Proposed Changes to the Forum Guidelines: Please read post below before voting.

True that, I think that really applies to any site, though.

Wow!
I could actually feel my heart rate increase as I read the
Poll choices and Cocoanuts first post! Of course, I feel
anyone should have their right to post something like this,
but as I look around at what's going on in First Life, I was
horrified that some of these things might actually get enough
backing to pass! -- It's good to see that most all the people
here have their heads screwed on correctly (in MY opinion


I think we need to be VERY careful about #1, and what
we start to call "personal attacks" !

Although it sounds nice at first this can get very sticky.
I am certainly not for personal attacks, but here are
some examples..... all my own opinions on what is an
attack or not, but I'm sure many others feel the same
way.

I think what we REALLY need is more specific clearification
on what IS a personal attack and what is not... directly
from the Lindens.

My examples of a personal attack:

Joe Avatar, you are a **** !!
I can tell by your post you have obviously have 0 brain power.



I do NOT feel these are personal attacks:

1) "Joe Avatar lied to me! He said he'd give me a pony if I
gave him my new hovercraft."

REASON: If Joe Avatar is not an honest person, *I* would
certainly like to know exactly who to be cautious of !
I would HOPE that as adults we can all keep in mind that
most anything posted here is just someone's opinion anyway.
If YOU have a bad experience with Joe, I may not, but
it would be nice to know you did have a bad experience
with him!


2) If you could not name names, you would be SILENCED from
making statments like:

George Bush lied. Bill Clinton lied. Kofi Annan lied.
Sadam Hussein lied. Adolf Hilter lied. etc, etc

Perhaps unless the a lie can be clearly proved we should
all try to say "allegedly lied", or "lied in my opinion", but
I think it's VERY important that we ARE allowed to name
names! In fact, when I see someone doing something
either good or bad I plan on ALWAYS naming names unless
there are particular reasons not to in a given circumstance.

If I feel I was scammed by Joe Avatar, I'd like everyone else
to be cautious of him too. If Joe feels wrongly accused, I'd
like him to know I was talkng about HIM, so perhaps he'll
come forward and defend himself, or correct his actions.


If we could not name names then the news would not be able
to publish the "Enron" scandle/scam. We could not publish the
names of convicted or alleged sex offenders making it hard to
know who to watch out for.

I could really go ON and ON ! But hopefully everyone in the
"let's not name names" camp has a little bit better idea of why
naming is a good thing! Let's see MORE of it!



On a side note...
In one of the threads someone posted a message which contained
a statement like "There are Chinese nationals working online in SL
to accumulate Lindens for their their bosses."

Several people started screaming "you racist" and even called for
Jeska to take action!

WHAT?! Our world is trying to be SOOO polically correct that we're
all afraid to offend ANYONE at ANY cost? Good grief! If there are
Chinese nationals, or U.S. companies or European companies, etc
that are putting workers in to SL sweatshops I think we should be
able to say that. No one is suggesting that "ALL" Chinese are bad
because they are all practicing sweatshop tactics.... so ease up.
Would I get the same "you racist" response against me if I made
a comment about bad practices of some German people during WWII ??


I think what we need are some SPECIFIC examples of text
that the Lindens say "These are no-nos" and "These are okay".
That way everyone can have a better idea for what is acceptable
and won't keep calling foul over nothing, while also letting people
know specifically what they should not say to cross the bounds.

Not everyone has to like what they say... but at least we'll
have more in peace in knowing when to yell "abuse" or not,
rather than leaving it up to each person's subjective perception.

Gabrielle

Many great points Gabrielle, and most of them saved me from posting an even longer post, as I agree with the bulk of what you've said.

The only "parent-child" relationship I am interested in, is that between LL and myself. All observations of hypocrisy and self-righteousness aside, this is how I perceive these types of campaigns from other players.

It's basically telling LL, that the three plus years of thinking and planning they have done with regard to the ToS, CS, and guidelines, is errant and misguided. I find this presumptuous, especially coming from someone with no experience in this field. Someone who claims "this" or "that" is "against the ToS" at every turn, including laughing at people.

If these ideas ever came into existence, we wouldn't be able to discuss anything beyond disney movies here - and I don't even know if we could do that.

This is the type of thinking that leads us to RL scenarios we currently enjoy, such as - schoolkids not being allowed to keep score in kickball, because the team that loses may have their tender egos bruised.

I don't know when it happened, but at some point in the last few years, a contingent of folks have decided that they are going to force their overly PC mindset onto the rest of us.

