Poll: New forum rules - Yay or Nay?

[Avatar Roku]

I must inspect this.

*le inspects..

*after inspection, shouldn't really bother me anyways, I've never recieved a probation ever. LOOK AT MY SHINY NEO BADGE! <3

Only thing I would be a bit worried about is the "was put on probation for:" being around permanently and making visual clutter.

I'm curious about what this is, just quoting you because your post was right there. Excuse me.

EDIT: Well...most of that was just common sense and a logical extension of what was there before. However, the new 8 strike system seems stupid to me. I mean *points to Neo* I've never had a problem with staying on the mods' good side, but this seems needlessly unforgiving, it makes so much more sense to me to keep it on a case-by-case basis.

 

[Eldarion]

Forum health meter? That sounds odd, let me check.

Well, sounds like a decent enough system to me. Maybe this means staff will crack down on people a little more.

 

[Small Waves]

And that's why there's an appeal system.

Let's not kid ourselves. The appeal system is a joke and only exists to give posters a false sense of hope. You'd have better luck trying to pull out a tooth of a pitbull.

 

[PatSilverFox]

Inb4 thousands and thousands of alts

 

[King Leoric]

They haven't really changed have they?

This site needs to be harsher on trolls and more lenient on users who're just wise-cracking.

And the advice forum needs to die in a fire.

Agreed, the punishments could be a bit harsher.

 

[Bobic]

Seems a bit sucky that previous probations are already counted against me. I'm gonna be very paranoid about making a joke in the near future.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I find it rather unfair that there's absolutely no way to clear your record. Everybody slips up now and then. I'm usually the first to advocate harsh punishment for infractions, but this is ridiculous. With harsh punishments should come rewards for good behavior. So if you've not committed any infractions for a certain amount of time, your 'forum heath meter' should go back down.

 

[FalloutJack]

Uhhh, appeals. Geez, people honestly think in such doom and gloom scenarios and yet they forget that there is a possibility of appealing to cases.

 

[Avatar Roku]

The new rules are created based on a lot of feedback from the community over a large amount of time. They actually haven't changed as much as updated as per members' request. Now we just give examples which again, members asked for.

As for seeing warnings and probations get erased, currently it's not going to happen. We are holding people accountable for their actions and we feel 8 strikes is more than enough. 99.9% of the forum members don't have more than 2 warnings (if I'm not mistaken, 82% don't have any infractions). If people can't learn how to be respectful towards others and follow very simple rules, they won't be here for long. Everyone has a bad day but even off of the internet, if you do something stupid on that bad day, you are held accountable. The same goes for The Escapist forums.

As for the forum health bars, we were tired of hearing "why did this person only get a warning and this other person get a suspension?" Well, now you can tell because we've laid it out for you.

I'm not saying there won't be changes in the future but at this time this is what we are sticking with.

Just out of curiosity, will you take severity of infractions into account? For example, if someone does something a level above flaming, would you give them 2 strikes at once?

 

[HK_01]

Forum health metre.

Awesome, I've never seen this Forum Health Meter before, thanks for making me aware of it! Personally, I think that's a great addition to the site, if only because I like slightly pointless things like that (badges, for example).

P.S: The captchas can still die in fire...

 

[Eldarion]

They haven't really changed have they?

This site needs to be harsher on trolls and more lenient on users who're just wise-cracking.

And the advice forum needs to die in a fire.

Agreed, the punishments could be a bit harsher.

Oh, yes they could.

I post on several different forums, one of them requires every post to be approved by as mod before it can be seen until you reach a decent post count. Guess what, people on that forum are leagues more mature than some people you see here.

Stricter moderation seems to improve forum communities, in my experience at least.

 

[Di'kut]

Gotta post so I get to see these new rules, will update my post once I have seen them..

Has ban jumping always been in there or was it added just now? I could swear I haven't seen it before.

 

[Tanner The Monotone]

Hold on, I have to see it first.

EDIT: I don't like the new dicipine rules. Warnings should go away overtime, as should probation. I especially don't like them taking away your badges.

I think they should re-edit the rules so that warnings and probations go away and badges should not be touched.

 

[richd213]

Don't care about the punishments but one thing that I see commonly on this website is people being told off for low content posts. Why not just set a lower limit for the number of characters in a post? Then that's one less thing the mods have to worry about and everyone's happy.

 

[Spinwhiz]

The new rules are created based on a lot of feedback from the community over a large amount of time. They actually haven't changed as much as updated as per members' request. Now we just give examples which again, members asked for.

