The Current State of KMC: Your Thoughts?
I personally am very happy with the high quality debating we see on this forum, the polite way others accept individuals rights and respects each others colour, creed and sexuality 😕. However I belong to other forums out there like many of you and at least one has decided to go further in it's protection of posters, would there be any value in pertitioning Raz for the sort of policy out lined below? It might prevent some of the incidents we have seen in 2005 though.
The below is a list of the general rules that the staff enforce on the ---------- forums. They should not be confused with a binding list with which to hide behind, but a common sense list to be used as a guideline for members. To that end staff are NOT limited solely to enforcing the rules listed here and can, as a whole, decide to go beyond the rules here, or even disregard them as special circumstances might dictate. This policy list is perfectly open to amendment and policies can be added or detracted, retroactively, as the staff deems fit.
This should be considered a warning, a policy in itself, no lawyering over these policies will be permitted. There is only one truly binding rule at -------- and that is that if the staff, as a whole, disagree with your actions, those actions are wrong.
1. No Flaming.
Flaming, as far as policy is concerned, is in respect to personal attacks in debate. As a rule of thumb this is considered to have got out of hand when the integral points being debated have degenerated to a secondary position to the personal attacks being thrown. Debates DO get heated, and all moderators take this into account, but they should never reach the point where insult takes precedence over the points raised. Personal attacks include attacks based on intelligence, race, sexual orientation, or religious belief.
2. No Pornography or Excessive Violence.
Pornography is considered to be the posting of pictures or artwork depicting nudity (except certain artistic depictions, check with a moderator) or sexual acts. Excessive violence is considered to be pictures or videos which contain real or realistic use of excessive gore and which can be considered to be far outside commonly accepted rules of decency and would be unsuitable for minors.
Exception to this policy exists in the Anime Forum, which has a basic age verification process in force. Rules are more relaxed in this forum, but are still limited to what might be considered to be drawn or animated soft nudity (namely that which is NOT in the process of a sexual act).
3. Remain on Topic.
Nearly all topics will drift, and this is something that all the moderators are aware of and take into account. It's what makes debates interesting. BUT the act of outright thread hijacking (deliberate or accidental) is not permitted. An example might be a debate on spacecraft with the mention of the Apollo program and someone deciding to use that as an excuse to talk about Apollo and other ancient mythology. Perpetrators will be asked to form a new thread on the subject, persistent perpetrators will be punished.
4. No Spamming.
Spamming includes but is not limited to nonsense posts and posts that are commercial in nature. A little bit of fun here and there is usually good for the forums, but as with the flaming rules if the actual points being debated have become secondary to the nonsense being thrown around they have reached an unacceptable limit. Commercial advertisement is never acceptable or permitted by members.
5. The Affairs of Other Boards to Not Concern Us.
In the interests of preventing cross board "invasions" the discussion of the acts on other boards (concerning the intelligence, beliefs, or personal habits of members of another board) is not permitted. Any independently planned "invasions" of another board by members and especially in the name of ---- are subject to staff review and possible permanent banning.
6. Linking to and Discussion of "Pirate" Sites is not Permitted.
This includes peer to peer sites like "Kazaa", "Napster" and sites cataloguing bittorrent files. In gaming this would relate to "warez" and websites allowing the downloading of games. If in doubt, don't post it.
7. No Hate Speech.
This includes the advocating of genocide or active discrimination of a particular race or religion. We are willing to allow for many unconventional and unpopular opinions to be discussed on our forums but NOT to the point where one could be considered to be hate-mongering. An example of this would be the proposition to nuke the Vatican, or Mecca. If you discuss topics bordering on hate speech you will be expected to have solid and factual reasoning to back up your opinions.
8. Keep Swearing to a Minimum.
----------- has an extraordinarily liberal swear filter in existence to the benefit of open expression, but this is not to be abused. If you've had a bad day don't go around throwing a swear word in to every other sentence as though it were regular punctuation. Common sense should dictate when your swearing as reached an excessive point and common sense will dictate any action or lack of action the staff deems necessary to keep swearing within reasonable levels.