I hear Coco saying that she is picked on. I would call it scrutinized, and just as in RL, when we campaign fervently for something, like - reform, a political office, what have you - your current and past lifestyle and deed/misdeeds will come under scrutiny. Those are the breaks, when you thrust yourself into the public eye with a sustained campaign, in this case, the SL public arena - especially when the campaign is based on subjective claims that the current constitution (ToS) is flawed and skewed, or that one's subjective opinion that certain people's behavior warrants censoring us all.

A great deal of all this quarelling could be avoided, if the folks who are unhappy with current forum conditions would use the tools LL has given us - mute people who cause you to become irritated (liberal use of caps), and report people if you really feel that they have broken the ToS.

You knock the teeth out of your own argument when you refuse to report something that you think is truly a violation. It causes one's integrity to be questioned.

Already decided to do that in another thread, Nolan. As for the poll, I'm waiting till after the weekend to do my summation of it.

coco

Cocoanut, thank you for the effort you've made summarizing your POV, framing concepts, and trying to justify them. I found your initial post to be thoughtful, balanced, and to the point.

Concepts are usually fairly easy; process and execution are always the big issues. While I found some of your concepts to be very tempting, I'm concerned about turning these ideas into concrete practices. To your credit, you've given some thought to process, and I appreciate that. And I know that this is a "rough draft". Much more thought, however, needs to be given to process and execution, if you really intend on going forward with this.

Eliminating the language disclaimers in #1 is problematic because the implications could swing enforcement too far the other way. I would not want to feel too restricted in my satirical reaction to people who use words like "tootz", for example. On the other hand, you have a point about the forum guidelines: I can see the need for a further explanation of what language might be acceptable and what might not be - a real "theory of operation", for example.

Regarding #2, how do you propose to strengthen enforcement? Merely by issuing "more formal and informal warnings"? Again, I think such an action might have undesirable repercussions - such as stifling not only the overbearing, paternalistic behavior of the majority, but also the junkyard-dog behavior of the minority in pressing its point of view again and again. Details on process and execution are especially needed here.

#3 and #4, I strongly agree with - in principle. Here again, however, the details of enforcement, and how to deal with the inevitable exceptions that will have to be taken, are lacking. For example, oversight would probably be needed for mods who have the power outlined in #3 - to insure fairness and avoid appearance of bias issues. And you'd have to address the problem of clunky administration that might result from solutions like oversight.

I agree with Lianne and others about #5. While I understand the issue you're trying to address, the concept you outline is far too vague. And because of that, enforcement process and execution would be nearly impossible. I can't think of a suggestion on how tighten it up, either. I say drop it. Or incorporate it as part of a heavily-revamped #2.

A mixed bag. I wouldn't blame you if you gave up at this point, but if you choose to substantially modify and add to these proposals, and you can avoid a slugfest with others, I'd consider your additional efforts.

Just wondering about the results and how they will be percieved. As it stands right now, there are 79 votes for None of the above. But I think we need to consider that the total voters were 111, so that makes it much more than the 55.63 the Poll Results has it listed as. It would see to be 71.17 if everyone who voted none of the above didn't not indeed vote for and of the changes.

What I am afraid of hearing is that the numbers are too small and of course that no one really reads the forums, so I conducted a small random poll.

In half an hour, I asked 9 different people if they read the forums and all 9 said yes. Some said every once in a while.

My thinking on this is twofold, yes it was a small sampling but still to get yes across the board is telling. Also, when some people saw the poll and that it was already swinging in one direction, they don't bother to vote.

But even without that thought, the people who cared the most one way or the other, voted.

From: Seth Kanahoe

Thank you for spewing sense into this thread.

I am also afraid of these results being hastily dismissed as small and thus insignificant, as an excuse to continue a campaign for tighter muzzles on speech in the forum. I think it's telling, though, that vBulletin records nearly 1300 views of this thread as of this posting. 1300 views with only 51 replies and 100 or so votes indicates, to me, considerable indifference to the subject presented.

In any case, were the margins narrower or if they swayed from one side to the other over the course of the poll, I think one could try to make the argument that the sample is too small or simply not useful. As it is, the distribution of opinion has remained completely static since the poll was posted, with a dramatic lead shown for "None of the above" at all times. I think the poll has established a valid representation of user opinion, assuming no statistically improbable shifts in the next 24 hours (tampering).

My analysis:

Looks like 79 voted for "none," and 32 voted for one or more. We just have to assume no one who voted for none also actually voted for one or more.

My figures correspond with yours, April with slightly more than 71% voting for none of the proposed changes, and slightly less than 29% voting for one or more changes.

