On the subject of Rules, Recent Events, and the Future...

[Venexis]

As long as you're not loading posts up with curse words solely because you can, or intentionally bypassing the censor, I'd say you're good.

As for FoA, I feel like the entrance requirements would filter out anyone who was truly triggered, but yeah. As long as it's not intentionally hurtful it's probably fine.

Lastly, I really don't want this to be "what ven says, goes". If something is problematic, if you think things should be more relaxed/strict, etc, say something (preferrably here. It's easier to keep track of and keeps things transparent). This is uncomfortably close to Dictator Ven as it is (despite my strongly feeling it's necessary, a handful of people have already mentioned that to me), but I would sincerely appreciate any and all feedback.

[Megar]

Can we get a run through of what's actually in the filter? I don't want to accidentally say some variant of ♥♥♥♥ and then have it not be there.

[Venexis]

There is actually a list in the ACP, however, in the interest of not pasting a list of offensive terms in plain view of the forums, I'll PM you instead. If you're interested in the complete list just send me a message, otherwise, it's quite comprehensive and should cover all but the most obscure curses, or cases that deliberately attempt to bypass the filter (by replacing letters with numbers, for instance).

[darthbrowser]

My, how things have changed...

Some time ago I discussed the polarization of Runouw, a Runouw divided between veterans and an ever-dwindling inflow of new members.

But what happens in the so called 'elder game' of such a situation: can a community survive solely on veteran members, or is an influx of new people needed to impart energy into the ageing system, to keep the veterans attached to the website instead of moving on (in groups) to other communities?

We now see the centralization of power - I am not making a judgement about the merit of that in particular, rather, what I see is a situation where there is only one font of power needed. Before, we had a large moderation team, it was even subdivided among particular aspects and had great diversity of thought within. What happens when only one person is needed? It is clear that this implies the community continues to shirk...but where is the critical mass where the above question comes into play?

Dark days, indeed...

[NanTheDark]

How to fix polarization:

1. Have both groups communicate with each other. The chat is probably a good place for it. Also new members should not be afraid to speak their minds.
2. ?
3. Profit!

And yes, there's less new members coming. But there's not much we can really do about that, Runouw hasn't really been making too many waves for a while and Last Legacy is sending people to the Last Legacy forums.

But eh, things can change.

[Supershroom]

Okay, it's time that I also say something about this. Actually, in this topic we should not only focus on general etiquette and rule enforcement, we should also focus on staff issues and staff failures as these also got an entire paragraph. Even before this thread was made (and my private conversations with Ven were also inspirational for this thread), I've turned it around a little and tried to define what makes a good staff.

Spoiler: show

A good staff is a team which is more hold together by competence than just friendship liasons. A good staff also meets its decision on promotion and demotion by these standards. Friendship is good in general, but not if opinions become too similar. (Keyword: no clique building)

A good staff reacts accordingly when some of them become inactive, and try to spread an attitude that prevents the team from losing alternatives. They don't try to be as thin as possible by hook or crook. Especially when someone feels mature to take a position and "campaigns", they don't respond negatively immediately. (Keyword: avoiding bottlenecks)

A good staff doesn't work towards a hostile relation to someone who "monitors" them and "knows better" and has own ideas. If anything, they appreciate having such external input and they guess that this guy could go native with them one day. Generally, a good staff thinks about what is good for EVERYONE here and takes care about the wishes of regular members, and they don't just look for what is comfortable for themselves only. (Keyword: ability to criticism, no egoism)

A good staff doesn't punish anybody because of the way they think, and because they're unsatisfied with what the staff does and ask for changes (if the upcoming of this isn't already a sign for the staff being bad in fact). They only consider punishments when rules are explicitely broken and when their counterpart really behaves bullishly without showing signs of controlled language. (Keyword: justice)

Furthermore, a good staff tries to keep calm in situations of drama, and they don't throw swearing words all over the place and they don't badmouth one targeted person only (yeah, mostly me and you know who you are) and adding to the previous point, they don't use threats of punishments with the sole intention to muzzle someone (keyword: constructive supremacy instead of power abuse)

A good staff also has nothing to hide to others, such as that regular members didn't get an idea to why I was demoted in fact or why Suyo left. A good staff has an attitude of showing regular members that their business often is the members' business as well. (keyword: transparency)

Most importantly of all this, a good staff has passion at running the site, and has an attentive eye on the ongoings of the site. If they notice decreasing activity, they try to react. They try to make the place interesting and give new members a good guiding hand on how to integrate themselves. ESPECIALLY they don't continuously pretend like everything's okay the way it is and they don't say "we're only here to do the little and mandatory administrative tasks". If they should be slacking, they don't use the always-same phrases like "we're working behind the scenes". (Keyword: defining the job of the staff)

And specifying the kind of superiority complex of staff, I'm unfolding directly the vibes of how I conceived it through all the time.