As for seeing warnings and probations get erased, currently it's not going to happen. We are holding people accountable for their actions and we feel 8 strikes is more than enough. 99.9% of the forum members don't have more than 2 warnings (if I'm not mistaken, 82% don't have any infractions). If people can't learn how to be respectful towards others and follow very simple rules, they won't be here for long. Everyone has a bad day but even off of the internet, if you do something stupid on that bad day, you are held accountable. The same goes for The Escapist forums.

As for the forum health bars, we were tired of hearing "why did this person only get a warning and this other person get a suspension?" Well, now you can tell because we've laid it out for you.

I'm not saying there won't be changes in the future but at this time this is what we are sticking with.

Just out of curiosity, will you take severity of infractions into account? For example, if someone does something a level above flaming, would you give them 2 strikes at once?

Yes, we are able to do that if someone is just being a complete jerk. The moderators and staff always have the ability to give a higher penalty but it would have to be something pretty bad or vile enough, which rarely happens (but does happen). Same thing with advertising, automatic 30 day suspension, which puts people into the yellow.

 

[Sorafrosty]

Not sure what I think about them. I agree with most of them, and I do not think I will ever try to break them. Nevertheless, getting suspended or banned for just not agreeing is not cool. *considers* not that I think the mods here would do that, but nobody is perfect.

EDIT: *cough* Now that I was directed to read them, I do feel that the probations should be removed after some time. After all, who wants to be on probation for ever, and a few weeks is probably enough for some people...

 

[Woodsey]

Forum health metre.

Awesome, I've never seen this Forum Health Meter before, thanks for making me aware of it! Personally, I think that's a great addition to the site, if only because I like slightly pointless things like that (badges, for example).

P.S: The captchas can still die in fire...

You won't be sayings its pointless - or awesome - when you have a few permanent strikes against your name for simple misunderstandings.

The new rules are created based on a lot of feedback from the community over a large amount of time. They actually haven't changed as much as updated as per members' request. Now we just give examples which again, members asked for.

As for seeing warnings and probations get erased, currently it's not going to happen. We are holding people accountable for their actions and we feel 8 strikes is more than enough. 99.9% of the forum members don't have more than 2 warnings (if I'm not mistaken, 82% don't have any infractions). If people can't learn how to be respectful towards others and follow very simple rules, they won't be here for long. Everyone has a bad day but even off of the internet, if you do something stupid on that bad day, you are held accountable. The same goes for The Escapist forums.

As for the forum health bars, we were tired of hearing "why did this person only get a warning and this other person get a suspension?" Well, now you can tell because we've laid it out for you.

I'm not saying there won't be changes in the future but at this time this is what we are sticking with.

Just out of curiosity, will you take severity of infractions into account? For example, if someone does something a level above flaming, would you give them 2 strikes at once?

Yes, we are able to do that if someone is just being a complete jerk. The moderators and staff always have the ability to give a higher penalty but it would have to be something pretty bad or vile enough, which rarely happens (but does happen). Same thing with advertising, automatic 30 day suspension, which puts people into the yellow.

What about advertising? As in admitting to ad-blocks, or self-advertising? Or both?

 

[Spinwhiz]

Don't care about the punishments but one thing that I see commonly on this website is people being told off for low content posts. Why not just set a lower limit for the number of characters in a post? Then that's one less thing the mods have to worry about and everyone's happy.

Good question. In regards to the other sites I frequent, most people just fill the extra character spaces with crap. We have no doubt members of The Escapist have lots to say, as most of the debates I see are spectacular and most opinions are well thought out and helpful.

 

[Verlander]

So, looked at my health bar, and I'm already two down, one for an unfair probation for bad language, and one for a low content post (apparently). However, if I remember rightly, the new rules say that complaining is now forbidden, and so I'm off to open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate! Cheers!

(now waiting for third strike...)

Oh, and here's an ironic thing, but isn't this sort of fairly oppressive behaviour the sort of thing that the major contributors to the Escapist talk out against in games or society and whatnot? Please don't tell me that the Escapist is turning into the forum version of Final Fantasy 13... nicely polished, but you can't actually do anything?

 

[Spinwhiz]

I find it rather unfair that there's absolutely no way to clear your record. Everybody slips up now and then. I'm usually the first to advocate harsh punishment for infractions, but this is ridiculous. With harsh punishments should come rewards for good behavior. So if you've not committed any infractions for a certain amount of time, your 'forum heath meter' should go back down.

Nobody should be able to slip up 8 times and being given more chances. If anyone can't learn how to be respectful and follow our rules after what is pretty much 8 infractions, they shouldn't be here.