Revision of Policy

[Guy]

It would appear that in this topic, there are a fair few trolls unnecessarily nit-picking the rules to the finest detail. Tip.it is no small site, the admins and mods are some of the best out there, and thus I think we can trust them. It is simply one of those things that is obvious once you see it, yet a complete and conclusive set of rules is near impossible to draw up. As I said, the admins and mods are all very experienced and we can easily trust in their judgement. Some queries of course here are legitimate, but it does look like people are just arguing for the sake of arguing.. Just my opinion of course.

[Obtaurian]

It would appear that in this topic, there are a fair few trolls unnecessarily nit-picking the rules to the finest detail. Tip.it is no small site, the admins and mods are some of the best out there, and thus I think we can trust them. It is simply one of those things that is obvious once you see it, yet a complete and conclusive set of rules is near impossible to draw up. As I said, the admins and mods are all very experienced and we can easily trust in their judgement. Some queries of course here are legitimate, but it does look like people are just arguing for the sake of arguing.. Just my opinion of course.

 

Perhaps you should reread the rule changes. Your attempt at inciting a flamewar by calling people "trolls" is unnecessary and highly unbecoming of a TET member.

[LinkOlaran]

Calling people trolls or not, there is a lot of nit picking going on, from my perspective. I saw a lot of the same thing when I was a mod in Shyla's cc :P

 

My view is pretty simple: if you already are careful with what you say and try not to insult/incite flame wars/whatever, you have nothing to worry about. I can understand people's automatic responses to be 'blunt' occasionally, sure. But I've been seeing a lot of that recently, and quite frankly it's getting annoying. Personally, I think if you can't say something without at least trying to have some semblance of politeness, don't say anything at all and save everyone the trouble of mistaking your 'bluntness' as trolling.

 

My apologies if that comes off as trolling in itself, but I can't think of a way to soften it anymore, lol :P

[Wkw]

You can't have the rules say

"no trolling"

Then have one staff member saying "1 or 2 troll post is ok" and another saying "1 troll post = ban"

 

If you want to stay with your stance on the rules, change the rules to "no consistent troll posting. A few are OK depending on the circumstance"...

[DarkDude]

No one said that one troll post is going to get you a ban, nor did anyone say that one or two troll posts is ok. I said that no one is going to get banned just for one troll post. If you think this "change" in policy is going to have an effect on you then maybe you should change your posting style. If you think your post could be taken as a troll post then don't post it. Simple really.

[Kimberly]

I gave my situation for an example and my question was not about me. Address the question rather than my example.

 

If you think through the initial desire of simply wanting an answer, you can see that to address your example is impossible to do so in a public way. There's no way for any staff member to comment on the situation because it directly pertains to an incident that involved you and punishments dealt to you. That's probably why Tripsis said to talk about such a thing in private, probably like PM'ing the moderator/admin who banned you in the first place or pming an admin directly.

 

But stamping your feet like a petulant child in a crowded store demanding answers just to make mommy and daddy seem like the bad guys to everyone else probably isn't going to help you if you take such an approach when you DO contact a staff member.

[Andy]

I gave my situation for an example and my question was not about me. Address the question rather than my example.

 

If you think through the initial desire of simply wanting an answer, you can see that to address your example is impossible to do so in a public way. There's no way for any staff member to comment on the situation because it directly pertains to an incident that involved you and punishments dealt to you. That's probably why Tripsis said to talk about such a thing in private, probably like PM'ing the moderator/admin who banned you in the first place or pming an admin directly.

 

But stamping your feet like a petulant child in a crowded store demanding answers just to make mommy and daddy seem like the bad guys to everyone else probably isn't going to help you if you take such an approach when you DO contact a staff member.

My question was about how often you need to "troll" to be banned (which has been addressed, you're just bringing this back up again for whatever reason you have). Like I have said, it was an example I used and i'm sure there have been other people banned in the same way as me.

I have had my say and been addressed - I do not appreciate being called a child for asking questions about the overly strict rules on "trolling" - I think people who can't handle people being blunt to them are the real children.

