- UL7IM4 G33K
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- Senior Legendary Member
"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstien
Posted by: Anton P Nym
Posted by: Rokit
I have, indeed, seen the Halo 3 Forum. And I do understand that the Septagon does, and should, have far more trust then the Halo 3 Forum due to the differences. Yet, I still don't believe the rules should be so stretched. I do admit, the Septagon is very laid back, and it is a great place to hang out. It just seems like things could be stricter here and there. Not everywhere of course, but just a small bit.
I have a policy of cutting members as much slack as possible in every forum.
There are many reasons for this policy. First, too rigid an adherence to a strict interpretation of rules in the forums leads to more discussions about the rules than about the topic for the forums. (To whit, threads like this one.) Second, everyone makes mistakes from time to time. Third, I frankly hate banning people; having to do it as much as I do is uncomfortable.
However, I do not have a policy of cutting the same amount of slack in every forum. I can't, not without violating the "as much as possible" policy in some forums or allowing (as I must admit having done) havoc in others.
The purpose of forum rules isn't to hammer every member down into the same level; it's to allow members to share ideas in a manner that allows as much meaning as possible get through to each other. Hence the topics for each thread, making particular information easier to find. Hence the vastly stricter policies now in place in the Halo 3 forum, which had turned to illegible soup without them, while allowing the forums with high signal-to-noise ratio (Septagon, Underground, PC) more latitude because they don't need the same strict attention to be clearly read.
The rules don't exist in isolation. They have a purpose, and enforcement of the rules should be directed at furthering that purpose over anything else.
-- Steve doesn't want to be cast in the role of the Leveller. He'd rather watch communities build themselves up rather than plow them all down into an artificial sameness and call it "equality".
I wish I had run into you when I broke a couple minor rules when I first came here... was banned for bumping after waiting a decent 24 hours and also for saying the word -blam!-.
People think a forum is a mini blog where you can post whatever you want with no cosnequence really. Sure, there are the basic rules any site has. But what you type is to your leisure really. This coupled with lazyness and, to be honest, a poor search system (better than nothing) equates to spammed topics, even further diluting the usefullness of the search engine.
Contrary to what most people believe, it isn't a mass number of stupid 10 year olds who do this, but anyone from a range of 10-30. They are either to lazy to type coherently, or just don't give a damn becuase they have an alternate identity to hide behind. There is no sense of respect among people in real life, what makes you think they will be any better when they have fake name and face?
It is way, way too late to fix this forum. One of the main reasons is the sheer number of members as well as the blatant use of blacklisting. Bans aren't a serious punishement anymore becuase they are used for everything. I feel that it would be far more effective if you kept post counts in, and then had a set number of posts you would remove. Or even a point system where a member has a set number of points that are removed according to the infraction. Once those points are up you get an automatic 7 day blacklist. If you do it a second time, it jumps to a 14 day blacklist. And a thrid gets you a perma ban.
Sure, sounds stupid for people who really aren't bad members. But for every day/week/bi-weekly/etc. that you aren't breaking the rules, you will gain points back. Simple system in my opinion. Low point counts would also mark troublesome users.
[Edited on 07.26.2007 8:41 PM PDT]