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Important Questionnaire #19: Rule 1

Please See OP Before Responding to Poll

  • I strongly agree with the statement.

    Votes: 10 33.3%
  • I mostly agree with the statement.

    Votes: 11 36.7%
  • I neither agree nor disagree with the statement.

    Votes: 3 10.0%
  • I mostly disagree with the statement.

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • I strongly disagree with the statement.

    Votes: 4 13.3%

  • Total voters
    30

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
This questionnaire is important to me: I am gathering member feedback to help me make better policy decisions. Please help out by responding to it.

RF Rule 1 reads in its entirety:

1. Personal Comments About Members and Staff
Personal attacks and name-calling, whether direct or in the third person, are strictly prohibited on the forums. Critique each other's ideas all you want, but under no circumstances personally attack each other or the staff. Quoting a member's post in a separate/new thread without their permission to challenge or belittle them, or harassing staff members for performing moderation duties, will also be considered a personal attack.​

How strongly do you agree or disagree with this statement: "Overall, RF Rule 1 is reasonable."

Please pick which one of these five options is closest to your views. If you do not see an option that suits you, please accept this poll was not designed for you, and move on.

OPTION ONE: I strongly agree with the statement.

OPTION TWO: I mostly agree with the statement.

OPTION THREE: I neither agree nor disagree with the statement.

OPTION FOUR: I mostly disagree with the statement.

OPTION FIVE: I strongly disagree with the statement.
 
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PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
Personal attacks and name-calling, whether direct or in the third person, are strictly prohibited on the forums.

This part is reasonable but could lead to repurcussions against fun banter in the Jokes section.

Quoting a member's post in a separate/new thread without their permission

This is a tough one. To be honest, I'm not even sure the staff could completely follow it from time to time, it's just so easy to break.

Keep in mind, me saying this, though, isn't implying that the staff for sure has broken the rule, just that it could be a rule, as currently described, gets everyone in trouble.

or harassing staff members for performing moderation duties

Although this is a good rule overall, it needs more description. If someone is a little confused and talks it out a bit heavily with staff over something, we just need to make sure such a thing isn't seen as harrassment. But that doesn't mean members should be allowed to name call staff etc.
 

Terry Sampson

Well-Known Member
Having cast the first vote for #5, I hasten to explain.
  • The "statement" at issue is: 1. Personal Comments About Members and Staff
    Personal attacks and name-calling, whether direct or in the third person, are strictly prohibited on the forums. Critique each other's ideas all you want, but under no circumstances personally attack each other or the staff. Quoting a member's post in a separate/new thread without their permission to challenge or belittle them, or harassing staff members for performing moderation duties, will also be considered a personal attack.
  • IMO, that may be one statement, however, in asking me the degree of my agreement or disagreement with it, I'd say:
    • I can strongly agree with this: "Personal attacks and name-calling, whether direct or in the third person, are strictly prohibited on the forums. Critique each other's ideas all you want, but under no circumstances personally attack each other or the staff."
    • But, either I fail to understand how "Quoting a member's post in a separate/new thread without their permission" can be deemed inappropriate behavior, or I strongly disagree with that part of the one statement.
      • My reasoning: If I say something stupid in one thread and someone quotes "the complete statement" and references where I made that stupid statement, I find it hard to believe that I get to pretend, in the future, that I never ever made the stupid statement. That said, I can readily see the importance of someone quoting me accurately AND completely, tagging me to let me know that my words have been quoted, AND--most importantly--IMO, that there is some rational and reasonable connection between my first words in their original statement and their second and subsequent appearance in the second thread.
    • I can strongly agree with: "harassing staff members for performing moderation duties, will also be considered a personal attack"
    • But I strongly disagree with this part: "to challenge or belittle them." If someone thinks I'm a friggin'-idiot how do they tell me that without challenging or belittling me? The only way I can think of is to tell me that they have just put me on their "Ignore" list, and God knows, I wish more people would.
    • Now, if RF wants to outlaw all challenges and belittling whatsoever, regardless how eloquently, succinctly, cleverly, or amusingly it's done, just say so. And the next time someone says to me: "Gee, I didn't realize that you're so fragile", I'm going to report them.
 
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sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
This part is reasonable but could lead to repurcussions against fun banter in the Jokes section.

In a couple of joke threads or maybe many, insults re common but taken as fun banter. There's much much more than enough of such things to get a number of us, myself included, banned permanently.

I'm torn about rule making. Having worked for the Federal Government for a few months and dealt with bureaucratic rules in both big business and big government, the attempt to write down every possible situation and specify the action leads to intolerable red tape.

On the other hand, leaving a rule such as this one as is becomes an invitation for misunderstanding or upset if an innocent newbie wanders into the "last post is the winner" thread, for example, and finds himself poked at with a verbal stick.

I guess I'm OK with the current situation where the rule literally forbids me to call @Sunstone a stoner, for example, but enforcement is with excellent judgement that says it's ok for me to insult @Sunstone in a bantering manner if he posts something serious in the 'random and miscellaneous' thread.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
But, either I fail to understand how "Quoting a member's post in a separate/new thread without their permission" can be deemed inappropriate behavior, or I strongly disagree with that part of the one statement.
The rule goes as:
Quoting a member's post in a separate/new thread without their permission to challenge or belittle them
It's quoting them to do that. And, also, the rule was written with the old forum software, before we had alerts. Without that rule, someone could have quoted someone in a new thread, belittled them, or challenged them, and it go unanswered by the one being quoted because we may have missed that thread.
 

