Board Rules Issue

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Board Rules Issue

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Board Rules Issue; anybody else annoyed?
Tweet Topic Started: Feb 25 2005, 11:19 PM (1,543 Views)
xsilverblade	Feb 26 2005, 01:07 PM Post #16
Member Posts: 51 Group: Members Member #40,791 Joined: January 8, 2005	Yeah that's true but the issue is that not only is it in the board rules area, it's on top of forums, and in several pinned topics. It becomes like it's own legal documentation you-know? It gets worse when they make rules in other places too, it's unorganized and the result of a lot of banned people is because of a misunderstanding to the rules(or they can't find the topic LOL) and not because of laziness..



Matthew	Feb 26 2005, 01:08 PM Post #17
Member Posts: 5,169 Group: Members Member #18,161 Joined: May 4, 2004	xsilverblade February 26, 2005 03:19 AM HERE: This place is cool but there's a Board Rules, there's a rules above every forum, AND there's sticky topics forbidding different thnigs in EVERY forum. The only reason I don't dodge this place is because the moderators are understanding and don't ban every member on site! Maybe you guys should organize everything in to 1 thing in every forum, that's a good suggesrion. The rules might seems a bit excessive here, but the way I see it, it's nessecery. Unfortunately a lot of members just ignore the staff asking, pleading, threatening etc. about things, so making pinned topics, forum rules sections and so on is needed, if the staff want to prevent complete mayhem. I agree that sometimes boards can have way too many rules, and I do think it sometimes makes you kinda nervous to post or anything. But sometimes it's just nessecery, if the board has had loads of troublesome members or whatever. But if the board started off with loads of rules and stuff for no reason, it's a bit too much sometimes



xsilverblade	Feb 26 2005, 01:16 PM Post #18
Member Posts: 51 Group: Members Member #40,791 Joined: January 8, 2005	Well yeah, I've thought about that too. However, it's a pretty known fact that most people don't usually want to join empty boards with over-excessive rules because it's just a pain to read a legal documentation and study the if's and but's before they can post their simple question. the only reason people usually post in boards like that is because they have no choice and need the information you-know? There has to be some other user friendly way. This board.. IF does a great job of balancing their rules because their understanding for it and don't get crack on the members. Mods handle themselves well... but there's lots of other boards that aren't like that and aren't aware these little facts I'm pointing out. Maybe somebody can make a tutorial on it to prevent ignorance of webmasters.. it can help improve people in general.



maxxillian	Feb 26 2005, 01:17 PM Post #19
Member Posts: 965 Group: Members Member #7,342 Joined: November 9, 2003	Quote: General Forum rules the ones next to the portal. This may perhaps be the most dificult thing to understand as it is mostly legal stuff. Forum rules Simple notes that tell you the purpose of the forum. and how to do things. perhaps reminders on how to use the service Pinned topic's Not verry hard to understand right? Things in here are the rules or guidelines for the forum its in. You tell me this is hard to understand or to find? Cmon!



Cypher	Feb 26 2005, 01:18 PM Post #20
Hi. Posts: 206 Group: Members Member #21,663 Joined: June 16, 2004	Its one thing to be a Post Nazi(tm) its another thing entirely to have rules and enforce them. I think the support forums are a great example of how rules should be enforced. Not too strict, not too lenient.



maxxillian	Feb 26 2005, 01:23 PM Post #21
Member Posts: 965 Group: Members Member #7,342 Joined: November 9, 2003	rules should always be enforced



xsilverblade	Feb 26 2005, 01:25 PM Post #22
Member Posts: 51 Group: Members Member #40,791 Joined: January 8, 2005	valanar February 26, 2005 12:17 PM Quote: General Forum rules the ones next to the portal. This may perhaps be the most dificult thing to understand as it is mostly legal stuff. Forum rules Simple notes that tell you the purpose of the forum. and how to do things. perhaps reminders on how to use the service Pinned topic's Not verry hard to understand right? Things in here are the rules or guidelines for the forum its in. You tell me this is hard to understand or to find? Cmon! I know it isn't hard to understand but... not everybody's generally schooled about internet forums thouroughly. Most people usually learn through experience of watching other members get banned.



The Virus	Feb 26 2005, 03:19 PM Post #23
Member Posts: 67 Group: Banned Member #16,326 Joined: April 9, 2004	Rules are made to be broken, i can follow the most basic ones, but when a place is filled with rules against almost everything, the forum shouldn't even exist. I've been to boards where the admin wont allow anything Offensive at all, i once said the F word on a forum with an admin like that, i got banned some minutes after that post. I can't stand admins that takes the rules TO SERIOUSLY. In my opionion, the only rules i think should get applied is the Spam rule and the Flaming rule. All others are just pointless.



