[Feedback] Moderation Rules and Punishment Guidelines

[Ben 2,378 / 31,856]

Hi everyone! I wanted to let you know that this is a post for the feedback. This will be always open for the feedback.

 

RULES:

 

Forums

 

Discord

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by Ben
Opened at all time instead

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,921]

What are all the * and ** for?

[annoying furry 6,300 / 63,950]

20 minutes ago, Joshy said:

What are all the * and ** for?

 

This was drafted as a part of a larger document and it would appear that the notes did not make it into the post. @Ben should be able to fix this shortly.

[Ben 2,378 / 31,856]

2 minutes ago, Aurora said:

 

This was drafted as a part of a larger document and it would appear that the notes did not make it into the post. @Ben should be able to fix this shortly.

Fixed.

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,921]

Can you guys use the HTML/Tables or indents?  I had to use >> instead.

 

I would merge the Rules and Punishments together.  All in one.  Less scrolling.  Makes it look like one rule instead of having to bounce up and down to get the rule followed by a different section for the recommended punishment.  Example:

 

 

 

 

Necroposting

Do not post on topics that have not had a response in over 3 months without a good reason (Suggestion threads are an exception, as they are considered “in-progress”)

 

>>Any Amount of Offenses: The user will be issued a warning point* that will expire after a week and the thread will be locked.

 

Spamming

Do not engage in the spamming of status messages, topics, posts, private messages, or anything similar.

 

>>1st Offense: The user will be issued a warning point* that will expire after a month and the post(s) or shoutbox message(s) will be hidden/deleted.

>>2nd Offense: The user will be issued a warning point* that will expire after a year, the post(s) or shoutbox message(s) will be hidden/deleted, flag the user as a spammer, and enable moderated content for one month.

>>3rd Offense: The user will be issued a warning point* that will expire after a year, the post(s) or shoutbox message(s) will be hidden/deleted, and will be restricted from posting content until appealed.

 

Private Matters

Do not discuss anything confidential with another user in public. Keep any personal disputes that you may have with other members out of public forums. 

 

>>Any Amount of Offenses: The user will be issued a warning point* that will expire after a month and the post(s) or shoutbox message(s) will be hidden/deleted.

 

 

 

 

I have a lot more suggestions but I think I'll just give the punchline instead of explanation...  I would reword Punishment to Resolution; I would also reword Offense to Level.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Joshy

[RivalRevival 986 / 13,674]

2 hours ago, Ben said:

For attacking, discriminating, or harassing: 7 day ban -> Discord permanent ban

I smell Skit all over this one 😉

 

Extremely dumb rule that'll be biasedly enforced. That or half the active population in main gfl discord will be banned. Glhf

[annoying furry 6,300 / 63,950]

16 minutes ago, RivalRevival said:

I smell Skit all over this one 😉

 

Extremely dumb rule that'll be biasedly enforced. That or half the active population in main gfl discord will be banned. Glhf

I dont think its a bad idea to have a rule against harassment or discrimination, however I think jumping straight to a 7 day ban is potentially excessive in certain instances.

[Ben 2,378 / 31,856]

1 hour ago, Aurora said:

I dont think its a bad idea to have a rule against harassment or discrimination, however I think jumping straight to a 7 day ban is potentially excessive in certain instances.

 

Perhaps, there could be a tiered system for that rule, kind of similar like how Spamming does?

 

For example:

 

For attacking, discriminating, or harassing:

(Minor) warn -> 12 hour mute -> 24 hour mute

(Major) 4 day ban -> 7 day ban -> permanent ban

 

EDIT:

It should be dealt case-by-case, so I have no idea how we could put the wordings there.

[RivalRevival 986 / 13,674]

2 hours ago, Aurora said:

I dont think its a bad idea to have a rule against harassment or discrimination, however I think jumping straight to a 7 day ban is potentially excessive in certain instances.

