Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-10789912-20151206230221

For anyone that is not aware of the proposal, a link is provided here- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gX5-ggPoI5zlhd78wNc-kFXa-ur-_AgWR-rZnHG3rM8/edit#

It has come to my attention that chat moderator Lilith Rayn has presented a very "unique" item created by Crusader of Truth, and user Ralvz (can't be assed to type his whole name). It is, in short, a new revaluation of preexisting chat rules. This fixes are unnecessary, outlandish, and over sensitive. I will be highlighting every error I find with the revision in gerontological order, as it may aid others in seeing the completely asinine fixes to the rules this change presents. --- "Due to current investments of users coming forth over matters that have happened in the past,  and rules often broken/bypassed without a clear distinction on what’s inforced versus what’s given special privileges. I wish to propose that we enforce the rules accordingly and eliminate    favoritism/bias towards users regarding the rules. For instance, if a user wishes to share explicit  content and gets approval for it, why should everybody else be reprimanded from doing so? The following will give an overview of each rule that implements “Grounds for Blocking” and has been the most violated.

This proposal itself is favoritism to the easily offended, and those that thing our rules should equate an informal safe space. This spawns in the wake of users getting overly offended when LGBT users use the word "gay". Let's take a look at a very specific item, here.

"For instance, if a user wishes to share explicit content and gets approval for it, why should everybody else be reprimanded from doing so?"

A user asking an ADMINISTRATOR to post a song with an inappropriate cover, and being required to mark it as "NSFW" before posting, is not the same as freely posting content. One user that created this was once punished for posting a picture of a skinned cat, which I can assume is what is being compared here. This is completely asinine, and, guess what? Favoritism. The very thing this claims to be against. Administrator permission is granted based on content, not user posting content. Any changes to this system (short of simply not allowing it), is favoritism. Any change other than that, is anarchy. Allowing each user to post NSFW content freely is, frankly, something that is capable to switch off your neurons upon thinking about it. Users ask higher powers for permission to post content that might be banned by ToU (such as gore, pornography, snuff, et cetera), and they are usually told no. You break ToU, that's it. You're gone. That's why this rule is exactly how it is, and will not, nor can it, change.

Next, I will be dissecting this piece. The rule change deals with the rule that follows.

“ Personal attacks, bigotry, racism, sexism, hate speech, name calling, etc. This also applies if the target of the attacks is not present in chat. Personal attacks of any nature (regardless of intent) will not be tolerated.” - Rule 1. “Grounds for Blocking”

They follow it up with "In a short elaboration of the text above, anything personally directed to a user that is against what the rule demands is unacceptable in all cases. This goes for playful name-calling included; “(regardless of intent)”

I have countless points to make here.

1) Bigotry is subjective, which is where some users might think an issue lies. This is not an issue, but a strength we created by defining it as something made to emotionally harm another.

2) Users are only lightly allowed to playfully insult each other. See, this is another area those that don't pay attention to administrator and moderator action might find errors. They are wrong here as well. The point is, if a new user comes and you call them a faggot, your intent does not matter. If you were being friendly or not, we don't care. But, if two friends, for instant- ScholaroftheScrolls and PelinalWhitestreak, were to call each other faggots, it is fine. As long as it doesn't cause a major issue in chat (not counting the overly offended), then it is allowed. It's playful banter. If you find issue with one friend calling another "bitch" jokingly, you shouldn't be on a wiki for a (minimum) 16/17+ game series. You shouldn't be anywhere that hosts mature content. For a series that directly mentions rape, homicide, necrophilia, and torture (at once using all four as a threat against the player, directly, in one sentence), we sure have a lot of users that cry when someone says "damn" to show anger.

3) This entire section stems from two misunderstandings, and serves only to censor users in any and all cases. This is unacceptable, and will not be tolerated (as we've shown with dozens of consensus pages, multiple of which from old administrators).

Here is my favorite part. Coming right up, something that is practically insulting to our moderators, in how much it ignores their work.It deals with the rule below.

