Forum Rules and Guidelines Discussion

You are just proving my point. This thread is Forum Rules and Guidelines, not Tim presents more evidence for Pam Reynolds! 

Of course, you are right, Chuckles. I was of course quite serious and  I'll delete my post above. 

Of course, you are right, Chuckles. I was of course quite serious and  I'll delete my post above. 

I'm teasing, Tim. I have no powers here. Welcome!!!!!!

I'm teasing, Tim. I have no powers here. Welcome!!!!!!

 Chuck. I haven't stopped laughing, you sure had me going there..............to the pub

[Laird]

In a reply to @Sparky in the Vaxx thread in the opt-in forums, I indicated that the board's rules may need some clarification (around "respect" and "personal attacks").

Following up on that, here is a new version of the rules with these significant changes:

1. The addition of a clarification, including three examples, of what constitutes an (unacceptable) personal attack, and how personal attacks differ from (acceptable) contextually relevant personal criticism.
   
2. The addition of section headings and some minor reordering.
   
3. The replacement of the rule relating to "Defamatory remarks and personal slurs" with the section "2. Policy on criticism of public figures". The motivation behind this is that the original rules seems somewhat inconsistent with our #1 rule of respect and no personal attacks (on board members). Given that that rule was originally inspired by a member's critical remarks on a parapsychologist who had joined our forum, where it was generally agreed that researchers as public figures should be open to such criticism even if they have joined our forum, I thought it best to stipulate that this rule applies only to public figures, and not to ordinary board members.
   
4. The removal from the section now titled "8. Policy on non-psi-related conspiracy theories and political topics" of the text beginning "Note that in these forums, moderators will not police defamatory remarks and personal slurs at all" etc, since this, too seems inconsistent with our #1 rule of respect, especially as clarified in this draft.
   

Unless anybody has any objections, this draft will replace the existing rules in due course. Otherwise: please critique away. The draft follows:

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These are the rules, guidelines, and policies that have now been set up for the forum. Nothing is set in stone and there may be more forthcoming, although the intention is to keep rules to a minimum. Input from members is welcome in the Forum Rules and Guidelines Discussion thread.


1. Basic rule: respect

Like most forums, we ask that members try to be respectful of one another (or pretend to be!), even in the case of violent disagreement with another member's views. Heated debate is welcome, but not personal attacks. Note that there is a difference between a personal attack (not acceptable) and contextually relevant personal criticism (acceptable, so long as respectful). Contextually relevant personal criticism is that which sheds light on the member's reliability, consistency, integrity, or similar with respect to a point in contention (and does so respectfully, without otherwise personally attacking the member). At the bottom of these rules are a few examples to help distinguish between (acceptable) contextually relevant personal criticism and (unacceptable) personal attacks.

What's the TL;DR without consulting the examples? Feel free to respectfully point out the personal traits or behaviour of another member that are relevant to a point in contention. Don't, though, personally attack (condemn, castigate, insult, curse out, etc) other members for whatever you perceive their personal failings to be, especially when that attack is not relevant to a legitimate point in contention.

The distinction is of course not always as straightforward to make out as in the below examples, and there may be exceptions in certain situations - e.g., where a mock insult is thrown at a forum pal in jest, or where bad behaviour by a member is reasonably being called out by another member. Moderators will make the final call as to where to draw the line, and what action, if any, should be taken. Members are free to respectfully disagree with moderators' judgements, whilst recognising that the final call is with the moderation team.


2. Policy on criticism of public figures

Criticism of public figures, whether members of the forum or not, is tolerated to a much greater extent than are personal attacks upon ordinary forum members, especially in the context of allowing "skeptical" members to question the integrity of researchers in the field. Extremely grievous or offensive claims against public figures though - e.g., unsubstantiated accusations of paedophilia or other sex crimes - are not acceptable and are subject to policing by moderators.


3. Prohibition on thread flooding

Sometimes, especially when passions are running high on a contentious topic, it can be tempting to barrage a thread with a rapid burst of posts in support of one's view. Resist this temptation! Especially resist it when the content is not original: memes or other images, embedded videos, quotes from news articles or websites, testimonials, etc. Remember: this is a discussion forum, not a social media platform. Post so as to facilitate discussion; allow the space in which discussion - and reasoned debate - can occur.


4. Policy on content ownership

You retain the right to any original material that you post to this forum, and are free to edit and delete any of your posts at will. Please, though, consider the effect that any edits or deletions will have before editing or deleting your posts. This applies especially to the deletion of entire threads in which others have participated, and even more especially when you don't have their consent. Entire threads deleted without good reason may be restored by moderators.


5. Forum organisation and administration

This forum was set up by ten founders (seven of whom remain in the decision-making team), who retain final decision-making power. Currently, five of them are active forum administrators. Not all of the administrators are necessarily interested in moderation, and so only the administrators who are also moderators have the “administrator” status displayed under their names.

Please note that no one should be hesitant to challenge administrators, either on their moderation or while responding to their posts as participants. The administrators are particularly sensitive and dedicated to the idea of creating a forum experience that is tolerant, community-focused and not repressive in any way, and so will/should be extremely open to challenges to their decisions or posts. (We do not see our role as police officers ever ready to hand out tickets.)


6. General moderation policy

We aim to keep moderation as low-key and as unintrusive as possible. Thus, we rely partly on the goodwill and collaboration of all the forum participants. Bans will not be considered an option unless all other means fail (with the exception of members joining for the main purpose of spamming or trolling).