The rule in itself is great. But where will they draw the line? Will it be actual harassment or will they immediately jump when someone says "fuck you, insertnamehere"

 

I dont trust (most) the current chosen mods to be able to discern what's harassing and what's not

 

And yeah the immediate ban will bring nothing but trouble. Harry will be missed again

[annoying furry 6,300 / 63,950]

9 minutes ago, RivalRevival said:

The rule in itself is great. But where will they draw the line? Will it be actual harassment or will they immediately jump when someone says "fuck you, insertnamehere"

 

I dont trust (most) the current chosen mods to be able to discern what's harassing and what's not

 

And yeah the immediate ban will bring nothing but trouble. Harry will be missed again

 

I do not believe that anybody on the team would issue a harassment ban for a simple "fuck you," however we do have systems in place (appeals, abuse reports) to handle situations where mods apply punishments in a biased or otherwise incorrect manner. Determining what does and does not constitute harassment can admittedly be fairly subjective, so I expect that mods will be communicating with their TLs for situations that aren't so clear cut.

 

1 hour ago, Ben said:

Perhaps, there could be a tiered system for that rule, kind of similar like how Spamming does?

 

For example:

 

For attacking, discriminating, or harassing:

(Minor) warn -> 12 hour mute -> 24 hour mute

(Major) 4 day ban -> 7 day ban -> permanent ban

 

EDIT:

It should be dealt case-by-case, so I have no idea how we could put the wordings there.

 

 

All situations should be dealt with on a case by case basis, but it's still useful to have a guideline to gauge what is and is not appropriate. I think what you wrote as the example is good.

[Ben 2,378 / 31,856]

I will edit the main post later today to edit the punishment guidelines for attacking, discriminating, or harassing.

 

Something similar like this will be added:

 

For attacking, discriminating, or harassing:

Situations needs to be dealt case-by-case, but in case if you need this punishment:

(Minor) warn -> 12 hour mute -> 24 hour mute

(Major) 4 day ban -> 7 day ban -> permanent ban

[Shuruia 3,145 / 28,023]

17 hours ago, Ben said:

For Rule 5. Doxing:

permanent ban

This is one of the guidelines for Discord. What I'm concerned about is the fact that some forms of "doxing" are more severe than others. A blatant example would be leaking someone's street address & landline number; I fully understand a permanent ban in that case. In a less straightforward example, what if someone posts the social media accounts of someone who once publicly displayed them, but has no longer been doing so for a couple of months? And as unlikely as it is, the offender could even have posted them as a genuine mistake—as in not knowing the person no longer wants their accounts publicly displayed—rather than there being malicious intent behind it.

 

We could honestly rework a lot of these guidelines to be more clear on a lot of things, but then it's a question of how many bases you're willing to cover at the cost of having very messy guidelines. Would probably be best to to teach new mods about hypothetical situations like this during their training so that they use their head with the guidelines, rather than just blindly following them. I might write some questions to be used in training to gauge how mods would approach some situations that aren't so clear cut.

 

17 hours ago, Ben said:

4. Impersonation:

Do not pretend to be another user. Do not pretend to hold a rank that you do not hold.

How far are we willing to take this? The rank part is fine, but we've had plenty of cases of people impersonating others as a joke before. I do understand that we don't want people impersonating others so that no one's reputation is unfairly harmed, or so that the impersonator doesn't receive some kind of special treatment. I propose for the rule to be rewritten as such:

 

Do not pretend to be another user for your own gain or otherwise malicious purposes. Do not pretend to hold a rank that you do not hold.

 

Could also write it so that it requires their permission:

 

Do not pretend to be another user without their permission. Do not pretend to hold a rank that you do not hold.

 

18 hours ago, Ben said:

Doxing**

 1nd Offense: The user will be restricted from posting to the website (note that this is distinct from content moderation). 

Found a typo to fix in the forum punishment guidelines.

 

18 hours ago, Ben said:

Explicit Content**

1st Offense: The user will be issued a warning point* that will expire after 3 months and the post(s) will be hidden.

2nd Offense: The user will be issued a warning point* that will expire after a year, the post(s) will be hidden, and enable moderated content for a month.

3rd Offense: The user will be issued a warning point* that will expire after a year, the post(s) will be hidden and restricted from posting content until appealed. 

