[DISCUSSION] Are naughty words now against the rules?

[Greater Miami Shores]

I regret having to post this, but can I just make it very clear that Greater Miami Shores is not in any way, shape, or form representing the position of the moderation team; and while he clearly believes he's being supportive, his posts in this thread are not remotely endorsed by the team.

I understand that part of it, and that the Moderators have to be impartial.

I now see and realize how my posts in support of enforcing this rule, can be seen as the Moderator says.

But I and about two others who have posted are supportive of the idea to enforce this rule. I think I have made good arguments for it.

If the Moderators don't see my arguments as valid, I understand, will accept it and move on.

As I have posted earlier in other words.

Whatever decision the Moderators make either way, I will accept it.

I will not even try after the Moderators have made their decision to argue against it and harp on it, if they don't decide on our favor on this issue.

Thank you for your post to clear it up.

[The Archregimancy]

I'll be blunt: the problem is New Visayan Islands, and the culture of Mod-dom that defends NVI's overly harsh rulings.

I get that all Mods have to learn on the job to some extent, but NVI should be on training wheels. Don't allow them to hand out any punishments without review by another mod. Or just sack them.

I did not vigorously appeal my own warning from NVI, since 3 other mods took their side, and I have come to see it as a justified decision. I was not advocating the death of a President, but to the notional "average reader" it must look like I was. I'll be more careful with that in the future, where senior politicians, death, and guns are concerned. I'm only going on about my own case to establish that it's not a personal grudge. I really believe NVI is not cutting it as a Mod.

Allow me to briefly address this specific point.

I can see why this misconception might have arisen, because posters don't have access to our behind the scenes discussions.

However, NVI is on training wheels. He only handed out punishments in the case that precipitated the current discussion after it was reviewed by more experienced moderators. Without giving away the particulars of that behind the scenes discussion, his initial instinct was in fact to be more lenient, but he was given the go-ahead to break out the red text by those more experienced mods.

So by all means disagree with our decision-making process in this case, and by all means raise concerns over the nature of the punishment; but NVI's inexperience as a moderator is not the cause of the issue. If he's being backed by other members of the moderation team, it's because he's actively consulting with other members of the team.

[New haven america]

And absolutely nothing in there says that personal attacks towards politician aren't allowed.

Are you seeing the issue we're having?

I believe that my colleague was trying to reference this section of that link, particularly the first three sentences (and even more particularly the third sentence):

3) Expect slightly stricter punishments in election-related debates. Politics, especially US politics, are an extremely incendiary topic of debate. With the election season getting everybody all riled up, we will be more liberal with the *** warnings and short-term forumbans *** to try and hose everything down before a massive flamefest can get started. I will note that "But $IRL_political_person says $thing!" does NOT excuse behaving in a similar fashion here. It's been stated before for instance, that if President Trump was an NS player, the way he behaves would swiftly get him banned from the site. Just because a politician or celebrity acts a certain way does elsewhere does not magically make similar behaviors rule-abiding here, so use caution when emulating the behavior of such media personalities.

While I entirely appreciate that this does not explicitly state that personal attacks on politicians are not allowed, it does explicitly state that we're likely to be stricter with warnings and forum bans during the election. This is particularly the case now that we're in the last month of the US election.

Could we have been clearer about communicating this? Possibly; but the principle that we're often stricter during heated election campaigns is not new - and the present election campaign is unusually heated by modern standards, so the context is also unusual.

If the US election goes off smoothly, and the result isn't disputed, then I would hope that normal service would be quickly resumed.


I would also take a moment to explicitly put on the record that any gloating - by either side - over the election result will also likely see the metal on metal anvil descend.

Since I and two or three of us support the Moderators so called new Rules, Please keep in mind during your Moderators discussion, that we are currently not allowed to be disrespectful of real life Politicians and VIPs, on our RP threads and Posts.

Any decision on this issue either way, should also include the RPs.

No it shouldn't, and no it won't. Please stop pursuing this point.

Yes, you linked that passage last time we went over this and my point still stands, nowhere does it say we can't attack or insult people like Trump or Biden.

[The Archregimancy]

Yes, you linked that passage last time we went over this and my point still stands, nowhere does it say we can't attack or insult people like Trump or Biden.

I can't have linked to that passage previously as that was my first post in the thread. I nonetheless apologise if I've raised something that's come up before in your discussions with other members of the team.

I repeat my point that 'While I entirely appreciate that this does not explicitly state that personal attacks on politicians are not allowed, it does explicitly state that we're likely to be stricter with warnings and forum bans during the election. This is particularly the case now that we're in the last month of the US election.'

I also repeat my point that 'Could we have been clearer about communicating this? Possibly; but the principle that we're often stricter during heated election campaigns is not new - and the present election campaign is unusually heated by modern standards, so the context is also unusual.'

Beyond that, I think we're at slight risk of going around in circles.

[Katganistan]

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=479978

Just leaving this here....

And absolutely nothing in there says that personal attacks towards politician aren't allowed.

Are you seeing the issue we're having?

I'll break it down for you then, since you've clearly not understood properly after reading the linked thread.

1) Not a new rule. Has been posted publicly for ten months.

2) For the duration of the election, since things are heated, comments that are likely to inflame supporters of one side or another will incur warnings or short term bans. So yes, calling Trump a cunt is likely to upset his supporters 27 days out from the election, and thus incurred a warning. Calling Biden the same would incur a warning as well. This is likely to continue until a winner in the election has been confirmed.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

[CoraSpia]

I'll be blunt: the problem is New Visayan Islands, and the culture of Mod-dom that defends NVI's overly harsh rulings.

