Forum Rules Feedback Round 2

Ok guys, I've got a new draft of possible new rules to get your feedback on. Feast your eyes:

Forum Mission
The IGDA Forums exist to enable discussion and communication between IGDA Members, in support of the IGDA Mission.

General Forum Behavior
Respect Your Fellow Posters – The users of the IGDA Forums come with a diverse set of backgrounds, viewpoints, goals, and opinions. These differences, and the people behind them, must be treated with respect and a degree of professionalism, even when strong differences clash.

No Personal Attacks – Ad hominem attacks, insults, and rudeness fall under this category.

No Prejudice – Disrespect or insults towards a group or individuals based on factors like race, age, gender, religion, or sexual preference will not be tolerated.

No Deception or Plagiarism – Falsely claiming to be or represent someone, or claiming another’s work as your own.

No Advertising – Users may not post with the sole purpose of advertising or soliciting a service, product, or other business. The exception to this is the Bulletin Board section, which may be used to advertise relevant, game industry-related services or needs.

No Explicit Images – No images depicting pornography, obscenity, or other explicit material may be posted.

No Illegal Activities – No illegal activities can be conducted on the forums.

Debate Behavior
Debate plays an important role in strengthening the organization, creating an exchange of ideas and opinions, and stimulating thought on a subject. Despite this, it can be destructive to a community if allowed to escalate, so some guidelines on debate are outlined below:

Avoid escalation – Escalation is when a debate moves away from a respectful interchange of ideas or opinions and towards a shouting match. If an argument seems to be circular, shifting in tone towards anger, or starts including personal attacks, then it is likely escalating. In such cases, bowing out of the discussion, agreeing to disagree, or a conscious return to cool discussion will help de-escalate.

Let go of the last word – A common problem in escalating arguments is for the participants to fight for the last word. Often-times this will simply drag an unproductive debate on, especially if it was already a circular argument.

Sarcasm and condescension – Sarcasm or condescension are rarely healthy in a forum argument. Sarcasm can be misunderstood in text-based communication, and condescension tends to anger the target.

Argue topics, not people – When debating a subject, strive to base the argument on the topic at hand. If the argument starts drifting off of the topic and towards the people participating in the debate, then it will quickly escalate.

De-escalate at a moderator’s request – A moderator may step into a heated debate and request that the users cool down and return to a more productive tone of discussion. If the debate then continues as it was, it may be closed.

Moderation and Appeals
When a moderator takes action, either through deletion, edits, or requests to the posters in a thread, forum users are expected to comply even if the exact situation is not covered by the existing rules.

Excessive disruption of the forums – through repeated spamming, personal attacks, or any of the unacceptable behaviors – may lead to disciplinary action, including temporary or permanent bans from sections or the entire forum.

Due to the unpredictability of human interaction, moderation is an inexact affair, and the moderators will at times be forced to exercise their best judgment in unclear situations. If a forum user feels that a moderator made an inappropriate decision, a complaint may be posted in the Moderation Appeals section, at which point the situation will be reviewed and questions or concerns addressed.

Some notes:

First, I want to make it clear from the get-go that this would be one of two documents. The second document will be a fairly extensive list of moderator guidelines. Where these rules will exist to convey to the users what is and is not acceptable, the moderator guidelines will exist to establish some consistent standards by which forum behavior is judged, and the procedures we use when exercising our powers. Both of these would be fully available to the forum users, with the expectation that all users at least peruse the ones quoted above, but few users would read the moderator guidelines.

Second, this is a fresh draft as of this afternoon, and this is the first place I’ve shared it, so don’t hesitate to critique. This is very much the product of the feedback I received in the last rules thread, from people like Van Every, Mickwest, Noviwan, and others who posted in that thread. Some of the feedback I received there was extremely useful. Additionally, I used Wikipedia’s standards for civility, our own terms of use, Van Every’s Game design forums, and examples of other forum rules like those from the Online Debate Network as examples and references.

Specific areas that I’m interested in getting feedback on:

- How does the “Debate behavior” section come across to you guys? I wanted to avoid any hint of condescension or talking down to the reader, and I like to think I succeeded, but I trust you guys will let me know if I’m wrong.
- Do you find the tone of the wording consistent and acceptable?
- Is there anything missing that should be on here? Or something that I’ve put down here but shouldn’t have?
- Too wordy anywhere? Or vice versa, and not descriptive enough?

Finally, at the end of these I mentioned a “Moderation Appeals” section. Such a section is obviously not implemented yet, but it is my hope to create a more structured way for members to basically log a complaint about a moderator’s decision, to avoid situations where the moderation decisions are questioned in the middle of an on-going topic. No promises at this point though.