RE: Rule Change (New Staff Power)
January 14, 2016 at 5:17 pm
(This post was last modified: January 14, 2016 at 5:19 pm by Tiberius.)
(January 14, 2016 at 5:10 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: Maybe I'm weird, but I have always recognized, regardless of what forum I'm on, that my ability to post and be a member is a privilege granted to me by forum ownership. I don't actually have any right to post since the forum is owned and operated by a private entity who can do whatever they wish with it, and a ban doesn't actually impart harm.
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Honestly, this staff is by far the most lenient I have ever encountered. I'm amazed by the patience and restraint they've shown with certain, obvious members. People that, at PHPF, I would've swung the ban hammer at far sooner. So, I'm not worried about the nuke being used when it shouldn't because this crew has already shown a remarkable resistance to banning members.
Honestly, that's probably because we try not to run the forums like a private entity, and more like a community. People say I "own" it, and in a legal sense I do, but when it comes to decision making and running the place, it's a joint effort and I don't hold any more power than the other admins. The only non-community aspect is that staff are chosen by current staff, rather than being elected, but we've offered to hold staff elections multiple times in the past and our members always vote overwhelmingly to leave the system as it is.
The rules are long-winded and complex partially because we want the staff to be bound by them as well, so whereas in other forums you may just have a rule "No trolling" and the staff get to decide what trolling is, we have it as well defined as we think is needed.