Rules and Protocols of your forum

[Weasley Twin]

No matter how laid back you are, rules are still a major factor of the forums and having no rules at all causes alot of baclkash. Being too laid back could cause problems for future members and not to mention regular members.

Having no rules at all is a really bad idea, but if it has worked for your forum so far then that's all that matters.

[Gamoc]

If someone is so laid back as to not have any rules, then they don't even need to be an administrator of a forum, they need to just be a member and obey their rules until they can be sure that they will have rules for a forum for themself and make sure that the members follow them.

I am not sure if I have already stated this, but staff needs to obey the rules also, otherwords, that completely takes the significance out of having the rules when you think about it. It drives members away or gets them to start breaking the rules if the staff does and especially if the admin does.

Yes, rules are one of the most important things in a forum.

[Thing-Thing]

Well, I'm a member of this forum where the admin seemingly only checked in to start it, and one of the mods deleted the rules by accident -_-' So since I was among the veterans, I was asked to do some rules, but I don't know if there's anything to improve to make people follow them, see them THERE. I also set up rules on my forum, and with some sane members that follows them, everything is good.
Also, if you check out the link I put, don't read the entire thread, unless you're not afraid of seeing very weird people
EDIT: DO NOT, repeating NOT click the links in my sig at that forum

[Shentino]

No matter what rules you decide on, your members have a right to know them. Especially if breaking a certain rule will get you banned. And make sure your staffers follow the same rules they enforce, or there's going to be a backlash.

Case in point:

I was banned from RPGamer over an april fool's joke gone bad. Apparently, it was written in "Unwritten Code 101" that whosoever creates a second account shall be banned immediately upon discovery. However, this was never made explicit until AFTER I was banned.

What pissed me off royally was that I found out later that one of their staffers was doing the same thing and only got a slap on the wrist for it, even though HIS doppelganger was trolling 3 times a year for a long while. When he got caught, he didn't get banned, just given an ultimatun which eventually went away.

Eventually, the "anti shentino" conspiracy got so bad I was forced to surrender when a new admin threatened to have me summarily banned from a chat network if I didn't immediately cease and desist protesting the ban.

By the time a third admin got around to hearing my case I was so sick of the whole thing I didn't even want to go back anymore, and even she wound up caving into peer pressure from other staffers who didn't want me around.

I admit I was a bit of a jerk by failing to submit to the rulership, but had they been honest up front, I never would have had a second account in the first place, and the rogue staffer who was trolling under a second account would not have been around to make me mad that he got special treatment.

Moral?

Don't play favorites, and be up front with your rules. Assuming your members will always follow the rules even if they don't know them is folly. It's why the constitution was put in writing instead of just memorized intergenerationally.

Making your staff exempt from the rules is only going to invite trouble when members who get punished are rightly jealous of the special treatment.

[HoudiniDerek]

shentino said:

No matter what rules you decide on, your members have a right to know them. Especially if breaking a certain rule will get you banned. And make sure your staffers follow the same rules they enforce, or there's going to be a backlash.

Case in point:

I was banned from RPGamer over an april fool's joke gone bad. Apparently, it was written in "Unwritten Code 101" that whosoever creates a second account shall be banned immediately upon discovery. However, this was never made explicit until AFTER I was banned.

What pissed me off royally was that I found out later that one of their staffers was doing the same thing and only got a slap on the wrist for it, even though HIS doppelganger was trolling 3 times a year for a long while. When he got caught, he didn't get banned, just given an ultimatun which eventually went away.

Eventually, the "anti shentino" conspiracy got so bad I was forced to surrender when a new admin threatened to have me summarily banned from a chat network if I didn't immediately cease and desist protesting the ban.

By the time a third admin got around to hearing my case I was so sick of the whole thing I didn't even want to go back anymore, and even she wound up caving into peer pressure from other staffers who didn't want me around.

I admit I was a bit of a jerk by failing to submit to the rulership, but had they been honest up front, I never would have had a second account in the first place, and the rogue staffer who was trolling under a second account would not have been around to make me mad that he got special treatment.

Moral?

Don't play favorites, and be up front with your rules. Assuming your members will always follow the rules even if they don't know them is folly. It's why the constitution was put in writing instead of just memorized intergenerationally.

Making your staff exempt from the rules is only going to invite trouble when members who get punished are rightly jealous of the special treatment.