This wiki has a zero tolerance policy on bullying. Bullying is considered the targeting of someone and speaking to them in a derogatory manner due to their nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, interests, sociological factors (spelling, grammar, intellect, etc), psychological state (mental illnesses), or physical appearance. Also includes goading other users with comments that you know will provoke a reaction.” - Rule 2. “Grounds for Blocking”

They follow it up with "Probably the most often ignored by users at this point is this general rule. More often than not, a discussion of this has been brought up either subliminally or stated bluntly with the defence; “It’s certainly just an opinion.” or “If they don’t like it, too bad.” and so on of the like. Furthermore, provoking users to get a reaction is often left unattended and not enforced when it’s perfectly clear that a user is attempting to antagonize another. If anything, this rule needs the most attention."

1) A user saying "I dislike Christianity" isn't bullying, nor is it insulting a user. That's someone taking major offence to a minor comment. If you censor people's ability to criticize anything that others are a part of, you really don't belong online. If we can't so much as say "I hate ___" or "I dislike ____" because a user likes/is a part of it, then that is quite literally the death of conversation. Almost every topic imaginable is at the expense of another. Saying you favor something, dislike something, or hate something is the start of nearly every conversation. This is how the world works.

2) No one gets away with "it is just an opinion". If it gets out of hand, it is dealt with. It is very simple, and very easy to detect. "If they don't like it, to bad" falls in this as well.

3) "Provoking users to get a reaction is often left unattended". Bullshit. Absolute slander to further improve a null point. As a past moderator who still fixes almost every single issue in chat, with every user (constantly PMing moderators with what they should do, advice, et cetera, simply because I know what should be done in those cases), I can tell you this is absolutely false. We count bait (the term for trying to get a negative reaction out of someone) as trolling, and I can tell you very simply. We have three users currently on watch because of trolling. Their next mistake, they are gone forever. I will not say who for privacy reasons/embarrassment of the users, but we do not take this lightly.

Next up- swearing. It deals with the following rule.

The use of excessive profanity or swearing directed towards another user with aggressive behavior is not permitted. The chat is somewhere that anybody and everybody should feel welcome. The use of occasional swearing is fine, but swearing in every other sentence is not permitted. If a user takes offense and asks another user to leave the Chat or feels intimidated then the guilty party should be reported to a moderator or administrator.” - Rule 3. “Grounds for Blocking”

They follow it up with "As of late and throughout the use of the wiki, exclamations and the like are understood and accepted. However, many take into account the fact that aggressive arguments often have the user of either side leave a comment or an obscene name at the end of their half of the argument. This violates the rule above and should be enforced as such during said debates."

1) Swearing won't be stopped. Flightmare tried to monitor/stop it once, and that went poorly with the community. What you claim is "excessive" may not breach the point of actually being excessive (only case being insults/spam). Don't bring personal morality into politics. Ever.

2) It already isn't allowed. If a user swears and insults another, they are dealt with. Again, a purely asinine remark. Aggressive Arguments are either stopped with punishment, or forced into PM. We count this as disrupting chat.

3) "If a user takes offense and asks another user to leave the Chat or feels intimidated then the guilty party should be reported to a moderator or administrator."

Idiotic as all hell. If I say "Fuck" in a sentence, and a user gets offended, it's simple. They shouldn't be here. They are not mature enough to handle the chat, nor the game series (which has profanity). This falls into both 1 and 2.

If a user says that another should leave chat because THEY got offended, it's poor censorship. "I don't like what you're saying, so you should leave, not me :(". These people should stick to Community Central chat.

Next proposal it is.

“Disruptive behavior. All users should behave in a civil manner and follow the Etiquette Guidelines. Don't go out of your way to irritate others. If an argument begins to disrupt the stability of the main chat and affect other users it will be stopped by a chat mod or admin. Ideally, arguments should be taken to a private chat or the talk pages. Especially do not try to test the patience of the admins or chat moderators.” - Rule 3. “Grounds for Blocking”

They follow it up with "If any have had experience within the TES wikia, it should be often noted that arguments are not uncommon and have almost become a habitual uprising every few days. The extent and severity of these arguments often vary between users and the topic, but general aggressiveness should be noted and dealt with. To keep the chat at in a comfortable environment for all, any argument that exceeds a civil manner or last longer than 20 minutes should be directed to PM accordingly "

1) Again, extreme cases are always dealt with accordingly.