If you want to round it off to the nearest quarter, 3 in 4 people feel none of the proposed changes is desirable. One in four feels that at least one change is desirable.

As to the sample size, I have always been of the practical philosophy that what goes on in most forums IS indicative, most often, of general attitudes among all players. I look at it like national politics and elections. You never get all the people involved in those, either. But the ones who care are involved, and they can be taken as a very good indication of general feelings - and the size of the groups holding those feelings - on any given topic.

Statistical samples are of course QUITE small for all research studies. Of course, a forum sample is biased, in that someone didn't go cull a typical group from all players. Game companies do that when they want to. But another important source of info for them is what goes on on the forums. And I really don't believe that generally forums differ much from the average player. In general, if something is said on the forums, it's important. I never believed in this business of, "Well, we're only 2% of the players, so what we say doesn't count."

1. The most popular answer so far was (although there is no official end to this poll, and I certainly don't discount anyone who wishes to vote who hasn't yet) having the rules against personal attacks enforced more strictly, with 22 people feeling that would be a good idea.

This was surprising to me, since I felt that it was so sort of nebulous and hard to state that I ALMOST didn't put it in in the first place! I expected to get a bunch of flack on that one, because it was so nebulous. But on reflection, people have felt attacked on all sides, so it isn't so surprising after all.

2. The second most popular answer, with 14 votes, was having individuals removed from a thread rather than having the thread closed down.

3. Third is getting rid of the rule that says suspension/banning from the forums means suspension/banning from the game. That garnered 12 votes, or somewhat less than 10% of the total of those voting.

4. A sentence added about thinly-veiled threaats had 8 votes, and a sentence about terms like liar, etc., being "strongly discouraged" being removed received 7 votes.

How I voted:

1. I voted for all the options except the last one, about adding something to the Forum Guidelines saying that thinly-veiled attacks (those where the person isn't literally named).

The reason I didn't vote for that one is I didn't vote until I had read a number of the responses, and they convinced me that this would either be (a) highly subjective, easily gamed, and cause more trouble for the mods than it would save, or else (b) it would be so obvious anyway that you could report it and the mod could easily see that someone specific was the target.

2. Had I waited longer and read more of the responses, I would also not have voted for removing individuals who cause thread degeneration from the thread. The responses I read convinced me that this would be something of a logistical nightmare for the mods. And beyond that, I started to think about the people getting removed, who would be bothered by being singled out, and start saying to the mods, "what about him? her? what about the person who STARTED this messy thread in the first place?"

It's much easier for them just to close the thread, AND it doesn't diminish the power everyone already has to report posts which seem to be derailing or disrespectful to others.

And (I almost forgot) I would not have voted for removing that sentence about "liars, etc." The reason for that is as I read on, it became clear to me that this was actually a valuable way to clue in others about scams and such. We had a dreadful problem in TSO, especially toward the beginning, when scammers would actually ADVERTISE their "free money" scams on the classified section of the forums, and there was nothing we could do or say about it!

I never realized that's what they were getting at, with that sentence - rather than inviting a free-for-all of hostile behavior - until I read the responses pointing that out. I prefer to keep that benefit rather than have any benefit caused by removing a sentence which might be mistaken by others as it was by me.

(I notice now Enabran's response. As you can see, Enabran, I've decided, too, that it's ok to go ahead with analysis now. Technically, this is Monday, and it has been two weekend days.)

The value of the survey:

It's been asked, what is the point? The point was to see what we think about these things, and for the Lindens to see what we think about these things

As to how they will be perceived, hopefully they will be perceived as exactly what they are. For us all to learn from. As Seth said, this was a "rough draft." The items were already honed from previous discussion on this topic. This exercise has narrowed them down.

Let me stop here and address Seth's post in a separate post, where I can see it more easily.

coco

P.S. Enabran, we have to assume no tampering. We have to assume everyone only voted one time. That's the assumption we always have to go on, and we can assume that any such tampering spreads itself out equally over all polls over time anyway, if that helps any.

Incorrect. The most popular answer was 'None of the above' and your blithe ignoring of it is part of the reason your credibility is in shreds.

What you have done in your post is completely ignore what is obviously the majority opinion in favor of pursuing your agenda.

Do not think it goes unnoticed.

The most popular answer among those who voted for any proposition.. As I said, slightly over 71% of those responding, or roughly three in four, felt that none of the changes was desirable.

coco

Ok - I'm confused... 79 voted none... 32 voted one or more...

But 1. was the most popular answer?