"You must respect us, the staff, regardless if we want to respect you or not."
"Whether you like it or not, you must comply with the mindset and wishes of staff."
"If you don't comply with staff no matter what the case, you have a much higher chance of punishment."
"We will never let you have your way because you whine about it loudly enough."
"We operate with trusted staff members that we know we can trust. We also decide ourselves what trust is."
"We know the rules, so we have good judgement of how we enforce them and when we can bend them ourselves."
"We meet decisions by majority. You have no place to challenge this as a loner."

That's pretty much the entire story of staff's (former) problematic attitude rounded up in a few sentences.

Now, back to general conduct. I need to adress a couple of rules specifically.

Backseat moderation / don't moderate others: This is a real toughie. The obvious part of it is "don't bluff to someone for doing something wrong", but it was/is often perceived as well in the way of "generally don't tell anyone about the rules, that's duty of staff". This is going too far. Guiding users is absolutely important, and reprimanding someone for notorious wrongdoing is also something legit as long as it's not condescending and patronizing. It's fine to say "[User X], stop swearing unnecessarily" if they do that and it's considered annoying. You don't need to be staff to say that.

Attempting to force changes to the site is also backseat moderation: A clear no from my side, at least for most cases. Take the FoA again as a little example. What I did there was a sole attempt to enforce standards for everybody's benefit and I did it out of good judgement. If this is an actual rule, then it's surely not intended to say "you're forced to be in silence or denial of actual facts". This also goes for saying that a moderator - or staff as a whole, even - would be doing a poor job. Accept this kind of criticism. Not allowing for this is overly freedom-restricting. My acting was without any alternative often enough. I have zero regrets for daring the step of requesting ultimatums against Raz and MK in terms of "fix yourself or get demoted." Furthermore, bringing up your own name for staffship is totally fine. Staff rejecting you with spite and filmsy excuses is anything but fine.

Adding to this, please get away from the usual "it's a difficult accomplishment to become staff and it's rare by definition" attitude. In this situation I still think 7 staff in total is too less despite forum activity being on a low level, and promotions should be talked at the moment.

Don't say hurtful things to another user and don't try to make them miserable: Be very careful with the interpretation of this one. It has happened often enough that a user (me) has been downright badmouthed and bullied and noone was out there to enforce justice, so what happens? The bullied tries to defend themselves, they're becoming upset and desperate, and they'll end up being the only target to punishment. It's happened often enough here and anyone can also recall situations of real life according to these instance of plain injustice or discrimination. Furthermore, often enough there's situations where an uncomfortable subject needs to be brought up (take the LDC discussions as an instance). For the person who made the level that's being discussed, this may be an uncomfortable thing. For someone being criticized about the way they judge, or either way, how they act in general, this is something uncomfortable for them, obviously. But, depending on the language itself, often enough it's just coming to abstract problems that are being discussed without being personal about anybody, and there's stuff that one should critically face up with, without needing to feel offended. That's usually the key to decide the difference about "is someone abusively targeting another user".

Don't swear needlessly, watch out for your language, don't spam: This point is something I'm absolutely down with, and I ask anyone to refrain from swearing in most contexts. If it's just for being hilarious and "because you can" - well, you should still limit it by all means, and not make a meme out of it. Generally, don't spam and bend rules deliberately just because you can. We've let a lot of this slide (not only in countless reports of mine that weren't dealt with properly, and the reports that I even didn't attempt doing because of foreseeable outcome). Staff should keep a consistent level of discipline by handling posts, both to veterans and newbies. But more importantly, if swearing or otherwisely immature attitude happens in dramatic situations, it can really have a big impact on how the situation develops. This also includes posting GIFs or using other memes for the sake of plain provoking. Don't do that.

Bans are supposed to be a break from the side, and a tool for cooldown: That's surely not how it works. First off, bans are the ultimate tool of rule enforcement. Use it carefully. Bans are supposed to be issued to trolls who fail to have a grasp of how forums work and how being mature works and therefore accumulate multiple warnings, or to people who singlehandledly cause major disruption by malicious intention such as e.g. impersonating people on chat. Holding forth about nuisances on the site and "being on a mission against dystopia" is the opposite of malicious intention and a person who does this is no troublemaker as long as their conscience is clean, and mine is clean. You can't go and say "there's something wrong between you and the community so you're banned". This is sometimes bans being used for plain despotism. You can never assert "all bans we do are legit and foolproof, no need to appeal them". You can be in a bad mood or otherwisely induced by emotion when you meet the decision (the person to be banned is hated already), so be very careful about it. If both fronts between staff and a user are stiffened, violence is no solution. You may feel satisfaction from being not bothered for a while, but the problem will persist and you only made it worse.

