[Suggestion] Add a rule against being an immature $insult

[Balrog]

I was thinking about Myroc's "how to post" tutorial (for which he is credit to team), and I realized that post-MM8BDM this forum has the same demographics as SRB2 - that same cross-section of "free game", "popular franchise", and "runs on crappy computers" that attracts annoying immature 8- to 12-year-olds who possess minimal composition and reading comprehension skills, have absolutely no clue about how anything works, and try to make themselves look important by announcing grand mod ideas only to give up when they realize that making stuff requires skill and effort or to have their creations be torn a new asshole by the more seasoned members of the community.

Now, SRB2MB's admins recently got fed up with this, and implemented a new rule: Immaturity will not be tolerated. Since CutStuff's situation is similar, maybe we could do something similar.

[MusashiAA]

What can be defined as an inmature action or behavior that is not already a warnable OR bannable offense?

There goes your suggestion.

[CarThief]

I dont browse the MM8BDM forums as much, so my judgement may not be as accurate but... Shouldnt the current rules cover any immature behaviour already? I can imagine people starting topics with overly large/ambitious ideas and then quitting them may be annoying but i wouldnt call it bannable, let alone an offence worth of a warn. Though i'm not sure if that happens all that often at all.

Not too sure how one would handle any instances of people who poorly read and write, though, as they're not trying to be annoying, ussually they're just unknowing of their mistakes. Probaly best to just tell them of it and hope they improve. If they are clearly trying to be annoying, that might be a case for the mods instead.

[Tengu]

Where I agree with that whole spelling issue I brought up (Which by the way has a decent amount of "yes" votes <_<) I don't really agree with this. I mean a LOT of things considered immature are posted here every day, and to be honest a lot of it is just us being ourselves. It's what we like doing. And I mean this in a lighthearted, fun sort of way.

[tsukiyomaru0]

I can't agree much... Of course, we would get rid of poorly writen posts, but it would risk a huge cut in future fan base.

[MEGAMANX123]

ummm i dont have any good suggestions there are going to be people who are just like that i honestly dont know what to say

[Balrog]

I dont browse the MM8BDM forums as much, so my judgement may not be as accurate but... Shouldnt the current rules cover any immature behaviour already? I can imagine people starting topics with overly large/ambitious ideas and then quitting them may be annoying but i wouldnt call it bannable, let alone an offence worth of a warn. Though i'm not sure if that happens all that often at all.
Not too sure how one would handle any instances of people who poorly read and write, though, as they're not trying to be annoying, ussually they're just unknowing of their mistakes. Probaly best to just tell them of it and hope they improve. If they are clearly trying to be annoying, that might be a case for the mods instead.

I'm aware that the rules already cover immature behavior implicitly, but I think that having it as an explicit rule is a good idea.

Where I agree with that whole spelling issue I brought up (Which by the way has a decent amount of "yes" votes <_<) I don't really agree with this. I mean a LOT of things considered immature are posted here every day, and to be honest a lot of it is just us being ourselves. It's what we like doing. And I mean this in a lighthearted, fun sort of way.

I agree that punishment should not be inflicted upon the people to which you refer. This is because these people generally show themselves capable of coherent thought when it is demanded of them, and act immature because they find it amusing or appropriate. (Take myself for example. I'm often the first person to post a snarky comment that stomps all over standard capitalization and punctuation rules as well as polite speech. However, in instances where I want to be taken seriously, I take the time to make a reasonable, thoughtful contribution to the discussion.)

This rule would apply to users who have proven themselves incapable of such discretion. I'd also like to add that my intention was for this rule to be applied as a last resort to users who have not responded to other means of getting them to make posts that other people will want to read. In fact, now that I think of it, "immaturity will not be tolerated" is an appropriate description of what I am suggesting. "Unrepentant and persistent immaturity will not be tolerated" is a better description.

EDIT: I seem to have touched a nerve. A CutStuff user who prefers to remain anonymous approached me about this thread via Steam Community, and gave me permission to post the log here. No editing has been performed, other than the expected anonymization.

Code: [Select]

