
mireko said:
icyneesan said:
We can't be perverts anymore!? WHAT!? The likely hood of me getting banned in the next few days is very great now.
-image-
That was in the rules? Great, there goes half the forum.
...and the rant rule gets rid of another third
Personally even though these rules were always there unspoken having them explicitly stated intimidates me a bit.
Yup, exactly. We didn't want it to include just The Escapist or just America. Overall, we are asking people just to not say mean and slanderous things that aren't true.
As for rants, people can still let loose in a forum thread, we ask that they have a point, make sure it adds or helps discussion and that the caps and swearing are negated. Some of the best debates have a 3 paragraph "rant" but there is reason and purpose for it. Just blasting out an opinion because of hate or anger does not benefit discussion, it only stops it.
Thank you for clearing that up. I thought that would be the case but better safe then sorry and all.
Sure thing. If people have a problem, they can send in an appeal but honestly, with over 99% of the posters in this forum having less than 2 warnings ever, they just need to keep doing what they are doing because the rules haven't changed, just been updated.
Just out of curiosity but how does that number change when just active members are considered? Or people that have been active for over a year? From glancing at people's health bars from this topic I haven't seen a single person below 2 warnings. Admittedly the people I've picked haven't been chosen purely at random and this could very easily be a biased sample. It could just be that those complaining about the rules are more likely to be the one's on probation.
Also, about that 'no saying negative things about advertisers/governments/escapist etc.' rule. Where is the line drawn on this? A few days ago there was a guy talking about military advertisements being immoral, would he receive a warning? Won't this completely neuter the entire religion and politics board? They love complaining about governments and the like. Hell, are half the posters here in violation of the rules for talking negatively about the escapist's new rules?
Well, we figured most of the people who would be most vocal about the new penalty system would be the ones on the ropes with their accounts (I did say most), so that could be part of it. Part of it also could be that certain people need to appeal to get things in order.
As for the negative things, we just don't want to hear slanderous things. So, if you don't like the military, that's fine. That isn't negative, that is your opinion but you also aren't slandering the military either. If you instead state something slanderous about them killing people in Kuwait, then yes, a warning is going to come out. As this is a games site, we are going to have games advertisers that people will be talking about, much like DA2. If you don't like the game, that is fine but if you state The Escapist is getting paid for a good review, that is where we draw the line, because it isn't true.
While I don't think, nor I am suggesting that there are paid reviews on this site...
Under the rules it says that you "better have evidence" to back up claims, so I understand that we can't just go off and make stuff up, but ins't that a bit of a double standard if you don't show US evidence that there AREN'T?
(again, I am not suggesting that this is the case, just pointing out that it's a contradiction)
Anyways, I'm not sure how much I want to post here, because I can't tell what's changed or what has not other than the health bar thing.
I think it is a VERY bad idea to have all infractions a permanent thing.
Rather, not ALL should be.
If a post is outright insulting, doing something illegal, or posting obscene content, then I wouldn't mind if those do not go away.
However, low content posts and other things like that should not be a unchanging strike against someone, nor do I think it should be able to break the last straw and cause a perma ban.
Perhaps grouping the infractions in to two groups, "minor" and "major", and allowing minor ones to go away after a while.
Perhaps making minor ones not count as much as major ones, too.
From now on I fear that anytime I wish to state anything that ANYONE may find BARELY not politically correct, I will PM a mod to see if it is OK or not.
So far I have only seen around 4 posts in this thread for this new rules other than a mod saying so, so the fact that a large majority of the posters here are against it should say something.
Some of the best conversations I have had here would not be able to have anywhere else because of the sheer tolerance this community has (for the most part), I remember quite a few threads about topics such as pedophilia that were very intelligent discussions, with barely any arguments or disrespectful comments.
I fear that now one of the few places without anonymity that allows discussion of controversial content will be lost, which I think is essential, if we never talked about things deemed such, then our society would never change, be it for better or worse. The civil rights movement, for example, relied on peaceful reactions to controversial subjects.
I am seriously considering not posting again until these rules are improved or changed.