[Harmless]

Okay, it's time that I also say something about this. Actually, in this topic we should not only focus on general etiquette and rule enforcement, we should also focus on staff issues and staff failures as these also got an entire paragraph. Even before this thread was made (and my private conversations with Ven were also inspirational for this thread), I've turned it around a little and tried to define what makes a good staff.

Whoa wait, what? Am I misreading something in your post? I don't get why you're extending the topic to staff etiquette.

... Reading it thoroughly, I have a lot of disagreements with what you've said. I'll break my thoughts down.

Spoiler: show

A good staff is a team which is more hold together by competence than just friendship liasons. A good staff also meets its decision on promotion and demotion by these standards. Friendship is good in general, but not if opinions become too similar. (Keyword: no clique building)

A good staff reacts accordingly when some of them become inactive, and try to spread an attitude that prevents the team from losing alternatives. They don't try to be as thin as possible by hook or crook. Especially when someone feels mature to take a position and "campaigns", they don't respond negatively immediately. (Keyword: avoiding bottlenecks)

A good staff doesn't work towards a hostile relation to someone who "monitors" them and "knows better" and has own ideas. If anything, they appreciate having such external input and they guess that this guy could go native with them one day. Generally, a good staff thinks about what is good for EVERYONE here and takes care about the wishes of regular members, and they don't just look for what is comfortable for themselves only. (Keyword: ability to criticism, no egoism)

A good staff doesn't punish anybody because of the way they think, and because they're unsatisfied with what the staff does and ask for changes (if the upcoming of this isn't already a sign for the staff being bad in fact). They only consider punishments when rules are explicitely broken and when their counterpart really behaves bullishly without showing signs of controlled language. (Keyword: justice)

Furthermore, a good staff tries to keep calm in situations of drama, and they don't throw swearing words all over the place and they don't badmouth one targeted person only (yeah, mostly me and you know who you are) and adding to the previous point, they don't use threats of punishments with the sole intention to muzzle someone (keyword: constructive supremacy instead of power abuse)

A good staff also has nothing to hide to others, such as that regular members didn't get an idea to why I was demoted in fact or why Suyo left. A good staff has an attitude of showing regular members that their business often is the members' business as well. (keyword: transparency)

Most importantly of all this, a good staff has passion at running the site, and has an attentive eye on the ongoings of the site. If they notice decreasing activity, they try to react. They try to make the place interesting and give new members a good guiding hand on how to integrate themselves. ESPECIALLY they don't continuously pretend like everything's okay the way it is and they don't say "we're only here to do the little and mandatory administrative tasks". If they should be slacking, they don't use the always-same phrases like "we're working behind the scenes". (Keyword: defining the job of the staff)

And specifying the kind of superiority complex of staff, I'm unfolding directly the vibes of how I conceived it through all the time.

"You must respect us, the staff, regardless if we want to respect you or not."
"Whether you like it or not, you must comply with the mindset and wishes of staff."
"If you don't comply with staff no matter what the case, you have a much higher chance of punishment."
"We will never let you have your way because you whine about it loudly enough."
"We operate with trusted staff members that we know we can trust. We also decide ourselves what trust is."
"We know the rules, so we have good judgement of how we enforce them and when we can bend them ourselves."
"We meet decisions by majority. You have no place to challenge this as a loner."

I don't recall any of the staff having these problems, though. Sure, they're just as human as we are and arguments and tensions have happened in the past, but remember that there's two sides to every argument and miscommunication. The staff can't be taking the full blame for all the things you have been mentioning. "We will never let you have your way because you whine about it loudly enough." What kind of outlook is that?! That's over-dramatizing it for one side!

Now, back to general conduct. I need to adress a couple of rules specifically.

Backseat moderation / don't moderate others: This is a real toughie. The obvious part of it is "don't bluff to someone for doing something wrong", but it was/is often perceived as well in the way of "generally don't tell anyone about the rules, that's duty of staff". This is going too far. Guiding users is absolutely important, and reprimanding someone for notorious wrongdoing is also something legit as long as it's not condescending and patronizing. It's fine to say "[User X], stop swearing unnecessarily" if they do that and it's considered annoying. You don't need to be staff to say that.

I don't think that is their intention at all. I think what they're saying is not "don't tell people about the rules" but rather "don't stick your nose in problems that aren't yours" (for lack of a better example, sorry if that sounded rude). The latter is in fact the moderator's job. They're the mediators of the forum. They're not here to exercise powers, there's here to resolve problems. It becomes harder for the user in question to take the resolution seriously if someone completely out of power is trying to tell them what goes on in here (with regards to the rules). Yes, people shouldn't be silent, but that's exactly what the report button is for - So people don't have to be silent and at the same time they're not sticking themselves too far into the problem.