Content will certainly not be moderated in terms of its perceived truth value.


7. Policy on the skeptic/proponent divide

This forum is open to both proponents and those who are traditionally called "skeptics". Said skeptics are allowed to participate on all the forums and sub-forums. However, when an individual does not accept the anomalous nature of any of the various phenomena in the Extended Consciousness Phenomena (ECP) forum, and when the intent is strictly to "debunk", that type of post should be reserved for the Skeptic vs Proponent Discussions sub-forum (or at least kept out of the ECP forum), so that proponents can have space to have discussions that extend beyond the "is it real or not real?" variety without unwanted and derailing interventions.

To be a bit more specific: in general, if a skeptic wants to engage a discussion at a “proponent vs. skeptic level”, then it would be better to do so in the Skeptic vs. Proponent Discussions sub-forum. Again, that does not mean "skeptics" cannot post on the ECP forum, for example to discuss a specific case or article, but not if the discussion's objective - let's say it's about NDEs - is to argue from there that extended consciousness is not involved in NDEs in the first place. That kind of post would best be suited to the Skeptic vs. Proponent Discussions sub-forum.


8. Policy on non-psi-related conspiracy theories and political topics

Discussions about politics and conspiracy theories that are not directly related to psi phenomena (where psi phenomena include UFOs and other sub-forum topics) should be confined to the hidden child forums within the Other Topics sub-forum. See here on how to join those child forums.


Examples for rule #1

These examples are intended to help distinguish between (acceptable) contextually relevant personal criticism and (unacceptable) personal attacks.

Example 1

Acceptable: "Alex owns a gun shop, so his/her arguments against gun prohibition should be taken with a grain of salt."

Unacceptable: "Alex is a contemptible murderer for making a profit by selling dangerous weapons to others. Damn Alex and his/her disgusting trade. May s/he be murdered in turn by one of the weapons s/he sold."

In the first case, the personal criticism of Alex as a gun-shop owner is relevant to the point in contention - Alex's arguments against gun prohibition - since it provides good cause to suspect Alex of bias, and thus to be cautious of accepting his/her arguments. Given that it is also respectful, it is acceptable on our forums. The second is a personal attack on Alex as a gun-shop owner, disconnected from any point in contention and reeking of ill-intent. It is thus not acceptable on our forums.

Example 2

Acceptable: "Dylan has shown him/herself in the past to lack a fundamental understanding of statistics, and yet now s/he expects us to believe that s/he knows what s/he is talking about on statistical regression? That seems unlikely."

Unacceptable: "Dylan knows diddly-squat about statistics, because s/he is a dopey moron who would flunk out of a Special Ed class."

Again, in the first case, the personal criticism of Dylan as having historically demonstrated a lack of understanding of statistics is relevant to the point in contention - whether Dylan is qualified enough to offer an informed opinion upon regression. Given that it is also respectful, it is acceptable on our forums. The second is a malicious attack upon Dylan's intelligence disconnected from any point in contention, and is thus not acceptable on our forums.

Example 3

Acceptable: "Jaime is an habitual smoker, which clearly violates his/her advocacy for the principle that we should treat our bodies as temples. We might well question, then, whether we ought to accept that principle based on Jaime's advocacy."

Unacceptable: "Jaime's habitual smoking flies in the face of his/her advocacy for the principle that we should treat our bodies as temples, which just goes to show that s/he is a nasty, hypocritical fascist who wants to impose outrageous restrictions on the rest of us without being subject to them him/herself."

In the first case, Jaime's personal hypocrisy on the principle for which s/he is advocating is relevant to his/her advocacy for that principle, and is pointed out respectfully, so it qualifies as (acceptable) contextually relevant personal criticism, whereas the second uses Jaime's hypocrisy as the launching point to sling harsh insults at him/her disconnected from any point in contention, and is thus not acceptable on our forums.

[Laird]

Unless anybody has any objections, this draft will replace the existing rules in due course.

Rules updated in the absence of objections...

[Ninshub]

A rule has been added in the the forum rules regarding the number of links or embedded content per week members may post in the opt-in sub-forums. This has been put into place because the owners and administrators of the forum want to keep the forum first and foremost about psi.

In the same spirit, we ask that members use restraint when using those opt-in sub-forums and keep in mind the greater forum's main orientation.

A rule has been added in the the forum rules regarding the number of links or embedded content per week members may post in the opt-in sub-forums. This has been put into place because the owners and administrators of the forum want to keep the forum first and foremost about psi.

In the same spirit, we ask that members use restraint when using those opt-in sub-forums and keep in mind the greater forum's main orientation.

Have these rules been discussed by the forum members, or simply imposed on them? In my opinion there has always been discussion before changes are made - why is this different?

[Ninshub]

Because it concerns the basic orientation of the forum, and the reason for why it was set up in the first place.

Because it concerns the basic orientation of the forum, and the reason for why it was set up in the first place.

And who exactly decides all this, and what has fundamentally changed to warrant it?

There are 1000s of sites on the internet to discuss the topics that are "discussed" ad nauseum in the opt-in forums. There was a lot of discussion in the beginning about whether there should even be a place for such discussion on this forum. Maybe it is time to revisit the idea that the opt-in forums be removed and have the site focus entirely on psi and related topics.