Help write the forum rules

Hi Everyone,

I'm working on the forum rules and I'd appreciate your input.

The document is available on Google Docs for anyone to comment and can be discussed here.
Thanked by 2dammit damousey

Comments

  • Firstly, I'm happy this is happening, I think it was overdue. So here are some thoughts I had:

    "Don't be a dick" - what does this mean? While I have my ideas of what this means, I don't know if this is unambiguous enough and/or if my ideas are the general consensus. I'd prefer a final set of rules that either don't include this, or have a lot more clarification.

    For introductions: what if people would like to remain anonymous for personal reasons? I feel like the rules should generally be comprehensive enough that we don't need the accountability of the person's real name.

    Maybe we should include a bit of preamble where we define the sort of objectives we want to achieve? I'm thinking something like:

    We want to create a safe, respectful and friendly environment, where local game creators in all fields (programming, design, art, music, etc.) can share their creations, give and receive feedback on their work, and engage with their peers. To this end, we will not tolerate oppressive, insulting or disrespectful behaviour.
  • edited
    I suggest that the rules for job and game posts be combined into a single category with both of those as entries, and a third entry for the "Failure to comply" rule - although that should be worded differently: "Not following these guidelines will result in your post being criticised, possibly edited and potentially deleted. Repeated posts in contravention of these guidelines will result in a ban."

    Do we need to explain what "being a dick" means? I feel quite strongly that trolling, resorting to ad-hominem arguments and other forms of rhetorical bullshit should be a thing users can complain about.

    Do we need to talk about what being banned entails? What about when people complain about "censorship" - I'd love to have a succinct think that they could be linked to that basically says "No, also that's a really bad argument, don't use it".

    And finally, I think we should seriously consider putting in rules about criticism: That it should be expected, that it's not aimed at you personally, that there are multiple responsibilities in both giving and receiving criticism, and that flaming someone is never an acceptable response. Also, I don't think people should be able to "opt out" of critique: That weakens the learning that others might potentially be exposed to (I know I want to learn from other people's views on things I didn't make) and there's no reason to demand criticism be silenced if it's accepted that it's never a personal attack.
    Thanked by 2dammit Fengol
  • dislekcia said:
    Do we need to explain what "being a dick" means? I feel quite strongly that trolling, resorting to ad-hominem arguments and other forms of rhetorical bullshit should be a thing users can complain about.
    I do feel like we need to explain it a bit more. I agree that "ad-hominem arguments and other forms of rhetorical bullshit" should not be acceptable (and are covered by being a dick in my opinion), but I'm not convinced that those are universally deducible from "don't be a dick," especially with the randoms from the internet and all.

    I agree on adding something about criticism. "I don't think people should be able to "opt out" of critique" - so much yes.

    Thanked by 3dammit Fengol Tuism
  • Posts advertising games must be developed in South Africa or have team members in South Africa. The post must include the location of the team and an email address or website to the team.
    Can I ask what the reasoning behind enforcing a link of email or website is on game posts is? I'm guessing that quite a few people starting out won't have websites, and I'm really not for dumping email addresses in public.
  • Would it be possible to decide on some general forum etiquette too?
    For instance, yesterday you/@fengol revived a Unity3D thread that was over a year old with an unrelated question to the OP. Most forums (that I use, anyway) discourage that, and prefer each thread to have one topic. Then a new question will go into a new thread.

    I'm not for/against either way personally, but it would be good to get clarity.
  • @roguecode, noted. I will clarify what I did there
  • @roguecode we generally favor centralized discussion than a thread for every little issue.

    Which I'm just posting since I'm kinda curious what happened to our giant unity thread? There is a tonne of useful nuggets of info in it.
  • edited
    Should we have an encouragement to search before posting a question? In some settings this works, in others it's not that great because it stifles new people and prevents them from making themselves visible and then engaging in discussion.
  • Karuji said:
    Posts advertising games must be developed in South Africa or have team members in South Africa. The post must include the location of the team and an email address or website to the team.
    Can I ask what the reasoning behind enforcing a link of email or website is on game posts is? I'm guessing that quite a few people starting out won't have websites, and I'm really not for dumping email addresses in public.
    I think that there's a difference between advertising a position/job and starting a team on the forum. If that difference isn't obvious, we should probably explain that in the "solicitation" section of the rules.

