Let's work out some official rules for this forum.

[Buster's Uncle]

A word about what is and isn't spam -

If you're One Of Us, a member of this community known to the others to be an actual person and here in the first place for the reason this forum was created and is kept alive --- pimp yo' project, even if you hope to make actual cash money, as nasty as you wanna be, provided you don't annoy somehow.  If you're a people, I'm very tolerant of that sort of thing.

-If, on the other hand, you sign up with a sig link before you ever post?  IMO, you're not people, I don't care what the site is, much, and you've crapped yourself right out of the gate and you're not people and have no rights.
 


...I just had to change the security question because of a very persistent bot, and this post is more for the entertainment of real members than anything else - but I seriously wanted to announce Official Policy that 'people' are very welcome to promote their own projects and use AC2 for publicity, commercial or whatever, provided it's not annoying, annoying to be determined by The Management - just pay your dues getting involved in the conversations first, and we'll be jake.

[Buster's Uncle]

What follows that I saw last week I find influential on issues I wrestle with here.

My moderating style, and I really do have a substantial amount of forum moderating experience, is to generally be inclusive, and warn as necessary. But when someone is really getting on other people's nerves to the point where the good people may leave because of the bad people, just ban the bad people and be done with it. I find that it doesn't work to have a very formal set of rules and a very formal rules process. An internet forum is, at the end of the day, a hobby. If people are not enjoying themselves, they'll just not go to the place any longer. I won't tolerate racism, sexism, or general nastiness. If you think the alt-right is defensible, this is not the place for you. Go elsewhere.

I will go on from that to say it's not quite my take, and not going to be - but, and I speak as someone who found he had a very leftist OT going in 2012, and has actively recruited thoughtful conservatives in the years since, it's certainly somewhat close.  I have the profound egalitarian and free-speech impulses a North American should, and I've posted in this very thread repeatedly trying to come to grips with --- the end of the above helps me crystalize my thinking at a maybe better angle.  I don't do anything much to encourage people whose politics I agree with if I find their mode of expression and level of thoughtfulness poor.  If you, short of the beyond-the-pale stuff Cutlass concludes with, got nothin' better than Reagan-worship and party talking points, and aren't any fun and/or I stiffen when I see you posting - we can get unreflected right "thinking" anywhere, to the point it's a pain all over the nets.

I don't deem that acting like an adult, and I am not obligated to tolerate it being inflicted on my friends or myself in my own house, and I regret it having to be that way, but have an interesting perspective/be fun/something, or it's five minutes to sundown for you at AC2.  Period.

[BU Admin]

Good morning, my friends.

The management has been inexcusably remiss in not publishing a policy that has been here from the beginning; we like to make public and explicit this kind of thing here in the spirit of fair play, good management, and so no one can ever claim it was a secret rule.

We came here from a forum that had a loudly-announced 'clean slate' policy -an excellent attitude, BTW- you had to earn whatever treatment got got with your behavior there on that site.  Well, the owner, a fellow with admirable egalitarian instincts, eventually felt it necessary to perma a problematic member in fallout of a troll raid he stayed out of, but said an idjit thing on Counterglow claiming he was trolling.  Bit the owner on the butt a little for years until he graciously undid the ban in a peace gesture.

AC2 has never had any such policy.  We find it difficult to imagine the need -or at least ethical right- to tell anyone what to do anywhere but here (officially; advice as a friend is different), or punish anyone for actions elsewhere, but nobody known to the management comes in with any clean slate - and actions elsewhere can and definitely will be taken into account and calculation of our reaction to, and handling of, your behavior right here onsite, because of what all your known history tells about you.

We regret that it has simply never occurred to us to share this important policy before.  People-management on the internet is endlessly complex.

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmm.  Two other things - it is my management habit to act or not within 24 hours, and I've always let whatever sanctions stand, even when sisko and t_ras later told me I'd been wildly too merciful - this actually happened once.  I find revisiting crimes unpunished long after the fact distasteful; however, in extremis, the Management reserves the right to go there, when in its sole opinion such action is for the greater good of the forum and the community.  (You haveta mess up mighty bad for this to ever come up, no worries.)

The other matter being simply to make it known that there a net tradition in even pretty free communities that sometimes cooling-off-period bans are properly issued to put a stop to something going somewhere bad, or already there, not as punishment, maybe for the good of the soul getting hammered, definitely for the greater good.  I've only ever done this twice in the last six years and change - but in bad situations where a poster's habits and schedule indicate that I'm likely to wake up to nasty stuff; oh, I'm definitely thinking in those rare bad situations, I'll do more overnight bans in the future.  If momma ain't happy, nobody happy.  (You haveta mess up mighty bad for this to ever come up, no worries.)


I spend a lot of time thinking about these sorts of issues, the practical and ethical aspects both being something I can't do my job here right without considering, and doing so often and at length...

[Buster's Uncle]

$#@! The webs ate a couple lines of the first try at this, no kiddin'.

Have I ever talked about triggering the swear filter here?  (NOT whether we should have one, which in my house you're not going to act in a way that I would be made ashamed if my actual mother were to actually read your post - fortunately I'm a bit shameless so, keep it down to a dull roar, but that policy is not going anywhere.)  Some strictly-run sites will gig you infraction points for triggering at all according to the rules and you had bad luck with who's the moderator.