2) We don't need to be a "comfortable environment for all". This is the route of censorship, and the weak being threatened by the strong. Before we know it, I'll be forced to change my picture "because someone might be offended". To that, I say no. We respect users to the extent that we should already. Users, as a whole, speak and act as we would generally want. This is simply someone that doesn't feel accepted complaining. Does an entire school change their security pattern because one social outcast things that guards should pay attention to him? Absolutely not. We do not live to satisfy these people. If you are easily offended by any and all minor hostility (such as a debate, which these two are mistakenly calling "aggressive arguments"), then you are weak.

3) Any and all discussions that aren't civil, are reverted back to being civil, or are stopped. This is already done.

4) You're not putting a time cap on discussions. That's idiotic.

Next up, a rule which shouldn't even be touched on, past perhaps making it less strict.

“Discussing sensitive topics such as real-world politics, religion, etc. without unanimous consent. If someone doesn't want to talk about them, drop the subject. If these discussions do take place, they should be closely watched by a chat moderator or an admin and will cease upon request of the chat moderator or admin should they believe it's getting out of hand.” Rule 5. “Grounds for Blocking”

They follow it up with "In the long run, the most common topic of arguments stems from violating this rule (very rarely have any arguments stemmed from TES wikia related lore, topics, articles, etc). Not only so, but the arguments are even more so, left to burn and die out with one of the users ending up leaving, feeling threatened due to unproportionate amount of agreement and limited defence, or a ban/kick. Should a sensitive topic come up, it should follow the rule that everyone within the chat need its approval. "

1) If it escalates into an argument, it is stopped. I'm astonished how much this is ignored in this single piece.

2) "feeling threatened due to unproportionate amount of agreement and limited defence". Are you kidding me? This one is actually pathetic. If you start a debate (which is, again, what these two are talking about) on something, prepare to have any and all evidence against you shown. That is how a discussion works. You make a claim, and either prove/disprove it. If the majority of users are against you in a debate, it doesn't mean they are "bullying" you. It means you are a terrible debater, or the public eye doesn't agree with you. The 1% is standing against the 99%. Do you expect the 99% to split up, so that the 1% can feel more comfortable? Of course not.

3) "Or a ban/kick". You were for stopping aggressive arguments, now you're using punishing the guilty as a negative point. Alright. Nice hypocrisy.

4) Again, if one user is easily offended, we will not stop a discussion because of that. If we are having a conversation about Islam, and one user is offended, yet it is obviously a debate (using facts, most likely) and the user is just being weak minded, then no. We will not stop a civil debate, nor a discussion, because of one user having an issue. This is not what the "unanimous agreement" is meant to symbolize.

Next rule in question: “Abuse of the Private Message feature. Using the private message feature to send messages that break any of the rules detailed in this policy. Should a user harass you with such messages, please take a screen capture of it and report it to a Chat Mod or Admin.” Rule 7. “Grounds for Blocking”

They continue with "This fairly simple rule should be enforced, but it falls upon the user to bring themselves to contact a MOD. Even so, PM blocking should be noted as well. (Click the name of the person while in PM and choose the “Block Private Messages” option.)"

1) It is enforced. Harassment and such in PM is dealt with as if it occurred in main. I'm shocked that one of the creators of this piece forgot this already.

2) Moderators are not able to block PMs with users. I do not believe that is what this was attempting to say, but I'm pointing it out with any reader.

3) The user is supposed to contact a moderator. The moderator should only seek out the user, if the moderator has a question, or is discussion something. This is how almost every governmental system works.

Another good one to discuss. “Linking to external sources, such as websites, which violate the aforementioned rules. Notably, publicly linking to websites such as Facebook or MySpace that violate personal privacy, is not permitted without prior consent from the user whose privacy might be violated. Content (censored or uncensored) such as videos, pictures, etc. that are either excessively gory, sexual, or otherwise NSFW material are also not permitted.” Rule 7. “Grounds for Blocking”

They propose as follows. "Albeit, this isn’t too much of a problem most of the time, many users have shared some form of gore or NSFW content within chat. The defence of permission by a mod or admin shouldn’t be allowed when posting in main chat. If the user so much as wishes to share their interest or a site of such nature, they should be told to PM whoever they see fit for sharing. There is no need for indecency within the chat."