    I feel like asking someone that's posting a job to be serious about what they're doing and provide some sort of mechanism to contact them and/or do due diligence research on their team/project is not a big request. In fact it's the bare minimum as far as I'm concerned.

    Someone starting a team is pitching their idea more than offering a job. Basically: If it's growing on the forums, don't worry about solicitation rules; If it's about coming to the forums because of the density of potential hires, solicitation rules apply.

    Should we talk about advertising your game/service? We do tend to get random posts from internationals that are just advertisements for their random 3D model service, or game skinning studio, or whatever. Are those useful?
  • dislekcia said:
    We do tend to get random posts from internationals that are just advertisements for their random 3D model service, or game skinning studio, or whatever. Are those useful?
    Personally I feel that the "SA" part of "MGSA" answers this.

  • @roguecode, I don't think it does though; and the rules don't give us ammo to delete the post.
  • edited
    roguecode said:

    Personally I feel that the "SA" part of "MGSA" answers this.
    I'm not sure what that means. Yes, Make Games South Africa. If posts advertising services help people make games from South Africa, do we want those posts? Do we not want posts by anyone outside of South Africa/not an SA citizen? What?
  • I don't really care whether people who post here are from South Africa or not. What does get on my nerves, though, is when someone does advertise here, without really trying to add to our community at all. I don't really mind if some art outsourcing company advertises their services, if they're also giving art feedback, helping with adding art for prototypes, etc. I don't mind if foreign game developers post their games here if they're also giving feedback to games they we as South Africans made. It's really just those people whose first post is an advertisement (i.e. personal gain), and who clearly have no intention of helping us grow as a community, that I feel I'd happily do without.

    --
    I also understand the desire to have a bunch of forum rules, so that you can point at those and say, "Hey, you broke this rule, so you're being warned/punished in this way." And I get that it can be a good guide for new members to understand what our culture here is like, and what the accepted etiquette here is.

    But at the same time, spending a lot of time to spell out exactly what each thing is, saying you should post certain prefixes or whatever, kind of feels... I dunno... like something to make us sound all important and official, while not really actually mattering. If we feel we can trust the moderating team to have the community's best interests in mind, then cool. And if not, well, then we get moderators we think we can trust.
  • @Elyaradine, my intention with the game post rules was more to guide people, I agree I want to keep the forum posting loose and casual. I will move the stuff on posting to a Suggestions section.
    Thanked by 1Elyaradine
  • @dislekcia I was looking at it from the point of a kind of organic team development where once might post a project and work and see if others will join (like edg3 did with the bomber sokobon game.)

    But I agree there is a large amount of solicitation for which there should be an adherence to the an etiquette of posting.
  • edited
    dislekcia said:

    I'm not sure what that means. Yes, Make Games South Africa. If posts advertising services help people make games from South Africa, do we want those posts? Do we not want posts by anyone outside of South Africa/not an SA citizen? What?
    There was a post the other day about an asset in the Unity asset store. It was clearly a new user that was going around to every game site they could find and posting about the asset.
    Personally (yes, I'm reiterating that), I come here because I want to see stuff that South Africans are making. I can go to the Unity forums if I want to be advertised at by randoms (I'm not saying this is a bad thing though).

    I'm not sure where the line is though. Like, technically there really isn't much difference between me posting a cool asset I found, and some random from the US doing it.

    Basically, I come here for South African content, there are hundreds of other sites for other things. But I'm happy to be wrong/in the minority.
    Thanked by 1NickCuthbert
  • I think we all agree that "coming from SA" isn't the criteria by which we may be judging some of the recent posts that have been dumped here, it's more the criteria of "was just dumped here with no follow up and no other contribution, i.e. spam".

