I don't think the no rules thing is working

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Except less rough and awful. As a potential way to say hey yeah we do not rules in a set in stone kind of way while being on a page that has like policy rules on it.




Also I have now realised that you can't see the forum subheadings on the main page when you are on mobile.

Titles like those in fan town may be helpful for the less informative titles like; It's Galley's Turn (roleplay forum)

 

Seebs, you talk about what other forums do and why it doesn't work (for you) as if you don't actually run this one out of a server in your basement (disclaimer: i have no idea how you actually host this forum but out of a server in the basement is infinitely hilarious and highly likely).

Rules on other forums have set consequences (warn 1, 2, 3, then ban temp, then perma ban, etc.), sure, but rules on Kintsugi don't have to have those! If rules as they are defined... ahem,



exist on Kintsugi, then the way they are enforced is "on a case by case basis". Simple as that. "Here's what some of those cases may entail" does not mean no wiggle room exists.

Appeals to consequences on other forums take forever, usually longer than the punishment, and consequences on them can be circumvented with "I did it for the lulz" but an appeals process to wiggled posts on Kintsugi doesn't have to take forever and doesn't have to be circumvent-able with "it's just a prank, bro!"

Like, dude! You're over here calling yourself a dictator but then you say you can't do a thing because the other dictator across the lake is doing it in this specific manner.

But anyway, tangent aside, I think what most people here are asking for, myself included, is a heavier, more concerted effort to put an emphasis on what is exactly and what is exactly not acceptable. I, for one, would be asking for that (I say would be cause the only thing I use KS for these days is to yell at you and post tangents in my diary thread or CV thread) plus less of an emphasis on "but its okay if you fuck up", this because I truly believe emphasizing that gives people no real incentive to strive to do better if it's always okay if they do something unacceptable.

Like, if we agree that calling people buzzwords in an argument to shut them down is unacceptable behavior, then say that. Declaring it unacceptable does not mean a consequence has to be attached if you do it, but it needs to be known that it is unacceptable. If we agree that telling someone to kill themselves is unacceptable, then a consequence does not have to be attached if you do it (whether or not I think one should be attached is irrelevant to what I am saying), but it needs to be known that it is unacceptable.

Laying out what is and isn't okay does not have to be what you think it is. If you tell users off the bat that committing the not okay actions doesn't necessarily mean anything consequential will happen, then users cannot use it as a weapon any more than they can use your current "report whatever you want for mod attention to it" sentiment as one. If I report anything I want, and I see a pattern in finding that posts containing unspoilered death threats (in public threads) that I've reported end up gone from the thread, then I can use it as a weapon. Doing the legwork for me in laying out that unspoilered death threats are not okay does not change my ability to use it against someone, I just skip a step in getting to that point.

Regardless, if you are afraid of users using clear cut rules or guidelines or whatever you want to call them as weapons against other users, don't let them. We are talking about a free online internet forum here, not guns. You and mod team alike can decide that User A is needlessly targeting User B using the report system and discard the reports, and suddenly User A is up a creek without a paddle or a bludgeoning weapon.

The goal of laying out clear cut guidelines is not to hand users a handy weapon to beat each other with or bring down the banhammer on all ye who dare enter here. You preach a lot about your goals with a site like this for someone who seems completely unwilling to date to take steps that will get you to those goals more efficiently and way faster than at present. Laying out clear guidelines that anyone can use to observe and change their own behavior and teach themselves healthy reactions to even things that make them angry, or anyone can use to finally speak out about things that make them uncomfortable, can only help the site, not hurt it. Again, these clear guidelines do not have to have any kind of consequence attached to them for breaking them.

A large population of the forum, largely autistic, is asking for these clear guidelines both so that they don't get punched in the dick by unforeseen consequences to their actions, and so that if something pings them as uncomfortable or unacceptable, they might just have something to point to that tells them exactly why they are feeling that way. You will never find a place on earth or on the internet that can cover all the nooks and crannies of this, but giving people some kind of painted outline to extrapolate from is a lot better than leaving them to their own devices and saying "figure it out for yourself", that's not how society as a whole works anymore, it's unfair to expect an online forum to do that.

 

Yeah I think I agree with all of that.

 

The presence of clear guidelines (aka rules) does not automatically imply that infractions will be punished.

It does imply that infractions may have consequences, but they already do--posts get wiggled so that nobody sees them.

Having your words hidden from everyone and not just the specific person who was offended by them is a pretty big consequence. And there's no way for someone who has had consequences imposed on their post to know what their infraction actually was, other than "offending someone", except by asking, which is scary and also (depending on who answers you) sometimes useless.

Most people want to prevent this from happening again. Responses like "it doesn't matter why, you're allowed to make mistakes" do not help people avoid making mistakes that they would really prefer not to repeat. Also, never knowing whether anything you say will be deemed Acceptable or Not Acceptable leads to people just not wanting to bother saying anything.

Clear guidelines regarding what constitutes "NSFW" content would be extremely helpful. When I see posts spoilered and marked "NSFW" for simply containing references to the fact that people have sex and sometimes enjoy it, I do not feel that I'm in a welcoming or safe community, I feel that I'm in a community where I should be very quiet and small because people like me aren't wanted here. (This has everything to do with the era and the place in which I grew up, but I've spoken to other people who have similar feelings.)

