Rule Changes + New Restrictions

[Aractus]

---

The staff have had lengthy discussions behind the scenes concerning a couple of rules that have bothered some of us for some time. The result of these discussions was a decision to repeal the two rules and enact three more that we hope will lead to a more balanced and better community.

As of this post, the following rules are repealed:

• No Preaching
  
• No Personal Attacks
  

Before you all start posting quotes from your chosen religious text or calling another member every name under the sun, be aware that the following rules are now being enforced:

1. This is a discussion forum.
This means that members should interact with each other in a proper discussion, and not purposely / repeatedly evade rebuttals made to them. Whilst members are not forced or required to answer every post addressed to them, ignoring them all and continuing to post similar content will fall in line with our "No Spam" rule. This includes posting links / copy-pasted content / scripture verses repeatedly, without adding your own comments or being relevant to the thread.

This is our primary rule and all other rules fall in line with this concept. The staff reserves the right to analyze each case in the spirit of this rule if said case doesn't violate the exact wording of other rules.

2. No Flaming
Flaming is the repeated use of insults and/or threats against a member, and is not allowed. Generally speaking, the occasional insult thrown at a person will not result in a violation of this rule. However, insults that are used again and again, especially if they make up a large portion of a post, will be treated as flaming and may prompt staff action. Threats are strictly forbidden, and any post that is considered a threat will only be exempt from punishment at staff discretion.

3. No Trolling
Trolling is where a person makes a deliberately provocative posting with the aim of inciting an angry response, and is not allowed. As discussions can at times get heated, not all provocative posts will get classed as trolling. However, if a member is found to be making multiple such posts, or appear to only be using the forum to provoke people, they will be in violation of this rule.

---

Well done, all common sense improvements IMHO.

---

New Restrictions

We have also implemented a couple of new restrictions, mainly aimed at allowing staff to better moderate discussion. For various reasons recently, we have discovered a number of members who had placed staff on their ignore lists. Obviously this prevents these staff from getting in contact with this members, and sets the entire team back when trying to uphold the rules.

To that end, we have now (with thanks to Moros Synackaon) disabled the ability to add staff members to ignore lists, and also made it impossible to turn off the PM system, which is used to issue warnings. If you are receiving PMs from people you'd rather not talk to, then add them to your ignore list and they should not be able to send you PMs anymore.

Edited to add: There were about 6 members (who shall remain nameless) who had at least one member of staff on their ignore lists, and these members of staff have now been removed from those ignore lists.

We hope these new rules and restrictions are accepted by the community, and we hope they enable better discussion for everyone.

---

I knew Germans probably wasn't the only one. Glad you got it under control!