    @Karuji that thread is still here:
    http://makegamessa.com/discussion/1339/unity-general-questions/
    I thought we were going to continue adding to this, but I saw another one opened up, without a plural in "question", which implies it's not a questions thing.
  • Re: point 5 of "critique and censorship" - I can understand excessive off-topic posts being wiped, but would you care to clarify what a "subjective" post is? I'd hate to have my posts nuked just because I said "I think" or "In my opinion" somewhere.
  • I have not had time to read and give feedback but I just want to say that Ive been wanting this for a long time and I am excited to see it actually happening. Will give it a read tomorrow.
  • I made some comments on the Google doc. I like the current state the rules are in, and I feel like they'll serve us well. I look forward to having them finalised and put in a more public place :)
  • Posted my 2c worth.
  • Ps. based on the past couple of conversations it would be good to get @dammit / @pierre / heck the rest of the communities view as well :)
    Thanked by 1tbulford
  • Everyone is welcome to comment on the document (Everyone has comment access, just highlight the section you want to comment on, right-click and select comment).

    I've given the committee members access to edit the doc so when people are in agreement the comments can be marked as resolved and the document updated.
  • edited
    I have some input regarding bigotry. The precise definition of bigotry is vaguely different to many users. and the general idea is that it is any statement of disagreement in spite of being presented with supposed evidence of the contrary. This is a dangerously wide definition because any difference of opinion could fall into this category as long as one individual believes that theirs is more valid than the other.
    I personally subscribe to the idea that bigotry is a more extreme version of differenced opinion. One that also includes an element of menace and exclusion/intolerance that aims to limit the other person's ability/freedom to have their belief or opinion.

    I can't access the doc from work, but I'll add the following recommending notes as soon as i get home.

    Bigotry in comments is... any statements deemed by the moderating team as offensive/aggressive/insulting against the belief/opinion of another person, and that seeks to trespass on (or limit) their freedom to have, or express, their belief/opinion.

    Projects containing bigotry will be... determined by the moderating team, and will be liable to editing,relocation,merging or deletion by the moderating team.
  • Pierre said:
    The precise definition of bigotry is vaguely different to many users. and the general idea is that it is any statement of disagreement in spite of being presented with supposed evidence of the contrary. This is a dangerously wide definition because any difference of opinion could fall into this category as long as one individual believes that theirs is more valid than the other.
    This is a strange straw man you're setting up there. What makes you feel that this definition is what people are referring to anywhere?
  • edited
    Apologies. "General" may have been poor word choice. I have observed that some users see the "general" definition above as bigotry,and my comment merely aims to suggest that the definition is not specific enough. Which is why i propose a more elaborate definition
  • edited
    Posted some suggestions in the doc. Also, this is what I'd suggest for text for the section on bigotry:

    Bigotry:

    - Text or media that denigrates or devalues others based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion etc will not be tolerated. This includes sexually exploitative material, racial slurs, homophobia etc.

    - If there is doubt as to whether certain content fits the criteria for bigotry, ask a mod to check it before posting.

    Members posting bigoted material will be asked to remove or modify the content.

    - For a first offense, if the moderators as a group consider the transgression sufficiently minor and the member complies willingly with their requests, that will be sufficient.

    - For subsequent offenses, or if the moderators agree that the first transgression is sufficiently abusive to warrant it, members will receive an immediate warning.

    - If a member receives 3 warnings in a 6 month period that member will be banned.

    - If a member refuses to modify or remove content that the moderators have deemed to contain bigotry, that member will be banned.

    - Members can contest whether their content is bigoted or not, but final decision rests with the moderators.