Never tell your password to anyone.
Friday, December 28, 2012
11:12 AM - <REDACTED>: thank you for posting that thread on Cutstuff
11:12 AM - <REDACTED>: I was going to eventually meantion the same arguement.
11:13 AM - <CuSt> The Joker: You mean the one about SRB2?
11:13 AM - <REDACTED>: Yes
11:13 AM - <REDACTED>: Which by the way someone went to the extreme about it by saying there should be an age limit on cutstuff
11:13 AM - <REDACTED>: restriction, even
11:15 AM - <REDACTED>: and this is on a skype chat I'm on
11:16 AM - <REDACTED>: to be honest, if an Age Restriction was considered, it would have to be at least allowing 12 year olds in as long as they
don't behave like children.
11:17 AM - <REDACTED>: I think Car and Tengu have a point.
11:19 AM - <REDACTED>: I just found an ingenious way to keep illiterate kids off of CS
11:20 AM - <CuSt> The Joker: An age restriction would be impossible to enforce and would keep out gifted individual.s
11:20 AM - <REDACTED>: I just remembered that I used to visit a forum that had a redicilous way to join. You had to take a literacy test (I am
not shitting you about this, this forum was fucking elitist in some way about things.) in order to get an allowence onto that said forums.
11:20 AM - <CuSt> The Joker: Age and maturity are two different things.
11:21 AM - <REDACTED>: And it also made you take a Maturity test as another means of proving your gain.
11:21 AM - <CuSt> The Joker: Which forum was this?
11:21 AM - <REDACTED>: I can't remember the name of it. It's been a few years since I was on it.
11:23 AM - <REDACTED>: Though, a Maturity test would help make better sense of the forums' current state'
11:23 AM - <REDACTED>: fucking apostrophie
11:24 AM - <CuSt> The Joker: The problem with a maturity test is that that "maturity" is a subjective quality. You know when someone is being
immature, but you can't really define when someone is being mature. Thus, making a completely objective and infallible maturity test is
impossible.
11:25 AM - <REDACTED>: I can name a few individuals on the forums whom I have seen.
11:25 AM - <REDACTED>: None of the mainstream kids either.
11:25 AM - <CuSt> The Joker: We all can, I'm sure
11:27 AM - <REDACTED>: People like Servbot shouldn't really be on the forums because with the way he types I could've thought he was a fucking
high schooler. But nooooo, instead I realized that he's probably 8 like Megamanx123, Lum, and a few undisclosed members are. And there are some
older users like Clayman6 (MEGALad) who're 15 - 16 years of age and act like little kids. Seriously, you should see the disrespectful shit him
and Lum say, they we're being racist about chinese people and savior happened to be on the server at the same time >_>
11:28 AM - <REDACTED>: Seriously, I'm glad Savior was there. He ripped them a new asshole.
11:29 AM - <REDACTED>: I swear to god it wasn't as bad as say Skulltag's forums was but it's getting damn near it.
11:30 AM - <REDACTED>: same goes with SRB2 on some level.
11:31 AM - <REDACTED>: I swear I've been warning these jokers the last three fucking years
11:31 AM - <REDACTED>: I've TOLD them this is turning into Skulltag'
11:31 AM - <REDACTED>: and none of them seem to heed my warning.
11:38 AM - <CuSt> The Joker: Well, I didn't really pay much attention to the Skulltag forums, so I can't say how bad those were.
11:38 AM - <REDACTED>: Trust me, when the shit was flung about Torr not updating the community split into two halves
11:38 AM - <REDACTED>: the asshole, elitist, troll side and the norms
11:38 AM - <REDACTED>: norms / newbs
11:40 AM - <REDACTED>: Toor (as I call him because lol) has been doing more since Zandronum happened.
11:40 AM - <REDACTED>: They aim to not have another "skulltag"
11:40 AM - <REDACTED>: since...it became bad because of the community >_>
11:40 AM - <REDACTED>: it's where CS is going to go though. The way I see it.
11:41 AM - <REDACTED>: And I've been spinning my head around it for AGES now and no one seems to listen or heed my warnings pretaining to cutstuff's future.
11:42 AM - <REDACTED>: Honestly I'm already fed up with most of this community nowadays.


[CarThief]

Huh, pretty crazy idea, an maturity test, but i can understand the reasons for it. But to be honest, that sounds awfully elitist, and this forum is anything but that if i recall correctly, it just wouldnt fit in too well. That and cases of immaturity dont seem to be that rampant on these forums as far as i'm aware, to warrant anything like that.

Does remind me of what Skulltag used to have, moderators needed to approve your first (and perhaps second) post before you could do anything at all, couldnt even PM or anything like that. Probaly was there to keep the bots and the truly immature out.
If this does become a major problem perhaps the mods could keep an eye out for new users (pretty easy via observing join dates and low post counts) who dont behave as desired and give them some advice/warning/whatever to step up their game. Preferabaly in a proper, mature and suggesting manner, though. Outright saying "start acting mature or be banned!" will often simply invoke a agressive reaction, be considered a challenge, or scare off new would-be forum users.
One of CMM's forum rules says it best, first impression is everything!

[tsukiyomaru0]

As an idea for warns & punishments for those:
First warn: just a basic notification.
Second warn: posting rights revoked for a couple of days (ranging from 2 to 4 days)
Third warn: posting and PM rights revoked for a week
Fourth warn: posting and PM rights revoked for a month or two
Final strike: Posting and PM rights revoked for a year, extends for another year if the user attempts to appeal before the expiration or evades the punishment.
Last resource: In case of persisting immaturity, the user gets banned through account and possibly IP permanently or until acceptable behavior is displayed by other means over time, even so the forgiveness process will take over a year.