How does that work? I'm willing to suspend my disbelief of the current figures (showing choice 1. as being the LEAST popular - because I didn't see them when you posted)... but even your own citing in the first paragraph shows the last choice 'none of the above' as having more votes..

I'm genuinely confused.

Siggy.

Does this mean we have another draft of forum reforms to look forward to?

As I said, of the choices which did receive votes, that one was the most popular. As I made quite clear, slightly over 71% of the respondants felt NONE of the options was desirable, or roughly three in four of the respondants.

coco

I would ask you if you are really this obtuse, but you have already answered my question... as well as the one posed by Enabran:



You have no intention of accepting that what you are trying to force upon others is not desired. You will simply take what minority percentage you have and proceed to act as if it were the majority.

The only purpose you had in posting this poll was to hope for anyone to vote for anything other than 'none of the above'. You are incapable of accepting that your position is in the profound minority and you seemingly want to cram your 'how it should be' down the throats of everyone else.

You do not understand that it will not work. You do not understand that you are creating your own problem.

How utterly sad.... I hate it when my predictions come out right like this. (sigh)

1. Yes, as I forgot to put in my post above, and just now edited to do it, that one about the sentences about "liars, scammers, etc." was one I also would not have voted for had I read more of the responses. My reasoning has more to do with my memory of TSO when we couldn't say a WORD against people actually advertising their scams! Seems to me that the sentence now is about as close as you can get toward giving us the go-ahead to warn each other, and that is an important ability to have.

2. As for more strictly enforcing the rules against attacks, as I said (but you probably haven't yet had a chance to read) I almost didn't put that one in because it was so nebulous. But given that it was the most popular one, I think that feeling attacked is a problem for at least 22 people, or slightly over

CRAP!! hold the presses while I do a bit of math.

coco

OK, never mind - I THINK April's and my math was right. If it isn't, somebody tell me.

Cienna I am not DONE. Could you please give me a little time here?

coco

I would ask you if you are really this obtuse, but you have already answered my question... as well as the one posed by Enabran:



You have no intention of accepting that what you are trying to force upon others is not desired. You will simply take what minority percentage you have and proceed to act as if it were the majority.

The only purpose you had in posting this poll was to hope for anyone to vote for anything other than 'none of the above'. You are incapable of accepting that your position is in the profound minority and you seemingly want to cram your 'how it should be' down the throats of everyone else.

You do not understand that it will not work. You do not understand that you are creating your own problem.

How utterly sad.... I hate it when my predictions come out right like this. (sigh)

And no, I think you've had quite enough time to grasp that the majority is STILL the majority... and you simply refuse to do so.

... wanting more strict enforcement of the rules against person attacks is a problem for 22 people, or slightly under 1 in five of the respondants. So, though I don't have any answers to how this would be done anyway - which is one reason why I almost didn't put it in - apparently one in five of us would be happier if it were more strictly enforced. For what that's worth.

I'm a bit confused by what you mean by numbers 3 and 4, because they are strikingly different to me. Dropping the rule that bans you from the game if you are banned from the forums - no administrative problem there; it just goes back to being the way it used to be.

I agree that the thing about removing people from threads on an individual basis would wind up being worse than what it was intended to treat (again, that's also in my post above). And the last one I didn't vote for in the first place.

Thanks for your input, Seth!

I'll arrive at conclusions and my own personal feelings and intentions in my Discussion portion, upcoming.

You know what, Cienna? It is difficult for me to get on with the Discussion portion here, when you are busy writing it FOR me beforehand.

coco

P.S. If I really wanted people to not vote for what they really wanted, and instead vote for what I wanted, I wouldn't have put the "none of the above" in the poll in the first place.

You're missing the point. If you never intended to accept the reality that the vast majority think 'none of the above' is the right option, you may as well not have bothered putting it in there.

Or do you not get how ignoring the majority result completely undermines any credibility you might have had?

Every scientific paper has certain elements, and the presentation is organized into those elements.

Hypothesis: I had none, and if I had had any, as I mentioned on another thread to April, it would be that all of my propositions would go down in flames. But I would also have hypothesized that some of the propositions would garner some responses of agreement with them.

Method: Putting up the poll

Data: It's up there at the top of the poll

Analysis of data: Done. Prematurely in a way, yes, and I'm not discounting other people's opinions yet to come, but the time, as Enabran also judged separately, seemed right.

Discussion: Here is where you get to give YOUR slant on things. So - as of right now, my slant (which can always change, given input from others) is as follows, and remember - this is not the analysis. This is the part where I get to talk, and where I get to give my personal feelings on what the study showed.