Well, [fuddle-duddle] that [poop] at AC2!  -Incidentally, if you have the swear filter turned off for your account, you're wondering why I'm contradicting myself instead of getting to laugh at my comedy - more on why you may turn off the filter but it's a bad idea in a moment.

TRIGGER and laugh.  Have yourself a party in our fun and zany forum, as -literally- [intercourse gerund] nasty as you wanna be, [loves your mother].
 
This is not a [profoundly mess with mind; Uno].    -But there's an important proviso.  As I've been saying forever, our swear filter sucks; it's incredibly easy to bypass by accident or on purpose, and here's the rule part that matters:  Buncle expects you to actually look at what you post if you swore any, and fix if anything that should have triggered didn't.  Yr Most Humble Benevolent Dictator get less Benevolent when ruling you so hard requires he has to edit and clean up. 

Clean up your own mess, please.  The list is mostly racial and ethnic slurs and workaround attempts at same.  (Legit to count all that as toxic swearing in my book, BTW.)  The actual cussing list is not that long, and mostly toxic obvious stuff - if [feminine washing] gets by, I won't bother, dunno why anyone bothered with something marginal/only so vulgar like that that they can say on US TV at night.  I also don't know why [gives oral sex to men] isn't in there; I typed in that translation manually, and fear not that you may use it and not feel the blazing fury of my wrath.

SO - if you use a word here and there that you'd expect to be in a filter, and you have the filter turned off for your display, you can't spot when the filter phails and this makes Buncle unhappy when you mar my house and don't clean your own mess.  Please watch out for that.

[Syn]

I assume this PSA is because someone was naughty?

[Buster's Uncle]

Actually no.

I've never had a single problem with pushback like pushing the envelope or limits on purpose unless the member was personally angry at ME, which is a little different (and does happen and is totally the worse part of my job).  No, just, it happens like I said, by accident once in a while, and I REALLY dislike having to edit other people's posts and want them to spot and fix themselves.

That there's a GROWNUP rule, nothing like you ever had to enforce at the Camp.

-So, I thought for no particular immediate reason that it would be good to throw that up instead of just lecturing or stewing when someone vulks up and misses a filter phail.  Much of what I put up in this thread is triggered by an immediate reminder, yes, but very much of it has been my policy for years and I do try to play fair when I finally remember to share.

-Also, I reckoned that doing it that way would be funny.  For th' lulz is good enough for me.

[Buster's Uncle]

-Speaking of which, comedy is unusually in order at AC2.

Just, be smart about where and when and to/about whom, and respect the express wishes of the thread-starter -who has the right to ask ME to stifle- and be considerate trying to guess that person's tastes/reaction.  Otherwise a larf is welcome. 

Try not to be a killjoy, please, about one or two joke posts in your thread, or earn my contempt stomping into silly threads you don't think are funny.  You don't want to get punished for what a couple buttholes did to me years ago, so never be like them.

[BU Admin]

The Management gets quite weary of having to formulate and publish policy on account of rare bad apples and troublemakers, an absolutely minuscule portion of the traffic and membership.  We will work with anyone we perceive to be ultimately good-intentioned and interested in being here to take part in this community, using the forum the way it was meant to be used - or at least not griefing anyone else's fun with an innovation.  This is our pledge to the members, that we're here to hook you up and make everybody as happy as possible, and none of that works without fairness, and for fairness we strive.

HowEVER - new rule, and AC2's management profoundly resents the necessity; if it appears that you're in our house out of simple malice, well, you're gone.  That definitely includes hate-lurking.  You'll have to do your little investigations logged out, because life's too short to put up with that, and we're not prepared to be relaxed about it.

[Syn]

What is "hate-lurking"?

[Buster's Uncle]

Really?  It ranges from checking up on someone you've got a beef with because knowledge is power and all that - to actual stalking, which I have online experience with, and not on the supply side.

HATE having to come up with any catch-all troublemaker rule, but this ain't the first time I've had to.  Real members, of course, are welcome to question and comment and get a vote in forming policy in what I hope is their online home, here - but need not trouble themselves that this sort of thing will ever bite them if I don't perceive long-term implacable malice.

This one simply doesn't apply to a real member who gets mad at me and comes at me hard -as sometimes happens- unless I perceive they're lost to us forever anyway, as someone just participating, and yet are still coming around.

I hope that makes sense.  It is based on actual long experience of some of the more extreme drama that happens, and all will be happier if I step on teh dedicated haters and keep that stalky crap out of here when I can.

[Syn]

I guess I don't see the point behind banning guests because you see the same IPs come up frequently. There are browsers that have built-in VPNs (like Opera) which negates the effectiveness of this, along with browser extensions, VPN sites, and dedicated VPN services.

I likely have a far different perspective on this than most, though...

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, I can't do anything about lurking logged out -though I went to some trouble making sure of all recent IPs in my latest ban, which should short-term help- and I'd rationally like to be able to watch it happening if anyone's dumb enough to do it logged in, but reason isn't the whole story and sometimes knowledge is too corrosive/toxic to inner peace to be worth it...