Stephen	Feb 26 2005, 03:40 PM Post #24
Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall. Posts: 17,867 Group: Community Admin Member #1,011 Joined: April 3, 2003 I'm Browsing With Firefox My Board URL http://forums.yodaminch.com Latest Blog Entry Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall.	Why does this always pop once a month? First, there weren't always so many rules. As the board grew and new problems arose, new rules had to be made (pm advertising, backseat moderating, etc) but that was only after we 1) Asked everyone to stop 2) Warned them 3) Pleaded with them 4) Banned them 5) Shouted at them. After that we introduced those rules. Now lets say we suddenly said OK you CAN send pm advertisements. There are 31,417 members on this board. Roughly 100 get on a day. Lets say that 50 of those people sent out a pm advertisement to 10 people. Would you want to recieve 50 Join my forums? Then there is backseat moderating, made not because we had peopletrying to do our job, but because many did it poorly, angered many members and spammed topics with useless posts. That led to many pleadings, a formal warning, My FAQ, Jeremy's Backseat moderating topic and finally Seth's zero tolerance. If we hadn't done any of that, we'd have the worse support imaginable. The looking at community there is the whole hot topic rule for things like politics, religion and gay marriage. These are trashed simply because the members of Community Chat have proven time and again that they can not maturely discuss these issues. There are always those who believe what they want and everyone else is wrong and then they set someone else off and the mods are suspending and locking the topic. The signature size rule is also around for a good reason. What if I had a signature the size of a wallpaper that flashed? Just imagine how annoying that would be. So do I hate boards with too many rules? No. Why? Because the owner of the board reserves the right to choose what content they want displayed. If they are the ones in charge, then they get to run things their way. I know of one board that has a strict no slash fiction rule. The owner is a reverand. Its his choice to run things the way he wants because he pays the bills. Since DuffMan pays the bills here he can have any rule he wants. You agree to the rules when you register. If you don't like it, that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but then they either agree to the rules or leave. As far as organization. This is the best it can get. Perhaps the main rules like sig size could be used with the announcement feature that's coming. But not every rule applies to every forum. That is why each forum has its own seperate rules. They are seperate forums for different things.



Matthew	Feb 26 2005, 04:41 PM Post #25
Member Posts: 5,169 Group: Members Member #18,161 Joined: May 4, 2004	Once again I totally agree with Yoda I'm not being a suck up (and don't bother trying to say I am, I had that before, I won't be standing for that again), but Yoda is totally right again. And always seems to be 100% right about these things. Of course all the staff are, but Yoda seems to be the one always making the long posts and tells it how it is all the time That reiterates what I said before, there are loads of rules here because the staff have to put them in place. Thousands of members + lots of idiots that act up all the time + majority of them that don't listen = lots of rules



Zach	Feb 26 2005, 05:43 PM Post #26
Missjayness Posts: 1,814 Group: Members Member #5,598 Joined: September 20, 2003	Yea, I must have read the first pos wrong. I thought he meant to remove some of the rules. :/ Oh look at Matt the suck-up!



Fac3full	Feb 26 2005, 05:45 PM Post #27
BitterSweet Posts: 1,783 Group: Banned Member #26,912 Joined: August 10, 2004	xsilverblade February 26, 2005 04:17 AM @fac3full Excuse me? This is for mature debate about ways to "organize" rules. If you don't like it you don't have to post in this topic. I never said anything about disliking the rules, I dislike the fact there's extreme amounts of rules in over 3 portions of the board. Did you not read my post at all or do you need extra explanation? Normally now i would flame you for not reading more carefully. I was just expressing my opinions. I never typed it to show in a mean and negative way. Do you see a ! at the end of my post? No. Maybe you're not mature enough to handle opinions. So get my off back! (See the ! ???????)



maxxillian	Feb 26 2005, 06:23 PM Post #28
Member Posts: 965 Group: Members Member #7,342 Joined: November 9, 2003	The Virus February 26, 2005 02:19 PM Rules are made to be broken, i can follow the most basic ones, but when a place is filled with rules against almost everything, the forum shouldn't even exist. I've been to boards where the admin wont allow anything Offensive at all, i once said the F word on a forum with an admin like that, i got banned some minutes after that post. I can't stand admins that takes the rules TO SERIOUSLY. In my opionion, the only rules i think should get applied is the Spam rule and the Flaming rule. All others are just pointless. err. someone ban him. Rules are ment to be bent, not broken. And if someone bans you for saying F*** they should be decaptated



Deleted User	Feb 26 2005, 08:43 PM Post #29
Deleted User	Having it all in one place at this forum is asking for it to be ignored. I don't really see what the problem is. When I first came here, it took me about 30 seconds to notice that there were rules, and not much more than a few minutes to read every one of them, no matter where they were. They're obvious. Some of them are open to a little interpretation, but most are fairly clear, so if you break them, we could assume you either didn't read them or have chosen to ignore them, either of which I feel is unacceptable and probably worthy of a good suspension or ban. Everyone is lucky that the admins are more forgiving than I. Rather than a bunch of rules scattered everywhere, I would suggest something like a sort of rules page that comes up when you first register, with a form on it you have to sign, stating that you've read the rules and agree that if you break them, you're suspended for a month, if you break them again, you're account is banned, and if you're caught trying to bypass a banning, any and all forums and accounts you have on IF will be deleted. Make it nice and clear. But, DuffMan would never go for that. :'( However, it might be a good idea to update the board rules a bit by cross-linking them with the forum rules? :unsure: Or we could keep what we have now, but add a complete list of the various sections with their rules, for those who like to be able to see everything in one place.
Deleted User


SkItZo	Feb 26 2005, 09:31 PM Post #30
Support Volunteer Posts: 484 Group: Members Member #2,705 Joined: June 23, 2003	Only reason why boards like this have many rules is that they have a lot of users. With that, you will get a lot of rebellious and insurbodinated users who just like to tease the staff to see what they can do. When you have these rules, you effectively cut-down on the specific problems big boards have. Such as spamming websites, or PM Advertising and the like. What you would be more annoyed with is small communities who have rules as long as your legs.



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