    - If the moderators disagree, the final decision will be made by majority vote (of the moderators).
  • Have written a few guidelines referring specifically to diversity. Awaiting internal feedback before releasing publicly.
    Thanked by 1francoisvn
  • Why not just take some rules from an existing forum and then modify it to meet your needs: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?28-Forum-Rules-Code-of-Conduct

    This is one of the more simpler ones that clearly states what is and what isn't allowed ... use this and modify it and tailor it for your needs.
  • @quintond: "why not?" because we've started from scratch and already come up with an in-progress set of rules that covers more and is tailored to our (very different) situation. The part of our rules with the most remaining work is basically not touched on by those rules.

    So I'm not quite sure why you're suggesting this? Do you think those rules have something specific we should look at, or do you think there's something wrong with the current working set of rules that should be highlighted?
  • @quitnond I can see the merit of using other forum rules as a guideline. Especially one that is as corporately owned by an established company.

    A lot of users here wish to implement House rules (and of course there's nothing wrong with house rules)
    These are usually very specific though. They can be good or bad...
    I'm personally wary of rules being too specific. I prefer rules that remain objective in nature.
    In that regard I rather enjoy Unreal's rule 11 as being well laid out without bias.
    "
    [11] This forum is not rated M. Please keep the potential audience in mind when posting. No extreme violence, highly offensive content, nudity or sexual content.
    "
    It covers the base for what has recently been a source of contention.

    Regardless, In the end I comply happily with whatever the admin's decide.
  • Pierre said:
    In that regard I rather enjoy Unreal's rule 11 as being well laid out without bias.
    "
    [11] This forum is not rated M. Please keep the potential audience in mind when posting. No extreme violence, highly offensive content, nudity or sexual content.
    "
    It covers the base for what has recently been a source of contention.
    Just pointing out that the Unreal forum's rule there is not without bias, at least not in the way you're talking about... The bias here is that age restrictions and ratings govern what is acceptable content and what isn't. Tell me, what is the age restriction on hate speech? Is that why grandparents are stereotypically portrayed as racist?

    Rating systems don't deal with the kinds of systemic sexist or racist issues that you've found so oddly contentious. If they did, we wouldn't need the Bechdel test as an object lesson.
    Pierre said:
    Regardless, In the end I comply happily with whatever the admin's decide.
    I'm lobbying for poor apostrophe usage being grounds for immediate teleportation to Azkaban.
    Thanked by 1dammit
  • "less is more"
  • Who are the current moderators of the forum? I can't find a definitive list.
  • Everyone who was voted into the committee has mod rights, apparently.
  • edited
    @dammit Why would this be the case ? If we are moving towards a separation of the forums and the association (with membership fees) the one shouldn't be involved with the other right ?

    *Edit* I know it used to be like this but it probably wont be from now on right ?
  • I personally don't understand separating community and forum. I mean what purpose does the committee have if not to the people who inhabit the forum?

    Anyway, that aside, currently I understand that those who were voted into committee positions were given mod rights. I don't think most of them ever used them but I think the idea was that major modding decisions went through the people voted in to run the community through the committee.

    I'm not sure why you would vote someone into a committee of you didn't think they should have mod rights? Or that they may be able to make to change rules.

  • I feel like moderators should be objective and unbiased.
    The same should probably go for committee members as well...
    but the system is at risk if the roles/duties aren't segregated.

    It's like separating the head of a newspaper from politics.
    It's like being a software developer and NOT having access to the production data of clients...
    There is a level of security by segregating duties...
    That security works for everybody both ways.
    That's how I see the way it should be.
  • @Pierre: How would a lack of separation make moderators biased? I can't see any incentive that a committee member would have to be biased (that is, above any other person), so I don't think this situation is anything like those "examples" you provide.
  • I can see a case for separating mod rights from committee duty in the case of someone being elected for a specific role because of a skillset or history but not being great at working with the community. By automatically tying the two together we may exclude people from consideration (for either group) for not being the whole package.

    As a whole, both groups of volunteers would share the bulk of their goals and directives and I expect that there will be and should be a substantial overlap between them.

