Discussion: Guidelines for forum posts

[Keith Selmes]

These rules might be worth a look
http://www.ephotozine.com/terms-and-conditions/forum-7

That's a commercial site that gets it's revenue from advertising, so para 3(a) through 3(g) is about protecting it's business interests, and probably not relevant.
The last item on section 3 might be interesting though "Topics that promote rival sites aren't allowed in the forum"
Note that it doesn't prevent discussion of other sites, or recommendations in answer to a query.

Para 11 forbids the creation of multiple identities. There are good practical reasons why we can and should be able to have alts on Kitely, but they should not be allowed in forums. (Although there needs to be provision for changing the name used in forums)

[Marstol Nitely]

The thing we are trying to accomplish with these guidelines is that people will be able to continue having heated debates about issues but will refrain from having heated debates about each other - thereby hopefully removing the need for people to come to each other's defense and reducing the likelihood of internal strife in the Kitely community. In other words, disagreement about issues okay, personal attacks not okay. If people have a personal problem with each other then the forums isn't the right place to discuss them - that's what PMs and inworld IMs are for.

I can live with that. Thank you for clearing things up for me.

[Dot Matrix]

By coincidence, one of the ex-moderator volunteers at the Myst Online: Uru Live forums, Mac_Fife, has just posted a couple of articles about forum guidelines and moderating a virtual-world forum:
Moderating on the MO:UL forums
Forum rules is tricky

For a little more of the background, see the recent post Obduction vs. Uru Live on the blog Nalates' Things and Stuff, especially the section on page 2 headed "The Politics and the Social Side" (Nal and I experienced the griefers' activities first hand at various times -- it was not pleasant).

The context Kitely operates in is very different. But there is still the potential for trolling and other unpleasant behaviours.

[Tully McLeod]

I've always felt that the only proper way to have a good useful forum is to have it free, open, and unmoderated.

I think history has proven me wrong time and time again. I rarely participate in any forums on the Internet anymore because they always seem to slide quickly into uncivil drivel.

I think Ilan is trying to address two issues here, one is protecting Kitely and himself from legal problems. The second is trying to keep the Kitely forums a useful and friendly space where.

I can't say too much about the first issue. I think we live in an insane world where people can sue over trivial things and the cost of defending yourself against merit-less charges can easily bankrupt you. So while I'm saddened that has to be a consideration, I don't blame Ilan for taking steps to protect himself and the company and that has to be a consideration when the guidelines are created.

The second issue is difficult because I have a rather cynical view of its feasibility. But I think to the extent that it is possible it requires a clear declaration of the environment that we want to create, and a concerted effort on all of our parts to maintain it. As has been pointed out, such a declaration is a pretty subjective thing. Where is the line between a legitimate criticism and a personal attack? What constitutes a negative expression? Those can be difficult, if not impossible, questions to answer. However, the other option would be to try and create a bunch of specific rules to cover what would be allowed and what would not. That approach gets mired in arguments over minutiae very quickly and can never encompass all situations. I still naively try to hold onto the belief that in an adult world, a simple "Hey, lets keep things positive" will suffice.

I think we have to set the tone by saying what we want, and then leading by example. So far I've been impressed by the discussions I've seen here. But even if most of us behave civilly, there still will be those that do not. It is the nature of the beast. So there will need to be some kind of enforcement in place if we want to maintain any standards. That is problematic in its own right because as soon as you delete a post or ban someone, then there will be accusations of censorship and favoritism, etc, etc. Still, the choice comes down to making the attempt to maintain some standards , or just letting things devolve to the point that any reasonable person will just walk away.

[Sherrie Melody]

Para 11 forbids the creation of multiple identities. There are good practical reasons why we can and should be able to have alts on Kitely, but they should not be allowed in forums. (Although there needs to be provision for changing the name used in forums)

I don't have an opinion but I don't know how you would enforce something like that. As you said, there are legitimate reasons for one person to create multiple accounts, such as creating a secondary account for testing purposes, I have done this. There are also legitimate circumstances where there will be multiple accounts in a single household, I think we already have some of those like husband and wife teams. In some cases, payment methods may or may not be shared. How do you determine whether an account is an "alt"? I've seen threads here where people signed up under one name and changed their mind, and created another account with their preferred name. I just don't see a practical, manageable, equitable way of controlling that.

Edit: Thinking about it more, there are also legitimate reasons for one person to create multiple identities period, and for that person to want to post different types of things under different identities, people to whom immersion and maintaining character are important or people who like to keep business separate from fun. Take for example a person who engages in two different activities inside Kitely, one being entertainment, play-time focused and the other being business-focused. So, maybe a guy creates a Gary Funguy avatar and creates a Gary Businessguy avatar. He spends several hours logged in each day as Gary Businessguy, works, builds, provides customer service. But then, every now and then, he logs on as Gary Funguy, hangs out with friends, does boat races, RP and things like that. He doesn't mix the two because he doesn't want to interact with customers when he is playing. I can easily see why he would want the ability to post to the forums under both personas and why he would want them to always be separate. Gary Funguy probably posts to the forum with his friends about events and cool places to visit. Gary Businessguy probably posts to the forum about his new products, services, requests for support, stuff like that.

[Dot Matrix]

I hope that it will be possible to continue to use alts on the Kitely forum in well-defined circumstances, e.g. in developing story backgrounds within role-play or storybuilding threads. Being able to use an alt like this can be a creative tool for those of us who are wordsmiths.

[Deuce Halsey]

I don't see a problem with people using multiple pseudonyms in the forums or otherwise, as long as they are all used for civil discussions. If we only discuss issues and not each other than using additional alts to support ones view doesn't really add more weight to the validity of the argument you want to make. The arguments made should stand on their own merit not based on how many people support each side of the argument or how fiercely they try to verbally eviscerate each other.

[Sherrie Melody]

Bumping this topic. We are in dire need of forum guidelines.

[Dot Matrix]

Key elements from Ilan's previous post in this thread:

... civil discussions. ... only discuss issues ... The arguments made should stand on their own merit ...