RE: SUBFORUM IDEAS TOPIC
10-14-2014, 06:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-14-2014, 06:34 PM by SeaWyrm.)
I don't think we're in a position to vote.
I'm not voting on "there should be rules!" without a better sense of what those rules might be, how they'll be enforced, and why we need them. That doesn't seem constructive.
Rules are not inherently virtuous - they're something we use to solve problems. Tell me what the problems are - and harassment does not yet look to be one of them - and tell me how you intend to solve them, and then I'll gladly voice support for a vote.
The standard rules, if I'm not misinterpreting what Schazer said, have mostly just amounted to "let's work things out on an ad-hoc basis". Frankly, I think that's what we already have here, right now. The only difference is we aren't pretending otherwise. If it's worked out so far, I expect it to continue to work.
And I'm pretty sure we all agree harassment is bad. Nobody here is endorsing harassment. (No, not even Wheat. Please don't say Wheat is endorsing harassment. Wheat is clearly not endorsing harassment, no matter what other beef you may have with Wheat.) Before we make rules about harassment, let's determine if harassment is going to be a problem - and if so, what are we going to do about it, other than "not allowing" harassment. Simply writing down "Harassment shouldn't be allowed!" somewhere isn't useful. We all know that already.
Jacquerel, you mentioned that you think it's useful to have a "phantom of authority" to appeal to. Maybe so - I'm not convinced. But if it would be constructive to have some mechanism to give the less forceful members some extra, external oomph in their corner somehow, then hey, okay, maybe we can figure out a good way to do that. I'm willing to entertain the notion.
But I doubt just saying "let's have the standard rules" is the best approach.
As far as #420 is concerned, not wanting to mix the serious with the silly, I see where you're coming from on that. I don't entirely agree, though, and so I propose this alternative:
"RULE #420.q, THE ETERNAL FLAME'S COUSIN: If you have a need to vent opinions you think would not be accepted on the rest of the board, please make a separate topic for them with some clear indication in the title what it is you're on about, and then the rest of us can not come near it with a ten foot pole or else jump in and have obnoxious arguments, according to our own personal preferences."
FAKEEDIT: Yes, and what Slorange said on the subject, too.
Do we want some sort of policy for activating move-this-discussion-to-its-own-thread? Because it might be useful right about now. "What Wheat said" seems like a distinct subject from "Should there be rules, and if so, what?"
REALEDIT: Er, actually, we already have a mechanism for this.
PROPOSAL TO SPLIT HAIRS 1: Let's move all the stuff about what Wheat said to its own thread.
I'm not voting on "there should be rules!" without a better sense of what those rules might be, how they'll be enforced, and why we need them. That doesn't seem constructive.
Rules are not inherently virtuous - they're something we use to solve problems. Tell me what the problems are - and harassment does not yet look to be one of them - and tell me how you intend to solve them, and then I'll gladly voice support for a vote.
The standard rules, if I'm not misinterpreting what Schazer said, have mostly just amounted to "let's work things out on an ad-hoc basis". Frankly, I think that's what we already have here, right now. The only difference is we aren't pretending otherwise. If it's worked out so far, I expect it to continue to work.
And I'm pretty sure we all agree harassment is bad. Nobody here is endorsing harassment. (No, not even Wheat. Please don't say Wheat is endorsing harassment. Wheat is clearly not endorsing harassment, no matter what other beef you may have with Wheat.) Before we make rules about harassment, let's determine if harassment is going to be a problem - and if so, what are we going to do about it, other than "not allowing" harassment. Simply writing down "Harassment shouldn't be allowed!" somewhere isn't useful. We all know that already.
Jacquerel, you mentioned that you think it's useful to have a "phantom of authority" to appeal to. Maybe so - I'm not convinced. But if it would be constructive to have some mechanism to give the less forceful members some extra, external oomph in their corner somehow, then hey, okay, maybe we can figure out a good way to do that. I'm willing to entertain the notion.
But I doubt just saying "let's have the standard rules" is the best approach.
As far as #420 is concerned, not wanting to mix the serious with the silly, I see where you're coming from on that. I don't entirely agree, though, and so I propose this alternative:
"RULE #420.q, THE ETERNAL FLAME'S COUSIN: If you have a need to vent opinions you think would not be accepted on the rest of the board, please make a separate topic for them with some clear indication in the title what it is you're on about, and then the rest of us can not come near it with a ten foot pole or else jump in and have obnoxious arguments, according to our own personal preferences."
FAKEEDIT: Yes, and what Slorange said on the subject, too.
Do we want some sort of policy for activating move-this-discussion-to-its-own-thread? Because it might be useful right about now. "What Wheat said" seems like a distinct subject from "Should there be rules, and if so, what?"
REALEDIT: Er, actually, we already have a mechanism for this.
PROPOSAL TO SPLIT HAIRS 1: Let's move all the stuff about what Wheat said to its own thread.