Terry Sampson

Well-Known Member
The rule goes as:
Okay, ... but IMO, what I don't know doesn't "challenge" or "belittle" me. So the rule seems to require that I be informed that someone is challenging or belittling me, and THEN I'm supposed to report the offense and not respond to it, right?
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Okay, ... but IMO, what I don't know doesn't "challenge" or "belittle" me. So the rule seems to require that I be informed that someone is challenging or belittling me, and THEN I'm supposed to report the offense and not respond to it, right?
It would be someone else doing if they notice it, or you if you notice it.
But, by default, all rule offenses require someone to notice and report them.
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
Over the years the enforcement of this rule has changed significantly.
Now we are no longer allowed to call a liar a liar.
A bigot a bigot.
It is my opinion that this rule has become WAY to much like ""Politically Correct"".


To address the new thread part....
What this seems to be saying is that it is just fine to quote someone without their permission in a thread, but you cannot do the exact same thing when starting a new thread.
What is the difference?

It is my opinion that the whole harassing part needs to be its own rule.
tacking it to the tail end of this rule makes it seem as though it was an afterthought.
Saying that harassment will be considered a personal attack seems asinine to me.
Making harassment a separate specifically defined rule would not cloud the personal attack rule.
And he wording is a bit misleading.
Are we allowed to harass staff members so long as it is not about their staff duties?


So in my opinion, this rule should actually be three separate rules
  • No calling names
  • no harassing members or staff
  • no starting thread with a reply you would normally make inside a thread.
 

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
Over the years the enforcement of this rule has changed significantly.
Now we are no longer allowed to call a liar a liar.
A bigot a bigot.
It is my opinion that this rule has become WAY to much like ""Politically Correct"".


To address the new thread part....
What this seems to be saying is that it is just fine to quote someone without their permission in a thread, but you cannot do the exact same thing when starting a new thread.
What is the difference?

It is my opinion that the whole harassing part needs to be its own rule.
tacking it to the tail end of this rule makes it seem as though it was an afterthought.
Saying that harassment will be considered a personal attack seems asinine to me.
Making harassment a separate specifically defined rule would not cloud the personal attack rule.
And he wording is a bit misleading.
Are we allowed to harass staff members so long as it is not about their staff duties?


So in my opinion, this rule should actually be three separate rules
  • No calling names
  • no harassing members or staff
  • no starting thread with a reply you would normally make inside a thread.

I agree. :)
 

Jedster

Well-Known Member
[QUOTE="Sunstone, post: 6681867, member: 499"

1. Personal Comments About Members and Staff
Personal attacks and name-calling, whether direct or in the third person, are strictly prohibited on the forums. Critique each other's ideas all you want, but under no circumstances personally attack each other or the staff. Quoting a member's post in a separate/new thread without their permission to challenge or belittle them, or harassing staff members for performing moderation duties, will also be considered a personal attack.​

.[/QUOTE]

I agree with all the above except the emboldened bit (NB:I have have not included belittie).
People should stand up for all their comments, even in a DIR,



IMO
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
Personal attacks and name-calling, whether direct or in the third person, are strictly prohibited on the forums. Critique each other's ideas all you want, but under no circumstances personally attack each other or the staff. Quoting a member's post in a separate/new thread without their permission to challenge or belittle them, or harassing staff members for performing moderation duties, will also be considered a personal attack.
I agree with everything except quoting a member's post without their permission to challenge them - I don't see that as a personal attack, just as a debate method. A way to follow up on a subject - as long as it's done in a respectful manner.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
This basically looks like an attempt to prevent ad homs. If such were allowed it would be a major green light for the forum's members to start a race to the bottom.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
The rules have remained largely the same, but enforcement has changed over the years in ways new members won't know about (like it used to be DIRs weren't locked, but posting in the wrong one was a point. Then it got lax for awhile. Then it got confusing with a confusing color coded system of confusion. And kind of worked back to being restricted but with the current lockout). And under the first rule, certain types of members would not have been allowed to stay on for very long, and more allowance has been given to the "gays are going to hell" types (they were basically ban on site way back). And of course everybody is human and stuff happens and things change.
 

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
The rules have remained largely the same, but enforcement has changed over the years in ways new members won't know about (like it used to be DIRs weren't locked, but posting in the wrong one was a point. Then it got lax for awhile. Then it got confusing with a confusing color coded system of confusion. And kind of worked back to being restricted but with the current lockout). And under the first rule, certain types of members would not have been allowed to stay on for very long, and more allowance has been given to the "gays are going to hell" types (they were basically ban on site way back). And of course everybody is human and stuff happens and things change.

Sounds like life.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
As to the poll questions, you offer ...
  • strongly agree
  • somewhat agree
  • neither agree nor disagree
  • somewhat disagree
  • strongly disagree
Better might have been something akin to ...
  • strongly agree
  • mostly agree
  • neither agree nor disagree
  • mostly disagree
  • strongly disagree
It seems to me that to somewhat agree is to somewhat disagree.
 
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