[tripsis]

There is no clear cut, set in stone rules for how often you need to troll to be banned. We have to handle everything on a case-by-case basis because every case is different. There is more mild trolling vs. extremely disrespectful/irksome trolling and then we have to take each person's history into consideration. If we had a rule like, "if you post 2 troll posts you're banned" then these two situations would have to be handled exactly the same:

 

- User posts 2 troll posts, but otherwise has never violated any rules.

- User posts 2 troll posts, has an extensive history of spamming, flaming or other rule violations.

 

And hopefully we can all agree that those two situations should not be handled in the same way.

 

Our main goal here is to make Tip.It a more enjoyable place for people to be. Over the past few months especially, we have received many complaints about people being rude or disrespectful to others, but not necessarily with obvious personal attacks (i.e. "you are such a stupid idiot") but with more subtle sarcastic comments. Previously we weren't very strict about this because they weren't always obvious personal attacks and didn't necessarily contain things like name calling or explicit harassment. But these comments still make fun of people, create jokes at the expense of others, put people down, and just make people feel like crap. People have (understandably) complained about the negative, bullying atmosphere and we're doing our best to change that.

[Lose No Hope]

There is no clear cut, set in stone rules for how often you need to troll to be banned. We have to handle everything on a case-by-case basis because every case is different. There is more mild trolling vs. extremely disrespectful/irksome trolling and then we have to take each person's history into consideration. If we had a rule like, "if you post 2 troll posts you're banned" then these two situations would have to be handled exactly the same:

 

- User posts 2 troll posts, but otherwise has never violated any rules.

- User posts 2 troll posts, has an extensive history of spamming, flaming or other rule violations.

 

And hopefully we can all agree that those two situations should not be handled in the same way.

 

Our main goal here is to make Tip.It a more enjoyable place for people to be. Over the past few months especially, we have received many complaints about people being rude or disrespectful to others, but not necessarily with obvious personal attacks (i.e. "you are such a stupid idiot") but with more subtle sarcastic comments. Previously we weren't very strict about this because they weren't always obvious personal attacks and didn't necessarily contain things like name calling or explicit harassment. But these comments still make fun of people, create jokes at the expense of others, put people down, and just make people feel like crap. People have (understandably) complained about the negative, bullying atmosphere and we're doing our best to change that.

That clears a lot up. Thanks.

[DyingSilent]

But stamping your feet like a petulant child in a crowded store demanding answers just to make mommy and daddy seem like the bad guys to everyone else probably isn't going to help you if you take such an approach when you DO contact a staff member.

 

So if he were to take your approach, and contact an Admin/Mod through PM, where does that leave the rest of us asking the same questions? I'm sure plenty of others, myself included, have been asking the same questions as Cheeze. And from what I understand, you think anyone that doesn't reply "Yay, good job guys, this is exactly what we need! A Forum board with no excitement, debating, or heated discussion!" is acting like a small child? If you haven't noticed, and it looks like you haven't, but a lot of these "heated discussions" lead to genuine topics, questions, and eventually, answers. I've seen you post many times, and a lot of the time, you don't look past the arguing to see the discussion that is going on.

 

I'll give an example. A while back, there was a discussion of the Chaotic Rapier vs the Chaotic Longsword, and which was better, and for what. One of the topics that came up was using the Chaotic Longsword for Slaying, and a few of the more-efficient class of people on Tip.It were quite straightforward and blunt about the topic. "The CLS is [cabbage] for slaying." Some people took offense to this, and deemed it as whatever. But others looked at the post, and eventually figured out, Chaotic Rapier is much better for Slaying. Now you have to be a complete troll to say "CLS is better for Slaying herpderp." We've come to the conclusion that a Chaotic Rapier is better for Slaying, THROUGH HEATED ARGUMENT.

 

By tightening the rules, you guys are limiting discussion, as anyone that tries to get a decent argument going gets reported for flaming, trolling, and whatever else. There are two sides to every argument. If people disagree, you can't ban them for giving their views. That's NOT how a discussion board is meant to work.

