Forum Guidelines

Since the last thread that this info came from, seemed to go on a lot about nothing, I will start a thread here. Please try to stay on topic.

Do not argue with a person just because you don’t like them; try to respond to an idea, and if you don't really have an intellectual response to their idea or a legitimate critique to make of their debating point, don't bother to reply to them.

Be conscious that the 784 people who were once logged on this forum -- the largest number ever logged on -- is only .02 percent of the total population of some 28,000, and that only 5 percent of the total population ever bothers to read the forums, let alone what you write on them. Adjust your humility accordingly.

Don’t hasten to a thread to rebut a person you’ve acquired a dislike for in another thread if you have nothing to say.

Do not start a thread or a post naming an individual player, or which is really just a backhanded way of insulting them. It's against the TOS.

Don’t hide an insult in a rhetorical question, or package a vituperative repost in an alleged generic statement that everyone can see is targeted at one person.

Don’t question somebody’s sanity or intelligence in responding to something you disagree with.

Don’t dredge up real or imagined RL information about a person to make a point – this is the lamest of the lame in an argument and only reveals you are losing the debate.

Try to offer factual statistics rather than monkey math, based on clear and easy-to-understand formulas accessible to all. Remember that figures lie, and liars figure.

Cut the poetry, give me the numbers.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Try to offer a reasonable and rational counter-argument to an argument you see, rather than ridiculing, denouncing, picking apart, twisting, etc. someone’s sentences.

Ask yourself whether what you wrote could stand up as an idea of its own if it were all by itself in a thread, not responding to someone else’s post.

Don’t call people names or use swear words – if you have to do that, you have already shown that you have lost an argument.

Rather than respond line by line to a post you quote in your own post, try to reply to the gist of the previous poster, writing a whole paragraph to sum up your thoughts.

Omnibus answers with a line or a paragraph for 2 or 4 or 6 people at a time are a good way to keep the forums readable.

Don’t assume you have the only access to the truth.

Listen to other people’s opinions and try to acknowledge when they have said something helpful or relevant.

Don’t place people on ignore.

Put out your own positive ideas in a thread rather than ranting against someone else’s ideas you find in a thread you don’t like.

Don’t publish irrelevant photos that spam up the forums.

Stay on topic

- Don't tell lies about people.

- Don't neg rate people on appearance or building when you have a forum dispute with them (unless the disagreement has to do with their appearance or building)




I think that this is all the rules that where suggested in this thread. Does anyone have a valid reason why any of these suggestions would not work well, or maybe more that could be added to the list? I know that these are not set in stone, but maybe we could have more useful discussion of what would make these forums better?

Well, just one, that it tramples over freedom of speech.

From other thread:

I think that each rating needs to stand on its own. There is no way to tell if someone got a triple neg rating, or just got 3 neg ratings from 3 different people. I do see your point in the triple neg rating, but unless you can see that it is part of the triple neg rating, it is a bad idea to do.

Don't bait people on the forums.

YAY! Thank you!

I would also add: What happense in the forums stays in the forums.

People should not take these debates and the insults and vitriol, and bring them into the world. Either SL or RL. I think that is the worst. Debate argue, love and hate all you will in here, but don't use SL or RL as an excuse to get back at someone.

I you hate me here, then avoid me in the game, but don't come and attack my build, or blow me up, or send annoying proms to follow me around and bump me. And for gods sakes don't track people down IRL and get even with them

Everyone seems to think they are 100% right and anyone who disagrees with them is a total moron. I really don't suffer from those kinds of illusions. Here is part of what I posted in that other thread and it applies as well here:

OK Prokofy I admit I unmuted you and actually agree with your post. I see no reason for anyone in here to insult others with name calling, trying to twist their posts around to make them seem like fools and questioning the integrity of their opinions.

Unless a person works for Linden Labs whatever they say is only an opinion. Last night when I stated I didn't feel I was getting the service I was paying for a few people tried to turn it around and make it seem like it was all my fault because I drive a SUV and other such nonsence.

I don't get it.

Humanity constantly strives for ideals it can never fully attain because the nature of humanity is to move ever toward self-improvement and actualization. Ideals are important because they remind us that we have potential to be more than the sum total of our experiences, or the sum total of the opinions of those around us.

With that said, humanity also has limited tolerance for having its ideals denigrated, mocked, and used to further less noble efforts.

In a setting where an external authority has committed to upholding the community standard, there is a vested trust in that authority to do so. When that standard is not upheld consistantly, there is a both a breach of that trust as well as a belief, over time, that no correction will take place... and, as is also very human, individuals decide to take matters into their own hands out of frustration and offense that the things they find important within a community are being dragged unceremoniously through the mud.

All of this being a long-winded way of saying that the best way to make any forum better is to have consistant and visible moderation.

Linden Labs has recently made statement they intend upon doing so.

Personally, I am anxious to see it.

I thought they were suggestions? Since when do regular users determine the guidelines of the forums? I thought the Lindens did that? Was there an announcement I missed?

/me is confused.

Users sure don't determine guidelines.

The Lindens have their own ROC and TOS which Pathfinder has links to in his recent post about personal attacks.

You would think those would be all you'd need.

But I find that bad behaviour and bad practices know no bounds, and it is good to devise a list of best practices.

These include things like "don't name call and swear" or "don't make a rhetorical question or a generic statement that is merely a thinly disguised new personal attack in disguise". These are things we all know go on in the forums constantly, but the existing TOS don't quite get at them.

The law says "don't make personal attacks". The best practices tell you the 101 ways not to do that since people are very inventive.