A clear definition of what content should be spoilered, what content should be spoilered AND restricted to 18+ spaces, and what content requires warnings would make a lot of the autistic people on this forum feel much better. It would also reduce the number of posts that get reported or have to be wiggled, so I can't help but see it as a win on all sides. If you feel the need to allow for situations that are less clear-cut you can always include a loophole about the possibility that content falling outside of the guidelines may still be a problem depending on the situation, but I really feel like most of the time that shouldn't be an issue. Most people who want some rules do not want them so they can rules-lawyer their way into being offensive and nasty without consequences, they want them because walking on eggshells hurts their feet.

I'm also really disturbed by Khan's confirmation that certain individuals are treated differently when it comes to harassment. Adults being harassed shouldn't be acceptable, because harassing people shouldn't be acceptable at all. And an (outwardly) strong personality should not be taken as a sign of inner strength and the ability to handle mistreatment. Everyone in a forum for people who are broken and putting themselves back together can be presumed to be really vulnerable somewhere, and not necessarily somewhere obvious.

People who make a big deal of not showing their weaknesses are usually people whom life has taught that if you show your weaknesses, people will take advantage of them.

People who have strong personalities and the inclination to tell people to go pound sand are not paragons of inner strength either. Generally, someone who is very defensive and given to telling people to fuck the hell off is someone who is expecting to get hurt if they don't, if they haven't already been hurt.

 

And like I also said previously, that's a load of bullshit.

A lot of sites and/or organisations (film and game rating boards) don't try to define "obscenity" but are quite successful at defining what content they consider generally acceptable for all audiences, what content should be clearly labelled so that people who want to avoid sexual content may do so and those who seek it may find it, and what content requires specific warnings, and what content they don't want to host on their site at all.

You're not writing guidelines about what content is allowed to exist in the entirety of the United States. You're writing guidelines about what content you do and don't want to host on this particular website and how you wish potentially problematic content to be safeguarded.

If AO3 can do it, so can the mods. It's not impossible; you are just refusing to do it.

 

I know it's not intended to be, but that comes across as kind of chilling, because basically it sounds like y'all are encouraging people to talk about each other with the moderators privately and ask for action to be taken rather than trying to communicate with each other. Maybe that's not what you guys mean by reporting. But it sounds kind of a lot like a police state to me, even if it's a wonderfully friendly happy one.

 

to be completely honest I do have to agree with CT on the NSFW part at least
you don't need to define obscenity but you could say "things with this level of sexual content should be spoilered" like
is "my partner and I had sex last night" NSFW? it is about sex. it is about people engaging in sex. does that count
how graphic can it get before it's NSFW
guidelines are nice
similarly, I would like guidelines on what is considered triggery enough that it needs to be spoilered, and where
i.e. are all posts in a vent thread fine, and we don't need to spoiler there? if no, then what should we be spoilering? is a post of "I want to kill myself" too triggering, or is that all right? if it's fine, then what IS something that should be spoilered in a vent thread? what about elsewhere? are there specific rules for spoilering in the abuse subforum, for instance?
I would like guidelines please.

 

the ability to argue a post successfully out of the wiggler and not getting judged for wanting a post out of it are also important, i think. 'cause i'm sure that not all the posts in the wiggler should necessarily be there.

and just, if i got wiggled, i'd end up feeling really judged and evil and want to never talk on kintsugi again ever.

 

I think part of my struggle is just that I have a brainbug that likes to react to things like me being asked to spoiler something by going "Cedar, you have done a Wrong Thing, and you are Bad and Irredeemable." and while I logically understand wiggling or requesting a thing be spoilered isn't actually that....emotionally, it is a different story. and it's even worse when I get that, and then it conflicts with me trying to rationalize to the brainbug "but I didn't KNOW that was a Wrong Thing!" because that gets into "ah but if you did not know it was a Wrong Thing, you will do Wrong Thing AGAIN....you should just stop speaking forever" and guidelines would help, because at least that way, if I do a Wrong Thing, I can go 'ah yes, I did make a mistake here, but I will remember in the future!' because there's at least some sort of clarity of what I should be doing as opposed to me going "but I didn't know, I don't even know why it needed to be changed or removed, what are the criteria, how will I ever keep from doing Wrong Thing if I don't know the criteria"

admittedly I'm hardly likely to post about the sex I am not having and never will have, so the NSFW question was more because I am curious about guidelines for that in general. it is a very nuanced thing, though, and I do get that--but it would be nice if there were guidelines of some form, even very vague ones? such as "describing a sexual experience in any detail should be spoilered", or something?
the trigger part did help, though, thank you. c:

 

Chiomi, I have too much respect for you to respond to this sentence as written. This is the kind of sentence that gets people who are already in agreement with your position to hit "Like", "Agree", and probably eventually "Winner." This is the kind of sentence that wins debates.

But this is not the kind of sentence that makes people who aren't sure they trust what's going on feel any better about it.

I really don't want to get into my particular context because this isn't about me. And if it becomes about me, it won't accomplish anything except to get the people who care about my context in particular riled up. I'm not the only person who wants more clarity about what "NSFW" means around here, and in the context of this particular thread, most of the things people are being encouraged to report are not "this is the cutest dog I have ever seen."

Of course it does, but you volunteered. :) I know that there are other kinds of reports.

If you actually are trying to help people resolve their conflicts in a less public context than TCHGB, I'm all for it.

But that doesn't jive with what I've heard other mods say, to the effect that "we will never tell anyone who reported them ever."

There are certainly many situations in which that's the appropriate action to take, such as honest-to-G-d abusive behaviour, but there are probably also situations in which at least asking if it would be okay to try and facilitate a dialogue would also be a good idea, or at a bare minimum getting both sides of a story before making decisions.

 

I think this is a good chart except for "sex" because it'd be nice to know whether that means "detailed descriptions/discussion thereof" or "mentioning the topic."