Shentino,
I know how you feel. I am banned from a sister site to a main site that I am an active member of. I was banned because one of the three admins hated me. They couldn't actively put in a rule that said NO HD because that would isolate them from a lot of people. What they did instead was institute a rule such as "No mention of the A-Team" and used that to ban me several times...even though I did not mention them ONCE. Then, when others mentioned the A-Team, they were not banned...they were forced to modify their posts, which a lot of members recognized as being anti-HD.

I never fought it because I think it is sad that people make rules to keep others out...no matter how wide-range. The age one on Proboards I can see, but allowing other forms of it is iffy in my mind and should not be a rule such as all female forums and the like. If that is the case, we should be able to discriminate in other ways.

But, I digress. I agree that the rules should be outlined with specifics as to what can and cannot be done...and that if someone "breaks" a rule that is NOT visual at the time of the infraction, that person should NOT be banned until it is done again AFTER it is visual.

[Lust del Carrion]

punkyfish said:

No matter how laid back you are, rules are still a major factor of the forums and having no rules at all causes alot of baclkash. Being too laid back could cause problems for future members and not to mention regular members.

Having no rules at all is a really bad idea, but if it has worked for your forum so far then that's all that matters.

Could be a bad idea. But I am willing to try new things. My forum hasn't been up for too long, so I'll see how it goes. I think most people who find themselves at my forum can figure out what is and what isn't ok to be doing on the forum.

[kelendria]

I personally don't discourage multiple accounts unless they are spammers or just trying to be annoying.
Very often people forget paswords, logins or change emails, which does happen from time to time.
I'd rather worry abut the important things like spamming, flaming (although it rarely happens to me), respect for others etc.
I was kind of a martyr when it came to rules, but now keep mine short & simple, although little explanations to what they mean can be helpful

[rosebud]

I think that admins should give examples of the word SPAMMING instead of just saying 'don't spam.' I've given the meaning and examples of what SPAM is such as...creating topics that are already being discussed, posting a topic in the wrong forum, bumping a thread simply to make it seen, etc. I think those should be the first mentioned because it shows a member how to go about posting in a forum. It gives the members some kind of direction.

I think that if you speak English that there should be proper spelling and grammar, but only if you're English. I have met plenty of people who are trying to learn English, but a member could be a really bad example. It doesn't help the other members who live in another country.

Telling the members alone to 'respect' one another doesn't help, but it should be an important rule to mention. I also gave examples of how members should treat one another. Such as...what information a user gives out stays in this forum and shouldn't be discussed elsewhere. Members shouldn't gossip behind each other's backs. As much as people might love it, unless it's positive, it shouldn't be mentioned. Just think...would the information you're giving away bother the person your discussing? Would it hurt him or her?

I also mentioned in the rules that the members not only need to respect each other, but the staff as well. They can do that by listening and obeying the rules of the forum.

I think another important rule that is often left out is the staff needs to respect their members. There reasons should always be valid. Its sad when a staff makes an invalid decision against the member. Their actions shouldn't be based on opinions just because he/she disagrees with a member over an opinion on a subject that has nothing to do with the rules, but that what the member did was sincerely wrong. The staff needs to be responsible for making sure that their actions was fair. It wouldn't be fair to ban someone without giving them a reminder and I don't think it's fair, depending on the offense, to ban someone without giving them a reminder and a warning. My mom always went by the three warnings rule and took action the third time she had to say it again and I think that should also be the case in every forum.

[HoudiniDerek]

I agree with all of your rules Esther as well as the examples on some. It is just assumed any more that "spam" is automatically known, even if it is not.

I totally agree with the last rule. A lot of members want to be staff, but yet, they never act like it or they act like they see the staff act. Having a rule up-front sets the respectful tone for everyone, including potential staff in the future. Good idea.

[Garyn Fett]

At one of the forums I'm on, we have a comprehensive set of rules. Stickied and made an announcement, so its visible everywhere. We defined things, and are pretty lenient as far as relative 'strictness'. As a mod/admin team, though, we do enforce the rules wherever we come across discrepencies, even where mods are involved. Usually, thats in the graphics board, where artists will post modded pics without putting the site tag on them. As this is against one of the rules of the section, the picture will be deleted and the artist notified, so they can go back in and put the tag on.