 

BUT, this idea is already in progress. A friend of mine, who gets his point across through heated discussion, was recently giving a perm ban. I guarantee even though people didn't like his posting style, he got his points across, and people eventually learned he was right. But now that we're not allowing two-sided debates, he's gotten a banhammer, because people are too ignorant to look past his posting style, and take in the genuine information he has provided us. One of the BEST people on Tip.It to debate with is gone, R.I.P. Bladewing.

(As for Rule 2.2, I'm not posting on behalf of Blade, this is my own opinion.)

 

Rule 1.3 - Flaming, Violence, Harassment & Pointless Vulgarity

Heated debates are allowed across the entire forum and we are more lenient when it comes to banter between users in the PvP forums only. However, we always draw the line at personal attacks. Unacceptable forms of flaming include intentionally posting false arguments, intentionally misquoting other users, posting flames or personal attacks for no other purpose than to incite a negative reaction, annoying others or disrupting a discussion.

 

So in my eyes, heated debates are dying out, as people mistake a post of an opinion as "a flame for no other purpose than to incite a negative reaction." THIS is what you guys are doing by tightening the rules. I hope this gets my point across. I know a lot of people feel the same way.

[Andy]

Well said.

=D>

[LinkOlaran]

I just woke up, so forgive me for anything that isn't all the way thought out.

 

First off, Blade's been banned? Wow, I didn't expect that to have happened :/ (I kinda sorta knew him from when he used to be in Shyla's cc ages ago)

 

I probably came across as bit of an ass with my last post, and I apologize for that. I was a bit irritated at the time, having just read some of the topics with a large amount of pointless trolling and flaming going on in it.

 

Having read Dying's post, I realize I completely forgot that entire point - how many good discussions and debates come from heated arguments and such. I did feel that there should be an exception to the 'if you have nothing good to say, don't say it at all', but I completely forgot to say anything about it. Kinda typical of me, but whatever >.<

 

Modifying what I originally said, I believe that, while looking at a lot of the 'blunt' posts, and some of the heated arguments can bother some people, it really comes down to whether or not the blunt comment was meant as a flat out troll/flame, or it's just that person's writing style. I know my own style is the exact opposite, I try to... I'm not sure, be the nice guy I suppose? Hell, I don't know.

 

What I'm trying to say is that I agree with Dying's post. We get a lot of good discussions going from heated arguments. But, we get a lot of trolling and flaming as well. What the staff should do is observe the reported person's writing style, and make a decision on whether they're purposely trying to flame, or just approaching the discussion with a more blunt mindset. The staff should try to make the effort to not ban the people who are just blunt, but ban the people that exist to cause irritation via trolling. I can think of people that fit into both categories, but no naming names, I suppose. Although personally, I would've thought Blade would be in the 'blunt mindset' group rather than the 'troll/flamer' group, but that's also just my opinion. Also not really the place for it, but it was mentioned so I'll respond to it :P

 

Anyway. Excuse the wall of text (again), and apologies for any half thought out sentences or whatever. I just woke up. Hope I got my own point across, though.

[tripsis]

You guys are welcome to debate and challenge/criticize ideas as much as you want. The only thing we have a problem with is when it turns into personal attacking. And at that point, you're not having a discussion anymore, you're just flaming. There is no reason to insult or criticize the person behind those ideas - just stick to challenging opinions and you won't have a problem. We don't ban people for disagreeing with someone, we ban them for insulting/name-calling/harassing/personally attacking someone.

[DyingSilent]

Although personally, I would've thought Blade would be in the 'blunt mindset' group rather than the 'troll/flamer' group, but that's also just my opinion. Also not really the place for it, but it was mentioned so I'll respond to it :P

I think many others, myself included, would agree.

 

Edit: Also, for the record, I've never EVER seen Blade post a personal attack at anyone.

[tripsis]

We're not going to discuss individuals here but all rule-violating posts are removed from public view so there is good chance that they exist but you haven't seen them.