Discussion

My working hypothesis - that the propositions would go down in flames - has been largely substantiated. However, the minority who did agree with one or more of the propositions comprised 32 out of 111 respondants (to the moment when I took the results, which have changed already now), or roughly 28% of respondants.

Having results of one in every four respondants thinking at least one of the propositions would be a good idea was, given my hypothesis above, pretty comforting.

I would also expect some bias to be introduced into the poll by virtue of the person presenting it. It is impossible to measure any such bias, if any, but I believe it is likely more options might have been agreed with had the propositions been put forward by someone other than myself. I would nonetheless give this bias rather slight attention, as the poll was totally anonymous, and most people are completely honest under such circumstances. Even so, it may be that a few of the "none of the above" responses were actually votes against myself rather than against the ideas.

Given that we have almost three in four respondants voting against all the options, and given that I expected even more than that, what remains of interest to me (and was always of greatest interest to me) are the problem areas that have been delineated.

Although I voted for it myself, it was surprising, to me, that significantly more people thought that stricter enforcement of the rule against personal attacks would be a good change to see than any other option. This tells me that, of those who see any changes needed to address forum problems, that particular one would be most helpful.

My own personal favorite is the one about forum banning equating to game banning, and I'm disappointed that didn't get greater agreement. This one is my personal favorite because I lived with it both ways in TSO, and speech was definitely less free in the beginning, when that rule was in effect.

As I said earlier, of the other propositions, one of them I didn't vote for myself, and two others I changed my mind about after discussion.

About freedom of speech: Despite what some people think, freedom of speech is one of my highest values, and I have never wished to trounce that freedom. I think we can all agree that these forums are freer than many others, and that the mods bend over backwards to allow freedom of speech.

What I am against is freedom of speech when it impinges on another poster's freedom of expression and enjoyment of the forums, without fear of harrassment or personal attacks or piling up on by other posters. Because that then trounces on that individual's freedom of speech. (Remember, this is the section where I get to say what I think.)

What I hope has been accomplished by this poll:

1. That we all get a better idea of where everyone stands on these issues.

2. That any problem areas have been more carefully delineated. This isn't - and never was - a thing where we "vote in" stuff. My dearest wish, of course, would have been that 500 people voted against the forum/game/suspension/ban thing, but that didn't happen. But among those who would like to see some changes, we can see what is most important to them.

3. That the mods will use this information as loose, but valuable, survey information. They can conclude (at the point in time when I started to analyze the results) that most people, by a margin of 3 to 1, disagree with the need for any of these proposed changes. Of those who would like to see some of these changes, they can view the poll results and use them - as we do - to inform their own points of view and actions regarding what would be most helpful for the forums.

4. That those who keep saying that I am just one person in wanting any of these changes will now understand that although I represent a minority, I'm not just one person. Eleven other people, out of 110 others, agree with me, for instance, that the rule equating forum bans with in-game bans should be rescinded. That is one of ten. When I lobby against that rule, I am representing 10% of us.

Where am I going from here?

Nowhere, really. I do have a life, and this has been a job. If there had been great support of getting rid of that banning rule, for example, I would have put it in the voting propositions section of the forum. As it is, the proposition that garnered the most support doesn't even involve changing anything specific. So it has already done its job, of proposing to the mods that one in five of us would like stricter enforcement of the rule against making personal attacks.

As for the rule linking forum suspensions/bans to in-game suspensions/bans, I imagine that subject will come around again some day, and yes, you will hear from me about that then.

As for me personally, I paid attention to that surprising 22 people who want greater enforcement of the rule against personal attacks, and, taking it into consideration with the fact that my other method hasn't worked these four months and has just made me look bad, along with frequent and often heartfelt advice that I should avail myself of the reporting option, I have decided to avail myself of it.

That still doesn't mean a whole lot, though. It means that if I get really mad, I will report posts, rather than blow up about them (hopefully I won't still blow up about them). The good news is - most of the time, I'm not mad no matter what people say, so I imagine I won't be doing that much reporting anyway. But, I am giving myself that option now, since nothing else has worked.

coco

If you still haven't voted, don't let this already-presented analysis stop you. All additional information is still valuable.

coco

Face it coco, Prok is gone. He is NEVER coming back. NOTHING you say will EVER change that.

Sorry but that made me giggle.

Rules:

1. No laughing near the original poster's threads.
   
2. No pooftas!
   
3. No laughing about self-selected studies with agenda laden bias.
   
4. No pooftas!
   
5. There is no rule #5.
   
6. NO POOFTAS!
   
7. When the data are meaningless the analysis is always useful.
   
8. More sheep dip!