    @Pierre, your examples are only of entities with obviously conflicting agendas. That really doesn't apply here. Why should they be separated in your POV? What security/risk are you talking about here?
  • The segregation of duties is not due to applicable social skills.
    One person may indeed be capable of being the whole package, but this doesn't mean that they HAVE to assume all the roles.

    As an ideal, both groups of volunteers should indeed share directives...
    Overlap might occur but it should not be encouraged.
    Moderators should be objective. I'm sure we agree on that. One way of ensuring that is segregation of duties. The moment a moderator has personal investment in the information being posted, his integrity is liable to compromise.

    My recommendation for segregation of duty is not an accusation. It is a preventative measure that indemnifies all parties involved. (both moderators and committee members)
    Soon, this community will involve a monetary element and the forum members will have a valuable investment in how things are handled...
    I have/am dealing with SOX auditing in this regard, where tremendous amounts of money are being handled by a small group of people. It is important to have certain structures in place, to prevent the possibility of any conflict of interest.
    It is a sound system. (All though we haven't even touched on the process of change and authorization yet.)
    You may profess that a conflict of interest will never occur...
    But going with my the recommendation of segregated duties is a lot more preventative and beneficial than NOT doing so just because we hope it won't ever be an issue.
    One person doesn't need to have all the power. It doesn't serve the interest of a community. Rather it detracts from the definition of community.

  • I've emailed Nick about some of the concerns raised here too. Hopefully we'll have some feedback soon.
  • So is this the list of mods, currently - @LexAquillia, @dislekcia and @Fengol and @Bensonance? Anyone I've missed?

  • edited
    Pierre said:
    Soon, this community will involve a monetary element and the forum members will have a valuable investment in how things are handled...
    Nope. The forum will remain a free service offered by MGSA to all who wish to participate in it as long as they abide by the rules MGSA sets out. MGSA membership and forum membership are separate. This is what is meant by "splitting the forums from the association".

    As the rest of your conclusions stem from a false assumption, they're not relevant, but I'd like to address the idea of "objective moderators". Besides being a worryingly GamerGate-sounding argument, it's useless: Forum moderation always requires some form of judgement call to determine what is going to best serve the goals of the forum/community. We know from the whole "objective reviews" argument that judgement calls are always going to be subjective in nature, so what you're actually saying is that you don't believe that any judgements are going to be made in ways that you agree with.

    Seeing as you've already run afoul of the community and multiple mods for your views, I think that's a fair point. No, you won't agree with the necessary subjective calls made by mods expressing the wishes of the community and the goals that MGSA sets for the forum. I don't, however, think that's a problem :)
  • My thoughts on the moderator objectivity issue. Moderators are here to enforce the rules of the forum/community. This forum/community is represented by the committee - therefore those two roles (committee and moderator) are held tightly together. The committee should have the authority to set the rules that are enforced by moderators while moderators have the right to represent the community and question those rules. And the community has right to question those rules. This is why we get to nominate and vote for our committee - the individuals we believe have our community's best interests at heart and can make the best decisions. Not necessarily the decisions loved by all.

    I'm not sure about the argument of separation of state and religion, since, in essence, MGSA would fall into a religion with the committee being the Vatican in this weird analogy.
  • 'Objective' is probably the wrong term to use here. 'Fair' is better.

    It goes without saying, I'm sure, that mods should strive to be fair. They should uphold and apply the rules equally, whether it's a friend or someone they personally dislike.

    It isn't completely unreasonable to point out that, with contentious issues, a moderator may become 'too close' to the debate and lose some of that even-handedness.

    In that case, hopefully, discussion by the moderators as a group can reach a fair and balanced outcome.
  • The minute somebody starts their sentence with "so what you are actually saying" they're putting words in my mouth... or as they'd said themselves... rejecting my reality and replacing it with their own... but whatever.

    Of course admission and participation in the forum is unrelated to membership fees, but with that being the case, doesn't it make sense that committee membership also remain unrelated to forum moderation.

    Objective moderation is a common thought and the implied connotation to gamergate is irrelevant.
    Thanked by 1wogan
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