[muggiwhplar]

BUT, this idea is already in progress. A friend of mine, who gets his point across through heated discussion, was recently giving a perm ban. I guarantee even though people didn't like his posting style, he got his points across, and people eventually learned he was right. But now that we're not allowing two-sided debates, he's gotten a banhammer, because people are too ignorant to look past his posting style, and take in the genuine information he has provided us. One of the BEST people on Tip.It to debate with is gone, R.I.P. Bladewing.

(As for Rule 2.2, I'm not posting on behalf of Blade, this is my own opinion.)

 

You don't have to be blunt/cynical/sarcastic/rude to get a point across. If you have to resort to that type of posting style, then you're probably not as intelligent as you claim to be (or want to be seen as). If you get punished for posting like that, it's your own fault for your lack of self-control IMO.

[LinkOlaran]

Yeah, I admit, it's entirely possible I missed the posts that got him banned (last I'll post on it, I swear).

 

I think part of the flaming problem comes from this sort of situation:

 

Person posts topic.

 

People reply saying topic is stupid/answer is obvious/etc.

 

Person get's into a hissy fit and flames people for not agreeing/making them feel stupid.

 

People flame back.

 

Etc, etc. Regardless, Tripsis summed up what I was trying to say better than I did. Attack the idea, not the person. We can still have a fairly volatile/heated debate without name calling and such, I would imagine.

 

EDIT: In response to muggi's post, I imagine for some of these people it's less of a posting style and more of a personality thing - they're not forcefully posting in this style, it's just the way they talk/post. I always try to act nice and lenient (in the cases when I was a mod in Shyla's cc), and that shows through in my posting style. I also enjoy writing, hence why my posts are always a mini article in size >.>

Edited April 5, 2011 by LinkOlaran

[Andy]

In response to muggi's post, I imagine for some of these people it's less of a posting style and more of a personality thing - they're not forcefully posting in this style, it's just the way they talk/post. I always try to act nice and lenient (in the cases when I was a mod in Shyla's cc), and that shows through in my posting style. I also enjoy writing, hence why my posts are always a mini article in size >.>

 

You're right - People like blade (using him as an example and not discussing his ban), give short but very useful replies. It's when people get angry and don't look at his post properly that these rules will end up with the people who are actually offering good advice get unfairly banned (like dyingsilent's post pretty much explained).

[muggiwhplar]

EDIT: In response to muggi's post, I imagine for some of these people it's less of a posting style and more of a personality thing - they're not forcefully posting in this style, it's just the way they talk/post. I always try to act nice and lenient (in the cases when I was a mod in Shyla's cc), and that shows through in my posting style. I also enjoy writing, hence why my posts are always a mini article in size >.>

 

I don't think attributing their posting style to their personality should be an excuse not to punish them.

 

(if that's what you were implying :P)

 

You're right - People like blade (using him as an example and not discussing his ban), give short but very useful replies. It's when people get angry and don't look at his post properly that these rules will end up with the people who are actually offering good advice get unfairly banned (like dyingsilent's post pretty much explained).

 

If one were to take the time to consider the implications of their posts, this wouldn't be a problem. Is it really that difficult to create a concise post without any negative connotations?

[LinkOlaran]

I wasn't implying that, yeah. If someone posts a derogatory comment towards someone, they should be warned/banned, regardless of how they tend to post.

 

Still, some of us just post in a blunt manner because that's how they talk normally. If they're contributing, good. If they're being trolls, then have fun with the warning/bans.

 

I have no problems with trying to not be blunt with my posts, since I automatically attempt to do the opposite and... sugar coat it, I guess? To avoid conflict as much as possible. I'd be a pretty crappy debater because of it, though :P That doesn't include times when I'm already annoyed at something, however. Then my politeness tends to go out the window >.>

 

That being said, I doubt too many people would want to change their posting styles to post on here, apart from not posting flaming/trolling comments anyway. If I posted with a blunt manner normally, but I contribute to topics with said style, I doubt I'd change either.

[DyingSilent]

BUT, this idea is already in progress. A friend of mine, who gets his point across through heated discussion, was recently giving a perm ban. I guarantee even though people didn't like his posting style, he got his points across, and people eventually learned he was right. But now that we're not allowing two-sided debates, he's gotten a banhammer, because people are too ignorant to look past his posting style, and take in the genuine information he has provided us. One of the BEST people on Tip.It to debate with is gone, R.I.P. Bladewing.