1) Almost no users that aren't banned have shared any form of gore or NSFW content that violates ToU or our rules. They all either asked administrator permission, or the users in question have a very loose idea of "NSFW".

2) You are attempting to say an administrator shouldn't give permission to post anything in main? You do see what the point of asking is, correct? To see if it violates ToU. The posting of "NSFW", or on occasion "Extremely NSFW" is simply so that users do not accidentally click the link, and get surprised when they see a song titled "Vaginal Luftwaffe", or a song with a cover that has some blood on it. Permission is permission. Permission is not, in any way, something we need to fix.

3) "There is no need for indecency within the chat." Here we have it. The Holy Grail of bad debating. I have multiple points to make on just this.

A) Indecency is subjective.

B) You're bringing your ideas of "indecency" into this. Others may classify it as less, or more extreme than you do.

C) If the content is bad, it is not given permission. The permission is never, in ANY case "go ahead and post something against our rules". It is ALWAYS "this is allowed by our rules, just say it's NSFW so someone doesn't accidentally click it".

D) There is no need for this excessive censorship. Our moderators and administrators already perform everything within reasoning to stop inappropriate content.

“Flooding the chat with repetitive posts/ASCII art/song lyrics/nonsense/bot commands. Using excessive amounts of capital letters or non-English languages. Overuse of emoticons. Creating multiple posts one after another containing solely emoticons. Flooding the chat with repeated leaving and joining.” - Rule 11. “Grounds for Blocking”

They follow up with: "This isn’t too much of a problem, but when it comes to arguments and discussions, links supporting the user should be limited throughout the duration as to not cause confusion. Music goes as well. The following of the rule is generally well understood"

1) "links supporting the user should be limited throughout the duration as to not cause confusion". Absolutely fucking not. Again, to quote earlier, "If you start a debate, prepare to be proven wrong, with all evidence against you". We are not putting a cap on evidence in a debate. If it gets to the point it is spam, we already punish it.

2) Spam is already fully fought against. I feel as if the creators of this piece were proven wrong in one too many arguments, and finally broke.

Up next. “Harassment, insults to someone's well being, death threats, et cetera can not escape jurisdiction and enforcement, not even in Private Messaging. If reported, the situations will be treated as if they were in the main chat/mainspace of the wiki. It is expected that users remain civil to each other. Death threats that occur off-site, depending on origin, can be punished with a chat ban as well.” - Rule 14. “Grounds for Blocking” → see below

They follow up with "This is the single most basic rule that is often overlooked and violated with harmless jokes and whatnot. This isn’t too much of a problem, but is often conducted alongside violating rules, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Should a user not be present and a comment such as “He should be dead” or “He should kill himself” or anything of the nature arise, correction should be advised towards the harasser. In the end, it falls upon the user to conduct themselves formally and report a problem to a Mod or Admin. Even so, the Mod or Admin should conduct it reasonably and without bias for one user or another."

1) Violation of the harassment rule is 100% of the time punished. You are confusing harassment for disagreement. Harassment isn't a one time thing. Harassment is the constant pursuit on a certain user. This should be known.

2) "He should kill himself" is never said about users that use our chat. Also, I'd like to say- if something is said about me, and I think it is hilarious/funny, who are you to say it is harassment? If someone I liked said "he should kill himself", and I didn't care/laughed, that isn't even an insult. It is friendly banter, a topic we already touched upon.

3). It falls on the user to act formally, and they, for the most part, do. Moderators and administrators also already act completely without bias. Thank you for the restatement of the obvious. ---

There you go. Every single point made here is void, out of bias, borderline insulting, or simply shockingly ill-minded. I am glad these rules were rejected, and should they ever resurface, I can assure you I will be actively dissecting them again.

The issue arises with users want the world to cater to them, and model the rules based on what makes them happy, disregarding what is acceptable. They are replacing a whole piece of connected morality, or one section of their own personal morality.

Under no circumstances would the application of these rules make sense, unless we decided we would like each and every user to abide by censorship- that is if anyone even uses chat afterwards.

Yet again, we're faced with another batch of b-rate rules, created by those that don't take the whole picture into their mind when creating them. Cutting the truth to match the will.

Yet again, it fails. 