Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Conduct in this forum
pwhodges:
Administrator Comment This thread was made when the forum had developed a habit of behaving badly. These days, the forum behaves well; but this thread still records what was then felt to be bad behaviour, and what would be again if the situation arose.
EDIT:
After this first message led to a couple of large posts having nothing to do with the WCDT, I split them into a separate topic to make it easier if anyone decides to follow them up.
Paul
--- Quote from: cuzsis on 08 Dec 2010, 09:13 ---Why would Jef care about what we write in the forums?
--- End quote ---
He's allowed... And while you're a guest in his forum, how about spelling his name right? Just because it's the Internet doesn't mean that lower standards of courtesy are any more acceptable, even if they are regrettably more common.
muffin_of_chaos:
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 08 Dec 2010, 09:21 ---
--- Quote from: cuzsis on 08 Dec 2010, 09:13 ---Why would Jef care about what we write in the forums?
--- End quote ---
He's allowed...
--- End quote ---
I think that answer is assumed to be a sort of Primal Truth, but it might be more effective as a deterrent if you could add in a gritty marine's vocal inflections to make it sound like "none of your business, random peon" and then a significant glance that says "this forum is a service, not a right, so respect the barest wishes of its master or at some point he'll take it away."
But most of us just assume that that's what the ellipses mean.
--- Quote ---And while you're a guest in his forum, how about spelling his name right? Just because it's the Internet doesn't mean that lower standards of courtesy are any more acceptable, even if they are regrettably more common.
--- End quote ---
I think acceptable is an odd term to use. Acceptable as in "you will be in some way restricted by teh authoritehs if you spell Jeph's name wrong more than once" will work, though it isn't in the forum rules (while being nice to newbies is). The forum rules might need to be updated.
As for acceptable in the sense of: you should self-regulate by constantly worrying about it, I think in general the perception of the general Internet is different, which unfortunately applies to QC as long as the policy is to let anyone with an email in. So people who are, for instance, bad at spelling, or have radical political ideas, or tend towards trolling without being a real troll, are generally considered "acceptable." People in forums tend to appreciate or tolerate such people until the forum gets to a certain size, at which point the marginal amenity of the ideas shared by such people are lower than the average disamenity of their cruditude. Because you can only think about so many ideas at a time, and only so many thoughts will provoke common interest.
of corse, its all semanticz;; BBut semanticz r were bothe teh intersting and the meny futre-imprtnit efex tend 2 happen. And what any sort of discussion forum is for.
:psyduck:
fffffFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: muffin_of_chaos on 08 Dec 2010, 15:04 ---"this forum is a service, not a right, so respect the barest wishes of its master or at some point he'll take it away." But most of us just assume that that's what the ellipses mean.
--- End quote ---
Just so. But the forums, simply by their existence, have a life apart from Jeph, and I prefer not to invoke his name unnecessarily.This part of the forum needs to be better controlled, not because it offends Jeph, but because it offends many people who are involved in running it, and at this instant, me.
--- Quote ---Acceptable as in "you will be in some way restricted by teh authoritehs if you spell Jeph's name wrong more than once" will work
--- End quote ---
No, no, no, this is nothing to do with authority - it's simply common courtesy to spell any guy's name right, and so easy if it's there in front of you already. You might (possibly) not care - but you can't assume that of others.
--- Quote ---As for acceptable in the sense of: you should self-regulate by constantly worrying about it, I think in general the perception of the general Internet is different
--- End quote ---
But what is "the general Internet"? I spend quite a lot of time in forums, and no other that I visit takes the view that careless use of language is some sort of right. (I also work in a well-known educational institution, which tries to maintain consistency in language; note the phrasing - I am not prescriptive in language, but I do believe that allowing language to fragment unnecessarily tends to hinder communication.) Obviously there is variation - people here are from many countries, and quite a number don't have any form of English as their native language; some may be dyslexic - all this is acknowledged and accepted. But courtesy between individuals is the very basis of society, whether on the Internet or not; if you can only manage it by constantly worrying about it, then you probably need more practice!
--- Quote ---or have radical political ideas, or tend towards trolling without being a real troll, are generally considered "acceptable."
--- End quote ---
Trolling is trolling. And when did radical political ideas become marginal? I've been a radical all my life.
est:
--- Quote from: muffin_of_chaos on 08 Dec 2010, 15:04 ---As for acceptable in the sense of: you should self-regulate by constantly worrying about it, I think in general the perception of the general Internet is different, which unfortunately applies to QC as long as the policy is to let anyone with an email in. So people who are, for instance, bad at spelling, or have radical political ideas, or tend towards trolling without being a real troll, are generally considered "acceptable." People in forums tend to appreciate or tolerate such people until the forum gets to a certain size, at which point the marginal amenity of the ideas shared by such people are lower than the average disamenity of their cruditude. Because you can only think about so many ideas at a time, and only so many thoughts will provoke common interest.
--- End quote ---
I don't really care what the "general internet" perception is. When you're at a certain place on the internet it's common courtesy to abide by whatever rules are in place, and if you don't have the decency to abide by that then I don't want you here. I certainly don't care overly much if you are a bad speller, or if you put forward your radical political ideas in a coherent fashion as opposed to being a goddamned wingnut, but trolling for example is against the rules of the board, and will get you ejected quickly.
As for tolerating certain things up until a certain size, if you knew the history of the board you would find it's been sliding the opposite way for some time now. When we started this board it was founded on a relatively close-knit bunch of people who transplanted from another board. If you didn't fit in you were IP banned quite quickly, because we just didn't want to deal with that sort of shit. We've had to learn to relax more and more as QC (and the board) has grown, but there are certain core elements set out in the rules thread that we still expect people to abide by. They're really not all that hard to follow. "No porn, no gore, no trolling and try not to be too much of a dick to anyone" covers off the major parts, and I would like to think that very few people would disagree with those requests.
Jeph's also asked people not to be creepy with his characters on his forum. I really don't think that is an unreasonable request either. Being that they are characters he's invested a lot of time and thought in he has a connection to them, so seeing people talking about them lewdly annoys him. I don't know about you, but if I threw a party and some jerk was talking about my sister or daughter in a crude fashion and ignored repeated requests to stop I would put him out on his ass pronto.
MillionDollar Belt Sander:
One thing that bugs the hell out of me about these situations... you get morons in here or any forum who invoke either "this is the internet this is how people behave" or "freedom of speech" when rules are applied.
Neither of them apply on a privately hosted privately moderated forum. Just like life "out there" a police officer has the authority to arrest you for breaking the law, the moderators on a discussion forum have the authority to kick you off the forum.
I run two forums and I do not put up with a TENTH of the shit I see going on here. Woe be the day that I ever get asked to moderate (HIGHLY unlikely) because I'll clean house.
People need to cool their collective shit and follow some basic common sense rules here. This forum would be a much better place if you... if they... did.
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