(As for Rule 2.2, I'm not posting on behalf of Blade, this is my own opinion.)

 

You don't have to be blunt/cynical/sarcastic/rude to get a point across. If you have to resort to that type of posting style, then you're probably not as intelligent as you claim to be (or want to be seen as). If you get punished for posting like that, it's your own fault for your lack of self-control IMO.

 

It's not that you don't have to be blunt to get a point across, but when it is done that way, it gets an idea across a lot clearer than skating around the issue, and acting like it's just a minor detail, that they should eventually work on.

 

And I question your idea of self-control. Just because not everyone posts like a nice little unicorn, they don't have self-control? For posting something that gets an idea across?

[glasscube]

The problem I have with the trolling rules is that something that someone wrote can't really be objectively looked at. I mean in this thread I saw a post that I thought was uncalled for, but the person in question that was receiving the, in my opinion unwarranted reply may have not have cared as much as I would have in that scenario.

 

My point is, how can the tip.it staff look at a post and determine what is a troll and what isn't? And how can they assure that when they have to subjectively look at a post, that they don't bring biases in?

 

I mean it's quite easy to see a post with the content "You are stupid and should kill yourself as you are a waste of space" as flaming and purposely hurtful. Likewise someone could make a joke and through the power of the internet it may be misconstrued as a troll.

 

I guess what I am trying to say in a real round about matter is, I hope a lot of care is put into determining who and what is trolling or a troll. Sadly, it appears you guys are off to a horrible start with poor communication. The fact that this has already seemingly effected someone who may or may not have actually trolled, doesn't leave me with a lot of confidence.

[muggiwhplar]

BUT, this idea is already in progress. A friend of mine, who gets his point across through heated discussion, was recently giving a perm ban. I guarantee even though people didn't like his posting style, he got his points across, and people eventually learned he was right. But now that we're not allowing two-sided debates, he's gotten a banhammer, because people are too ignorant to look past his posting style, and take in the genuine information he has provided us. One of the BEST people on Tip.It to debate with is gone, R.I.P. Bladewing.

(As for Rule 2.2, I'm not posting on behalf of Blade, this is my own opinion.)

 

You don't have to be blunt/cynical/sarcastic/rude to get a point across. If you have to resort to that type of posting style, then you're probably not as intelligent as you claim to be (or want to be seen as). If you get punished for posting like that, it's your own fault for your lack of self-control IMO.

 

It's not that you don't have to be blunt to get a point across, but when it is done that way, it gets an idea across a lot clearer than skating around the issue, and acting like it's just a minor detail, that they should eventually work on.

 

And I question your idea of self-control. Just because not everyone posts like a nice little unicorn, they don't have self-control? For posting something that gets an idea across?

 

Being blunt is one thing; being rude on top of that is another thing. A lot of the posters around here post bluntly-- and that's OK! However, a lot of them also like to tell someone they're wrong about something (which is fine), and then go on to insult their character or make them feel stupid for being wrong in the first place (which is not fine). It's the disrespectful commentary which people add to their logic/argument that shouldn't be tolerated.

 

As far as self-control goes, I never said they have to be happy-go-lucky when they post. They just shouldn't be rude. You know-- find a spot in between those two extremes... it's not that difficult.

[Sy_Accursed]

I agree with muggi here its one thing to be blunt, eg answering a post saying Is it a good idea to use guam cleaning to training herblore

with a blunt answer such as:

No. That is literally the worst xp possible you should at least do....

 

Opposed to:

No that is a stupid idea. Its completely aweful xp and anyone who's any use at the game should be using...

 

Both are blunt, both are concise; but the later is clearly also insulting and negative.

[pulli23]

Why is there so much discussion over this?

 

Anyone who's well learned (and I think everyone here) should know that the moment you start to flame, get personal etc etc you lost the argument and on top of that your credibility as a human? so why are you even considering this?