Profanity will also get you a warning, double posting, ect. If we run into a continuing problem with it, we'll make notes on the user's profile, and warn them at least three times before giving them a suspension. They ignore us after the suspension, they get banned.

Unfortunately, we don't have that comprehensive set of rules on the other board, but most of them are pretty common. Much larger staff section there, so we have people on almost 24-7, and we just go through and edit posts for profanity or double posting, then send a PM warning to the person, informing them of the rule. Since we don't have the rules listed, though, we give more warnings and clearly tell them what will happen if they continue before suspension and banning. I've only had to ban somebody once because of ignoring the warnings, most people listen pretty well.

As for multiple profiles, we [as a staff] just ask to be notified on the smaller site, and don't care on the other one. As long as they don't post in a contest with multiple profiles, its no big deal. On the smaller site, though (which is mainly RP), the mods need to know who is who so we can know what to expect from certain profiles. We have a few dodgy people there, though they're getting better.

[jack-attack]

Nov 22, 2006 7:28:10 GMT -8 Enchant said:

So the questions to you are:

When do you consider a forum has too many or too little rules and what do you think these rules should consist of?

When the rules have too many Rules, they go for the smallest things possible.

When they have too little, they go for the biggest most common rules, like "All post in English" (Mentioned in ToS), or like "No Netspeaking". You can also tell that they have too little if they don't even say what are things. Mainly, there are some things people should no. I hope everyone knows what swearing is, I don't think admins want that explained.

In my fourm, I have about 4 or 5 Catagories of Rules. (Main Rulwes, Sig & avatar Images Rules, etc.) All of those contain about 4 - 6 rules in their. I don't consider it much.

It consit of the common No Swearing, all post must be in English, yes, I did put it their. "No PM Spamming. (PM Spam is when you PM people your website information or attract them)", and other things I dodn't remember off my head.

I try and keep mine short, sweet, simple, and easy to follow.

[Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti]

I have 12 rules on the board Im on the most and its cause I had to come up with a few new ones after I noticed some new things that werent happening before suddenly happen
But most of the rules are always followed
I and a few other of my members including the staff
broke a few rules ourselves
Im not gonna get all huffy over it cause I dont expect everyone to be perfect
but there are some rules that really need to be followed that I dont want broken at all and if they are then theres a punishment to be given

[Kami]

When do you consider a forum has too many or too little rules and what do you think these rules should consist of?

I think it's a bit different with role play forums, actually, because not only do you have to have site rules, but roleplay and character rules as well. As I don't run any non-RP sites (nor am I a part of any except PBS), I will give my opinion on RP sites.

Too Little Rules

The biggest example of 'too little rules' for an RP forum that I can think of is one that simply has a list, with no explanation, and is missing either general forum rules, character creation rules, and role play rules, or a combination of.

Making a list - which almost always is a list of 'don't do this' - with no explanation seems to be a bit irrational. For example:

- don't swear
- no chatspeak
- don't spam

Well, why? I mean, sure, the 'why' might be common sense to most of us, but unfortunately, forum creators might need to cater to the minority when it comes to explaining rules.

If you run an RP forum and are missing rules or guidelines on the role-play/character creation, you are going to have pandemonium on your hands, with people making over-powered, marysue/garystu, or ripped-from-other-stories characters. It's inevitable.

Too Many Rules
I think the definition of 'too many rules' is a bit skewed. People look at a bunch of 'rules' or 'guideline' threads, and think OMG! So many rules I have to follow!, when, in fact, each thread pertains to something specific and can be short. Some threads aren't even rules at all, and rather an explanation of a process, or an event (such as explaining member of the month, or who-does-what on the staff team). Or, some places -such as my own forums- have even the 'common sense' rules spelled out, because of one too many people breaking a common sense rule, then siting the fact that it *wasn't* spelled out in the rules/FAQ threads.

'Too Many Rules', I think, would be a set of rules that dictates exactly what order you have to post in, the time limit for making said posts, or overall a set of rules that would force you to be practically glued to the computer.

For example, I was once a part of a site that said RP threads had to follow a certain order for posting, eg -Person A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D... so if person A and B were on at the same time and made their posts, they'd have to wait until persons C and D came on again before posting again -- which, I think is a bit ridiculous, because they're there! Persons C and D can always catch up; or maybe persons A and B want to branch out the RP and go a different way from person C and D. They should be able to!