Why are we using a different system for explicit content on the forums than on Discord? The system that we use on Discord works better since it makes it more obvious to outright ban people who post a bunch of porn everywhere since those guys want to be banned. It's how we've always handled things on the forums up until now, too. I would strongly suggest moving to a minor/major system like what we use on Discord.

 

This is all I had in mind for now. I might have more later.

[TheThirdReaper 291 / 0]

I think that the above guidelines for Explicit content make punishments more efficient and streamlined. I can see why the minor/major offenses would be useful, but I believe that it leaves too much room for discretion. 

[Rena 2,779 / 33,607]

1 hour ago, Shuruia said:

In a less straightforward example, what if someone posts the social media accounts of someone who once publicly displayed them, but has no longer been doing so for a couple of months? And as unlikely as it is, the offender could even have posted them as a genuine mistake—as in not knowing the person no longer wants their accounts publicly displayed—rather than there being malicious intent behind it.

Nobody else but the accounts' owner should be sharing it. It doesn't hurt to ask beforehand if it's okay to post if it hasn't been done in a while. For example I used to publicly share my Instagram and Snapchat accounts but I stopped and it should be ultimately myself to give it out to the public if I wanted to

[Shuruia 3,145 / 28,023]

4 minutes ago, Pachimo said:

Nobody else but the accounts' owner should be sharing it. It doesn't hurt to ask beforehand if it's okay to post if it hasn't been done in a while. For example I used to publicly share my Instagram and Snapchat accounts but I stopped and it should be ultimately myself to give it out to the public if I wanted to

Yeah, I know, and this is a good point. I wasn't really trying to demonstrate a lack of fault from the person in the example, it was just to show that it's on a spectrum of severity, like most of the of the things that are listed. Probably wasn't the best example, but I was trying to show that some things (mainly intent) can be misunderstood, and that it's something we have to consider when administering punishments. This has happened before, after all.

[Serenity 546 / 7,380]

1. Spamming:

Do not engage in any form of spamming e.g. mic-spamming, mass-tagging, repetitive messaging, etc.

 

I don't know if it would exactly go under this category, but could we  add another example to the spam rule for emotes? Something that talks about potentially harmful emotes with bright lights that could be damaging to epileptic users. Some people tend to post these kind of emotes with flashing lights that move at high speeds that are even uncomfortable for regular users. 

 

This could apply to images as well. 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Serenity

[Ben 2,378 / 31,856]

Rule 9 Punishment Guideline have been edited to include case-by-case basis, as well as including minor and major systems. 

 

Others will be modified later today.

 

9 minutes ago, Serenity said:

1. Spamming:

Do not engage in any form of spamming e.g. mic-spamming, mass-tagging, repetitive messaging, etc.

 

I don't know if it would exactly go under this category, but could we  add another example to the spam rule for emotes? Something that talks about potentially harmful emotes with bright lights that could be damaging to epileptic users. Some people tend to post these kind of emotes with flashing lights that move at high speeds that are even uncomfortable for regular users. 

 

This could apply to images as well. 

 

I think it is already be covered for the spamming, as the punishment guidelines states: "Please note that guidelines are only guidelines. Moderators may not follow them in special cases", but in case, it can be added to explain further about the rule.

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,921]

Is this still a thing or will we just clump it with spam?  Haven't seen this in a while so not sure if it's still a problem.

 

"Zalgo and other modified text
Do NOT use any symbols/characters that exceed a post or message's allotted space."

[Ben 2,378 / 31,856]

The feedback is closed, thank you everyone for commenting to provide the feedback. I estimate that the modified ruleset will be finished by tomorrow night, if not, then hopefully by end of this week.

 

 

10 hours ago, Joshy said:

Is this still a thing or will we just clump it with spam?  Haven't seen this in a while so not sure if it's still a problem.

 

"Zalgo and other modified text
Do NOT use any symbols/characters that exceed a post or message's allotted space."

This rule is no longer a thing or isn't necessary to exist because this was added on the old forums when it became a problem. 

[Ben 2,378 / 31,856]

I've edited the original post, placed the forums + discord rules threads there, so this will be always open for the feedback.