[Buster's Uncle]

What follows that I saw last week I find influential on issues I wrestle with here.

My moderating style, and I really do have a substantial amount of forum moderating experience, is to generally be inclusive, and warn as necessary. But when someone is really getting on other people's nerves to the point where the good people may leave because of the bad people, just ban the bad people and be done with it. I find that it doesn't work to have a very formal set of rules and a very formal rules process. An internet forum is, at the end of the day, a hobby. If people are not enjoying themselves, they'll just not go to the place any longer. I won't tolerate racism, sexism, or general nastiness. If you think the alt-right is defensible, this is not the place for you. Go elsewhere.

I will go on from that to say it's not quite my take, and not going to be - but, and I speak as someone who found he had a very leftist OT going in 2012, and has actively recruited thoughtful conservatives in the years since, it's certainly somewhat close.  I have the profound egalitarian and free-speech impulses a North American should, and I've posted in this very thread repeatedly trying to come to grips with --- the end of the above helps me crystalize my thinking at a maybe better angle.  I don't do anything much to encourage people whose politics I agree with if I find their mode of expression and level of thoughtfulness poor.  If you, short of the beyond-the-pale stuff Cutlass concludes with, got nothin' better than Reagan-worship and party talking points, and aren't any fun and/or I stiffen when I see you posting - we can get unreflected right "thinking" anywhere, to the point it's a pain all over the nets.

I don't deem that acting like an adult, and I am not obligated to tolerate it being inflicted on my friends or myself in my own house, and I regret it having to be that way, but have an interesting perspective/be fun/something, or it's five minutes to sundown for you at AC2.  Period.

I explicitly mentioned right-wing trolling/buttholery because it's fair to say that's to be found All. Over. The. Internet., as I said before.

And well, our recent and ongoing national crisis does less than zero to dissuade me, but --- I realize there's bias showing in a glaring omission I made in only naming dumb right-wing stuff.  Society doesn't work w/o some little bit of day-to-day trust.  Just think about doing highway driving without trusting that other drivers don't mean to crash you; doesn't seem possible.

We've got to at least minimally pull together to have a civilization.

So if your belief set is, say, communism that sounds like it's from a book, not a person, if you are an extremist of ANY kind who believes in destruction, hate, anything that contributes to messing up the world I and my perfect niece Buster have to live in, you may not get into all that in your posts at AC2.  Content yourself to on-topic area discussion of the game or go away - and mind your manners, too, or I'll be forced to regulate you, and I hate doing that.  I also hate haters pulling us apart, what with I gotta live here.

God bless America, and all the other places.

[Buster's Uncle]

I've realized that a policy post I made in the Building a Community thread almost nine years ago ought to be repeated here to have rulesy stuff all in one thread.  I was an idealistic young 47, and had not yet been burned by years of dealing with volatile people.  There are edits, not least for spelling, and I do not regret or take back the tremendously positive and optimistic attitude.

Please focus, at any rate, on the Be An Adult stuff, which is The Heart Of The Law...

A few words about our management philosophy are in order.

You're all adults, and my partner and I are adults, and we all act like adults, and we're going to keep acting like adults, and treat each other like adults.  If you're not an adult, you're going to act like one anyway at AC2.

It's really as simple as that.  That is the rules here, in a nutshell.  Be a Man.  (Or Woman, as the case may be.)

Now, adults get to joke and clown and whoop it up - that's a lot of the purpose of this forum.  We're here to have a good time, and we're not crowding the saturation point for silliness yet.  Party on with your own bad self.  Just - be considerate, and always tease only those you respect.  The other members are my friends, and I have my friends' backs.  You, too, 'cause I'm your friend, too, and have your back.

Be man (or woman) enough to never hide behind your keyboard, and comport yourself like we can see you and know your real name and could punch you, if it came to that.  This has always been my credo online, because I am proud and I am not a coward.  Be proud.



I know a forum where acting like a yard-ape punk boy is virtually mandatory.  I know a forum where you are guaranteed to be treated like a kid.  I know a forum with a very malicious person in charge, and it's dead.  I know one that was born trying to find a happy balance, but the owners are virtual absentee landlords and their favorites can troll without let or hinderance.  Allowing everything is no good, allowing nothing is only good for kids, which is what they get.  Running a forum as a private kingdom and to settle scores has kept one from living, and never acting except hypocritically will be the death of another soon enough.

sisko and I have seen it done wrong, and we learned.  We know we're not better than you (or at least not because we have nerdbadges  ), and we hope that shows.  I'd rather persuade than give orders.  I expect you to be smart and mature and wise.  I expect those things of myself.

You can sass us to your heart's content under the same limitations you're under about anyone else; don't piss us off. 

We're here, we're active and on top of things, and we're pledged to try to make everyone happy and treat them with respect (including ourselves, as is only fair).  You can take that to the bank.

-I did not say we would succeed, just try.  I also take it back about "to your heart's content" - this has been a problem too often - never forget the end of the sentence.

I wish sisko's son would finish growing up - we are lessened for an owner turning out to have a life...