Shattered Kingdoms

I am very open to alternative wording if there's a way to clarify without that clarity being buried in an obfuscating amount of 'legalese.' This kind of step wasn't easy to take, and I can see an argument for the qualification of 'condescending' being removed because even I had issues typing my post and trying to concern myself with it. It would need a same-spirit replacement.

Is there a better word that will get the job done? The long and short of this endeavor was to foster an entire public set of forums moderated like the "Gameplay" forum was, with less room to allow trolling/passive aggressive sniping everywhere.

Let me be open and honest about where I am coming from: let's look at one of the last GD conversations. People who agreed with one side of an argument, as well as the staff, were getting baselessly slandered and peed on. It was an enormous knee-jerk rampage. This proved that GD was a double-edged sword: a place where game mechanics/topics could be talked about, but where we couldn't keep it healthy because of our own rules in place. To move it to Gameplay and would defeat the purpose of having GD, if all we did was move topics manually if they gained traction. To leave it in GD would mean players who were interested or wanted involved in a relevant gameplay-related discussion would be subject to absolute trash in order to be part of it. To selectively censor and warn over one topic without a consistent easily located rule to back me up is counterproductive to the entire reason I am the rules manager and why I'm here. The topic was honestly one that needed to be talked about - it was both interesting, and the staff was willing to change and adapt to feedback. However, it was mired in such filth it was practically untouchable - toxic from the start.

The end result of deliberation on the matter was to make sure every game-related topic had an appropriate non-GD forum that it would be welcomed in, and remove GD. Was it drastic? Yes, but was there anything else that would be successful? I mean, this would be the place to talk about alternatives. I will put up a conversation with D about one if there's one better that's brought up in honest good-faith conversation.

And here's the personal part of the matter: I'm in graduate school, and some of my friends are older nerds. SK is the kind of game I think they might get a kick out of for a bit of fun. As it stands, I'd be ashamed to invite them to come check the game out with the forums as they were. My real motivation is to make this place not let me be ashamed to invite random people who I might be colleagues with one day. The level of passive-aggressive inflammatory trash instills that. That's as best an explanation as I can give for why I agreed with the consensus on this being the best step to take.

We've no intention of stifling disagreement, and in fact your post is a perfect example of constructive disagreement. I have never cared about people disagreeing with the best course of action, or being critical of actions taken - only the nature in which those feelings are brought up for conversation. There's no topic that's off-limits, there's only ways to approach it that are. We're asking people to play along like adults, and we've tried the 'freedom of action' course already and seen how masterfully it failed.

If you happen to get it wrong, you'll just have your post taken down and get a warning. If you just can't see what was wrong with your post, ask for an appeal and that process will either help figure out where you went astray, or help the moderator figure out where they went astray.

And if you still can't figure it out after three warnings, then every post you make will be an indirect way to learn by seeing which ones are accepted.

But honestly, I don't want to spend time moderating and you don't want me to spend my time moderating (most people would rather have me be writing some new code for the game). Just be nice, or at least neutral, to each other in the forums and save your aggression for when you need to PK someone in the game.

I hardly ever post on these forums but for some reason I feel like some sort of my free speech is being infringed upon. (I get that all these forum interactions are voluntary)

No matter...because words on these forums do not have tone, I will refrain from posting anything until a help file with examples has been made.

The fact is no one has ever had free speech on the forums (that isnt even going into freedom to say what you want, doesnt mean there are no consequences for saying it). This can clearly be seen in the fact there are unofficial places for SK people to talk about it. The internet has freedom of speech but each corner is governed by those who made it (even the unofficial sites have a ToS). Those who are in power have the power to censor anything you post on the forums at their discretion. However when they try to outline some of the things they plan to police people are suddenly scared. I get the feeling it is not the limiting of speech that is the issue rather people do not trust those who are in charge of policing things. I would remind people that nothing has changed as far as those in control. However something has changes as far as their efforts to be more open in communication on such topics.

If these rules where introduced to a work place or sport everyone would be scared at first then after a few days. Then everyone would work out impinged freedoms are actually choices you have already made personally to act as civil people to each other.

Don't be passive-aggressive. Its that simple.

How about "unwelcoming" instead of "condescending"? We could say:

unwelcoming - implying that a person is unfit to contribute. (Example: An idea may be called bad, but it should not be called stupid.)

One advantage is that this word is less biased against the immstaff. The admins have inside knowledge of SK. However, if they use that knowledge to dismiss an idea, they're arguably being condescending. People annoyed by the new rules may find it amusing to press the complaint button.

But for me, the driver is that we shouldn't be walking on eggshells because a rule can be so broadly interpreted. That's not conducive to light socializing.

Please don't confuse that with a request to bring back GD. Even if the admins were willing to take as much abuse as we've recently seen, a good host feels some obligation to keep his guests from being insulted. But SK is a fully IC game with a lot of conflict. A backstage OOC area for good-humored interaction helps build the player community. At least for the Bazaar, reducing sniping should not be the only policy objective.

I don't understand the overreaction. It is pretty simple. Be civil to people on the forums. It doesn't mean you can't joke. It doesn't mean you can't be critical. If you have a post removed, I highly doubt that Sadr will throw a stone tablet at you if you were to appeal and state your case as to what you meant. People want specific wordings as to what is acceptable or not? That is invitation to bring about loopholes and arguments of "Well, that's not what was in the examples given, so it has to be okay." A little uncommon sense goes a long way.

Basically agree with Forsooth's entire post and specifically voting +1 on this suggestion.

+1

+1

Moderation clarification: I can guarantee that no stone tablets will be involved.