I posted my "guidelines" merely for discussion purposes and to handily out the usual tactics used by the usual forum harpies. It was a documentation exercise for the archives. Stoneself had some kind of "maxims" that struck me as just not very effective and I wanted to put out some alternatives.

Stone Self posted these maxims:

Gricean Maxims

Maxim of Quality:

* TRUTH
* Do not say what you believe to be false.
* Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of Quantity:

* INFORMATION
* Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.
* Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Maxim of Relation:

* RELEVANCE
* Be relevant.

Maxim of Manner:

* CLARITY
* Avoid obscurity of expression.
* Avoid ambiguity.
* Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
* Be orderly.

There is nothing wrong with any of these, if one is capable of objective scrutinization.

Some folks just can't stand it when someone posts something positive.

This is how these things invariably begin.

a) someone makes a post in one of "someone's" self ascribed areas of expertise.

b) "someone" inevitably has to post cut downs simply because they didn't post or think of it.

c) thread erupts.

d) thread locked.

e) "someone" starts another thread, ignoring the mods call to give it a rest.

f) that thread erupts immediately, and is locked.

g) "someone" invades another thread to continue the "good fight".

And on it goes, day in, day out.

the gricean maxims are descriptive. not prescriptive.
they aren't suppose to have an effect.

most people who wish to communicate well use these maxims instinctively.

Maxim of Quality:

* TRUTH
* Do not say what you believe to be false.
* Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of Quantity:

* INFORMATION
* Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.
* Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

Maxim of Relation:

* RELEVANCE
* Be relevant.

Maxim of Manner:

* CLARITY
* Avoid obscurity of expression.
* Avoid ambiguity.
* Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
* Be orderly.

If you call me a bitch on the forums you can damn well expect me to neg rate your behavior. These forums ARE SL, the TOS applies here and you wouldnt be here if you were not an SL resident so what happens in the forums has an effect on what may happen inworld.

I've neg rated people for being asshat's in the forums and i stand by that. The argument of "what happens in the forums stays in the forums" is b.s. and is just a way to say what you want to someone without reprisal.

If you wouldn't act rude to someone inworld, then don't act rude to them on the forums.

Briana Dawson

I agree to a point Briana. I just don't think people should be firing off triple negs for forum behavior. That is what the behavior category is for. Adding on appearance and building negs is just being vindictive.

Yea triple negs are usually done out of spite and rarely justified.

Briana Dawson

Point = proven.

This individual never accepts their are the instigating force for practically every piece of inflammation happening here.

This individual never quite manages to grasp the blindness to their own issues that is demonstrated so regularly.... their need to label everyone else as the problem is often the problem and practially every shred of divisiveness and aggitation related to it is created, nursed, and fostered by them.

This individual would like to pretend they are some innocent wounded, instead of taking responsibility for their constant attention whoring as a disruptive and negative presence.

The level of dissonance this individual demonstrates on a daily basis is truly astonishing. The archive is filled with their bile and venom and this latest effort is yet another demonstration of the same. And yet, as usual, this individual insists this is somehow indicative of everyone except themselves.

In typical fashion, this individual comes to the common area, flings feces on the wall, then insists it is every one else's fault that the room looks so shitty.

It it weren't so pitiful, it would be humorous.

I'm still confused. I read that thread and you didn't discuss much, you mostly repeated things from the first post of the thread when someone else posted something. Not much discussion seemed to go on at all in that thread actually. Oh well, I guess I'll just go back to looking for nice textures for my Dark Life teleporter when SL is finally back up.

these suggestions are things most people strive to follow - with some lapses for passion. a few people violated them consistently for various reasons; having one of these people post these suggestions actuall diminishes their impact - this is not a comment on their validity so much as social effects.

these aren't rules that should be enforced by the moderators, but it would be nice if everyone followed them.

This is a nice list of suggestions. Sadly I think if people pay attention to them at all, they will simply pick and choose the ones they agree with, omitting the ones they don't. In other words, people are going to post the way they want to post.

The reason I had to do that -- to keep repeating the same rules -- is because these people are impossible to talk to. They are not interlocutors. One can really despair of having a normal conversation with them. They constantly prevaricate, posture, pontificate, pounce, punch out, etc. committing all those sins I listed. They can never have a normal debate! This certain minority of the forums always have to be printing ass pictures and making condescending remarks!

Don’t hide an insult in a rhetorical question, or package a vituperative repost in an alleged generic statement that everyone can see is targeted at one person.

Try to offer a reasonable and rational counter-argument to an argument you see, rather than ridiculing, denouncing, picking apart, twisting, etc. someone’s sentences.

Yes, like I said Stoneself:

The reason I had to do that -- to keep repeating the same rules -- is because these people are impossible to talk to. They are not interlocutors. One can really despair of having a normal conversation with them. They constantly prevaricate, posture, pontificate, pounce, punch out, etc. committing all those sins I listed

Don’t hide an insult in a rhetorical question, or package a vituperative repost in an alleged generic statement that everyone can see is targeted at one person.

Try to offer a reasonable and rational counter-argument to an argument you see, rather than ridiculing, denouncing, picking apart, twisting, etc. someone’s sentences.

Wasted time, Stoneself. That individual is incapable of seeing in themselves the very things they accuse others of... incapable of taking personal responsibility... incapable of maintaining any level of decorum... incapable of adhering to the ideals they so stridently call upon others to maintain... incapable of anything other than derision, denigration, instigation, and accusation.

If you enjoy wasting your time, my apologies. But do realise the pathology and understand that it will not change.