Some of us regular users have in fact answered questions users have had regarding rules and referred them to it, so no the staff hasn't been discouraging people to not spread the word around about the rules. They just don't want third parties to be involved in problems (which are a separate case from user-asked questions).

Attempting to force changes to the site is also backseat moderation: A clear no from my side, at least for most cases. Take the FoA again as a little example. What I did there was a sole attempt to enforce standards for everybody's benefit and I did it out of good judgement. If this is an actual rule, then it's surely not intended to say "you're forced to be in silence or denial of actual facts". This also goes for saying that a moderator - or staff as a whole, even - would be doing a poor job. Accept this kind of criticism. Not allowing for this is overly freedom-restricting. My acting was without any alternative often enough. I have zero regrets for daring the step of requesting ultimatums against Raz and MK in terms of "fix yourself or get demoted." Furthermore, bringing up your own name for staffship is totally fine. Staff rejecting you with spite and filmsy excuses is anything but fine.

Adding to this, please get away from the usual "it's a difficult accomplishment to become staff and it's rare by definition" attitude. In this situation I still think 7 staff in total is too less despite forum activity being on a low level, and promotions should be talked at the moment.

What? Forcing changes to the site IS backseat moderation if you're not a global admin or higher (and even then consent with the site and RUNOUW HIMSELF should be warranted). The problem isn't "you put forward suggestions for change". The problem is you gave us suggestions and then tried to force feed it to us. Now I didn't see all of the drama that happened back then, but I don't think what you presented was "facts". Most of it was really just personal suggestion. Otherwise, please tell me what part of your suggested site changes were facts - Because I can tell you right now "seven staff members in total is too little", is definitely NOT a fact given how many active users there are (and how little trouble there's actually been).

Don't say hurtful things to another user and don't try to make them miserable: Be very careful with the interpretation of this one. It has happened often enough that a user (me) has been downright badmouthed and bullied and noone was out there to enforce justice, so what happens? The bullied tries to defend themselves, they're becoming upset and desperate, and they'll end up being the only target to punishment. It's happened often enough here and anyone can also recall situations of real life according to these instance of plain injustice or discrimination.

Are you kidding me?

Like I said, two sides to every coin. I think we fully get how you feel - You were "bullied" as it were. Want to know how we felt at the time? We did not feel comfortable at ALL with what you've said, as we "interpreted it" as complete passive aggressiveness towards several users over several cases.

Furthermore, often enough there's situations where an uncomfortable subject needs to be brought up (take the LDC discussions as an instance). For the person who made the level that's being discussed, this may be an uncomfortable thing. For someone being criticized about the way they judge, or either way, how they act in general, this is something uncomfortable for them, obviously. But, depending on the language itself, often enough it's just coming to abstract problems that are being discussed without being personal about anybody, and there's stuff that one should critically face up with, without needing to feel offended. That's usually the key to decide the difference about "is someone abusively targeting another user".

I get it, the 27th LDC my word phrasings and anger was not befitting of a judge for several people. Poor Triple J felt it the most, and believe me I've already apologized for that. There's no need to keep saying you've been "bullied" when the most disdain and sour tastes caused were your doing, however. You have yet to apologize for ANYTHING you've said or done (unless if I'm not aware of any formal apologies you have made).

Bans are supposed to be a break from the side, and a tool for cooldown: That's surely not how it works. First off, bans are the ultimate tool of rule enforcement. Use it carefully. Bans are supposed to be issued to trolls who fail to have a grasp of how forums work and how being mature works and therefore accumulate multiple warnings, or to people who singlehandledly cause major disruption by malicious intention such as e.g. impersonating people on chat. Holding forth about nuisances on the site and "being on a mission against dystopia" is the opposite of malicious intention and a person who does this is no troublemaker as long as their conscience is clean, and mine is clean. You can't go and say "there's something wrong between you and the community so you're banned". This is sometimes bans being used for plain despotism. You can never assert "all bans we do are legit and foolproof, no need to appeal them". You can be in a bad mood or otherwisely induced by emotion when you meet the decision (the person to be banned is hated already), so be very careful about it. If both fronts between staff and a user are stiffened, violence is no solution. You may feel satisfaction from being not bothered for a while, but the problem will persist and you only made it worse.

At this point you're trying to tell the staff how to do their job, when that's the job of Runouw. I'm sure that as staff members, they're competent enough to know how banning works.

Please tell me you're not saying your ban was unjustified. I'm not sure why you have it out so much for the staff, but I don't have any problems with them. They do their job, I would know first hand having received plenty of warnings from them in the past.