Stop the Insanity! A Referendum

[J. Henry Christ]

I propose the following:

Forum Vision: To create a community where intelligent people can discuss interesting topics in a respectful, thoughtful, non-confrontational manner.

[Note: The vision is NOT to create a forum where every post or thread needs to be long-winded.]

To achieve this vision, The Lounge will have standards of behavior which promote healthy discussion and discourage rude and lewd behavior. There are other forums for this material. In addition, the objective is NOT to have a super high-traffic forum where threads are buried soon after started. However, the forum will not be overly exclusive to the point that new regulars feel unwelcome.

Here are the rules:

1. No NSFW materials.

2. No profanity (either censored or skirting filters).

3. No sexually suggestive or profane avatars. General rule of thumb, if your avatar is intended to increase the viewer's bloodflow downstairs, change it or post elsewhere.

4. No overtly political posts. What constitutes an overtly political post? (a) Anything that pits one political party, ideology, or system against another; (b) Anything that attacks the politics of a poster rather than the general ideas of the post; (c) Is purposefully confrontational in the mods' opinion; or (d) Leads down the path where posters take sides and dig in. Good rule of thumb is that current events and ideas may be discussed politely, but if they become poltical pissing contents, they will be locked or deleted. Allowing debate between camps will destroy the non-confrontational, laid-back community we hope to promote, so it will not be allowed. Tread lightly in this subject area or don't tread at all.

5. No poker posts. There are plenty of poker forums already.

6. No sports posts unless you are discussing an element of sports that would be treated better here than the sporting events forum. For example, starting football season, you could have a thread on why Americans are so obsessed with this game, assuming the topic was approached seriously.

7. One-liner responses and list-type threads are allowed, however the moderators reserve the right to lock threads if they believe the replies have become too contrary to the goal of a thoughtful, respectful place to exchange ideas and thoughts. For example, a thread about the best movie endings is perfectly legitimate. But if no real discussion is generated after 10-15 replies, it might be best to lock it and move on. (No disciplinary actions are necessary in this case as the locking will signify moderators' intent.)

8. No posts on how to pick up the opposite sex, the details of your sex life, or other type of talk that would be inappropriate for respectful mixed company.

9. No being intentionally confrontational to embarrass or disgrace other posters.

10. No complaining about the foum in threads. There will be a sticky at the top of the forum where you can add feedback. It will be periodically reviewed and cleaned up/replaced to always allow a place to discuss the direction of the forum without actually clogging up the forum. Moderators should use this as constructive feedback.

[EDIT] 11. No religious/philosophical discussion debating the existence of God. (Sorry, but that's a must, too.)

Those are the rules. Offenses will be treated as follows:

1st offense -- Poster will be PM'd a reminder that they have violated forum standards.

2nd offense -- Poster will be suspended from the forum 7 days. If the offense is marginal, moderator should opt to PM a warning before declaring 2nd offense and suspending.

3rd offense -- Poster will be permanently banned from this forum. (I really see no reason why they need to be banned from 2+2 unless the posts were heinous. The standards of The Lounge are higher than other forums, so let banned posters go where they may still contribute at the norm.)

Of course, particularly heinous offenses (racists rants, malicious trolling, porn links or pics) will be treated harshly at first instance.

I believe this set of rules will allow an interesting place to exchange ideas without too many rules, but enough to keep the content a bit higher class than OOT, keep topics somewhat unique to this forum but certainly not always or even most of the time (posters will decide based on their posts), but also keep the tone respectful without strangling the fun out of the forum.

What do you think?

[madnak]

You're talking like a mod. Did you forget to log off your gimmick account? It's hard to believe you went to this effort if you've been around less than a week.

Sounds alright to me.

[LadyWrestler]

[img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

[RunDownHouse]

I can't believe you went to all of this effort and couldn't manage to pick the correct forum in which to post it.

[Mickey Brausch]

Mr Christ,

Wasn't that already done by Mr Moses ?

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Seriously, good post.

Mickey Brausch