Another example would be planning out RP's before hand. I mean, to some extent, sure (for example, the beginning --or, if it's a major canon event, sometimes the ending- but stuff like, OK I do this, then you have to do this, then she does that.... it really defeats the purpose of an RP, if everything is planned out.


I hope I made sense. @_@

[hogwartsevermore]

I run a newly opened RPG, and I agree that too little or too many rules is hard to define. For a general forum there will obviously be fewer rules, but as Kamiya Kaoru said, role-playing forums are a bit different.

With my forum, I have two different sets of rules: Site Rules and Forum Rules. The site rules cover the basics, such as "no swearing", and most of the time, a short explanation. The Forum Rules are more comprehension, and much bigger, because they explain exactly how the site works and the disciplinary action taken against different rules (ie two warnings before suspension for one specific rule, and only one warning then suspension for one of the more serious rules.) I think it's really important that members know exactly what will happen if they break some rules, because as Shentino said, it is not fair to ban someone when they didn't know about the rule. Also, my site has a policy that the member will always receive a PM explaining what discipline is taking place and what for, and so if they feel it is unfair, they are able to talk to the staff about it.

In many ways, my forum may have "too many" rules, because the forum rules are very thorough. There are only about twelve, but each one is explained in detail. Only time will tell if that is a bad thing or not.

I agree with Kamiya Kaoru again when she said that in an RPG, too many rules would consist of telling members the order they must post in, etc. On my forum, I have a guide for how much members should write at each level (ie an older student should write a minimum of two paragraphs) These are not rules, however, and are merely guides, and are not enforced in the same sense that swearing is. I think members should be given the responsibility to post what they think is reasonable. I think enforcing such rules with disciplinary action would almost be insulting to the member, because how much they write is really up to them.

In my opinion, site rules and forum rules on RPG's should be kept separate to avoid confusion (although there are some great examples of when they are integrated, so this all depends on how they're written). I think rules such as "no swearing, no bullying, no disrespectful posts" are the most important, because they set the precedent for how the site is run. If there is no rule saying "no bullying", then the perpetrator has a valid excuse (although weak in my opinion) to be doing what they're doing. Also, it should be stressed that staff are not exempt from the rules. I think it's terribly unfair to punish a member for breaking a rule that a staff member breaks without punishment.

[GSJ]

Well from how I see things, too many rules is just overwhelming for any new members and sound awfully picky at times. I have a large Rp site and we have rules, which are brief and to the point (written up by my partner the other admin) we have links attached to some so members can read about one or two in more detail and thats it.

Because obviously you can't run a site with so little rules we have guidelines for each board stickied, the main rules are announced permanantly everywhere. And we are rather lenient, I don't see the point in threatening punishment or suspension, banning or warnings. As not only is it rather over the top in many cases, but you need to do them then as that is what you said you'd do, and often they're just silly mistakes. Yet if you don't punish them like you said you would, members could complain or be dissatisfied that you didn't, stating favouritism or something along those lines.

At least having general rules and guidelines, you can run the rest off common sense and resolve a rule problem or disagreement/fight with little distress to the staff or the member.

As the site grew, more guidelines were added and changes to the rules occured. Overall though I believe, rules help guide members and allows the members to know what is and isn't accepted on the site, so know when they've done the right or wrong thing. I dislike threats in rules as I don't see why the members of the site that are gracing you with their time and presence need to be spoke to in such a way. Banning or suspension is a pretty serious thing and not something I'd ever throw around on our site, especially not in the rules which is often the first thing your members and guests read.

^.~ Just my thoughts XD I guess my opinions a little strong maybe in this case? lol seeing as I've been running the site spoken about for over two years with the other admin.

The rules we use:

= Please don't spam, there's no need!

= Don't swear, curse, use CAPS, use ThIz KiND Of NeT T@lk because it's get's fairly annoying after a while

= Be nice to your fellow forum-goers

= Avatars can be 100x100 max

= Don't make your sig too large or inappropriate

= Start with a Profile and Opening post

= Advertise in signatures, not through all the boards (link)

= You need to be over 14 (link)



And thats pretty much it ^.^;; with these and the board and thread guidelines. The members know what we want followed and whats appropriate I guess.

But as said, every site is different and everyone has different leadership skills, personalities and preferences as an Admin.

GSJ