[MusashiAA]

Yeah, no.

I think the social shunning is already a punishment for inmature people. You know, like this entire thread and the chatsp33k thread.

I wouldn't mind there being more steep penalties towards it, but things like maturity are something very subjective to evaluate and act accordingly.

I believe that the best way of dealing with inmaturity is by actually letting people confront inmature members and question their actions in public. The inmature member has a chance of proving itself sane or mature or whatever, and if it doesn't prove so it'll probably involve swearing and name-calling or general bad behavior that is already (somewhat) punishable.

Implementing very steep rules and methods of avoiding inmature members to join will eventually turn this community into a handful of elitist assholes. I'd like rules that can mantain a healthy number of newcomers joining without much hassle or prejudice AND can punish members who do not act according to our community's quintessential rules of coexistence.

[Knux]

da rulez

With all due respect, Tsuki, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want this site to become a second GameFAQs. The moderators and their 50+ commandments there? They can eat shit for all I care.

Besides, things aren't so bad here that we need to enforce laws or anything...

[MusashiAA]

Besides, things aren't so bad here that we need to enforce laws or anything...

Well, by the way this topic is developing, it seems like it.

[Myroc]

try to make themselves look important by announcing grand mod ideas only to give up when they realize that making stuff requires skill and effort or to have their creations be torn a new asshole by the more seasoned members of the community.

There are already safeguards for this in place. You're not allowed to even make a topic for a project if you don't have anything significant to show for it.

With that out of the way, the current forum guidelines already take care of a lot of immaturity. Immature users whose crimes aren't great enough to be banned for should just be socially shunned. A "maturity test" is an absolutely fucking terrible idea; New users needs to be given a chance. It's then up to the individual user if they want to squander it.

Nine Hells, I should really write up some sort of "Community Code of Conduct" to go with the Forum Post tutorial I made earlier. A sort of guide on how to interact with the rest of the community in a polite and reasonable manner.

(Don't worry, it won't be riddled with "fucks" this time.)

(At least not in an insulting manner.)

[tsukiyomaru0]

da rulez

With all due respect, Tsuki, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want this site to become a second GameFAQs. The moderators and their 50+ commandments there? They can eat shit for all I care.

Besides, things aren't so bad here that we need to enforce laws or anything...

I'm just giving ideas on fitting punishments in case this passes. Not rules. In fact, if you look at it, I'm one of those against the idea, so it would make no sense if I made rules for it.

[Balrog]

try to make themselves look important by announcing grand mod ideas only to give up when they realize that making stuff requires skill and effort or to have their creations be torn a new asshole by the more seasoned members of the community.

There are already safeguards for this in place. You're not allowed to even make a topic for a project if you don't have anything significant to show for it.

With that out of the way, the current forum guidelines already take care of a lot of immaturity. Immature users whose crimes aren't great enough to be banned for should just be socially shunned. A "maturity test" is an absolutely fucking terrible idea; New users needs to be given a chance. It's then up to the individual user if they want to squander it.

Nine Hells, I should really write up some sort of "Community Code of Conduct" to go with the Forum Post tutorial I made earlier. A sort of guide on how to interact with the rest of the community in a polite and reasonable manner.

(Don't worry, it won't be riddled with "fucks" this time.)

(At least not in an insulting manner.)

This. All of it.

The result I had in mind when I created this thread was the creation of a specific rule against being an $insult, as a natural extension of the "keep it sane" and "first impression is everything" rules. I agree (as I did earlier) that a maturity test is a bad idea. What I had envisioned was the mods keeping an eye out for users showing poor conduct and gently pushing them in the right direction. "Hey friend, your posts are kinda hard to read. Try reading this for a few pointers." or "Please don't start a project without knowing what you're getting into." instead of "Stay in line or be banned for your insolence!" Actual punishment would only be inflicted as a last resort when the mods (preferably more than one) agree that the user in question is not going to learn and not going to behave well.

Social shunning only goes so far on the Internet; while it is an important tool to promote good behavior in any community, the detachment of a glowing screen often keeps the message from getting through. Another problem is that if you go out and call a spade a spade, the spade may go and complain to a mod about harassment, in which case your fate is in the hands of the mod. (This may not be a problem here, but it is a problem on places like GameFAQs, as Knux said. Such intimidation transcends any one board, as moderators and other figures of authority vary wildly in their attitudes.) Or the spade in question could just cover his or her figurative ears and ignore you.

tl;dr: What I wanted out of this was for mods to gently push the immature to straighten up and fly right. If they don't, keep pushing them. If they still don't, and it's obvious they won't listen to reason, then is action taken, and not a moment beforehand.