I get that all Mods have to learn on the job to some extent, but NVI should be on training wheels. Don't allow them to hand out any punishments without review by another mod. Or just sack them.

I did not vigorously appeal my own warning from NVI, since 3 other mods took their side, and I have come to see it as a justified decision. I was not advocating the death of a President, but to the notional "average reader" it must look like I was. I'll be more careful with that in the future, where senior politicians, death, and guns are concerned. I'm only going on about my own case to establish that it's not a personal grudge. I really believe NVI is not cutting it as a Mod.

I must agree with you. The punishments handed out by NVI do seem to be a little over the top at times. Kind of like what we saw from DLN when she started as a mod.

[CoraSpia]

And absolutely nothing in there says that personal attacks towards politician aren't allowed.

Are you seeing the issue we're having?

I'll break it down for you then, since you've clearly not understood properly after reading the linked thread.

1) Not a new rule. Has been posted publicly for ten months.

2) For the duration of the election, since things are heated, comments that are likely to inflame supporters of one side or another will incur warnings or short term bans. So yes, calling Trump a cunt is likely to upset his supporters 27 days out from the election, and thus incurred a warning. Calling Biden the same would incur a warning as well. This is likely to continue until a winner in the election has been confirmed.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I'm not sure you understand this:

Being 'stricter' with warnings and bans would be taken, by the reasonable reader, to mean that the existing rules would be enforced more harshly. For example, using a political nickname to refer to a group of people or a politician would incur a harsher punishment, and less offensive political nicknames would be seen as actionable while previously they might have been given a pass. People understand this and appreciate it, and have moderated their posting style accordingly.

Enforcing rules more strictly does not mean that something that the moderation team has stated as not being against the rules suddenly becomes against the rules. There is a difference between not actionable and not against the rules, and calling political figures a generic insult has been described as not being against the rules several times that I can think of. This isn't being stricter on existing rules, this is creating a new rule completely out of the blue and providing no notice or explanation that it is coming into force.

[Mathuvan Union]

I'll be blunt: the problem is New Visayan Islands, and the culture of Mod-dom that defends NVI's overly harsh rulings.

I get that all Mods have to learn on the job to some extent, but NVI should be on training wheels. Don't allow them to hand out any punishments without review by another mod. Or just sack them.

I did not vigorously appeal my own warning from NVI, since 3 other mods took their side, and I have come to see it as a justified decision. I was not advocating the death of a President, but to the notional "average reader" it must look like I was. I'll be more careful with that in the future, where senior politicians, death, and guns are concerned. I'm only going on about my own case to establish that it's not a personal grudge. I really believe NVI is not cutting it as a Mod.

I must agree with you. The punishments handed out by NVI do seem to be a little over the top at times. Kind of like what we saw from DLN when she started as a mod.

NVI is masculine.

[Punished UMN]

I must agree with you. The punishments handed out by NVI do seem to be a little over the top at times. Kind of like what we saw from DLN when she started as a mod.

NVI is masculine.

"she" refers to DLN, not NVI.

[Luna Amore]

I must agree with you. The punishments handed out by NVI do seem to be a little over the top at times. Kind of like what we saw from DLN when she started as a mod.

NVI is masculine.

We're all women on the internet.

[Katganistan]

NVI is masculine.

We're all women on the internet.

I thought we were all FBI agents posing as underage kids?
*updates the list*

[The New California Republic]

I'll break it down for you then, since you've clearly not understood properly after reading the linked thread.

1) Not a new rule. Has been posted publicly for ten months.

2) For the duration of the election, since things are heated, comments that are likely to inflame supporters of one side or another will incur warnings or short term bans. So yes, calling Trump a cunt is likely to upset his supporters 27 days out from the election, and thus incurred a warning. Calling Biden the same would incur a warning as well. This is likely to continue until a winner in the election has been confirmed.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I'm not sure you understand this:

Being 'stricter' with warnings and bans would be taken, by the reasonable reader, to mean that the existing rules would be enforced more harshly. For example, using a political nickname to refer to a group of people or a politician would incur a harsher punishment, and less offensive political nicknames would be seen as actionable while previously they might have been given a pass. People understand this and appreciate it, and have moderated their posting style accordingly.

Enforcing rules more strictly does not mean that something that the moderation team has stated as not being against the rules suddenly becomes against the rules. There is a difference between not actionable and not against the rules, and calling political figures a generic insult has been described as not being against the rules several times that I can think of. This isn't being stricter on existing rules, this is creating a new rule completely out of the blue and providing no notice or explanation that it is coming into force.

Yes, that's broadly speaking the crux of the argument that has been made by several people here thus far. The following two fictional examples illustrate this. Imagine that both of these posts by the same user (the fictional Joe Bloggs) are placed in the same thread (the fictional "World Leaders Thread") of NSGeneral:

*Link to a news site showing Trump making a stupid decision*

Trump is a total fucking moron.

*Link to a news site showing BoJo making a stupid decision*

BoJo is a total fucking moron.

Aside from the different names, both of these posts have exactly the same content. They have exactly the same intent. They are in exactly the same thread in exactly the same section of the forums. However, just by mere merit of there being an election coming up, the first post (I would interpret on the basis of the very recent rulings) would be actionable. The second however would not, as it has been repeatedly said that type of thing isn't actionable, over the course of several years by several different Mods over many rulings (unless of course the recent moves also indicate there is a shift towards the second now being actionable too...). There is a fundamental consistency problem at work here.

So yes, this is very much for all intents and purposes a new rule, as it's the only way to explain the contradiction at work here.

[Mathuvan Union]

NVI is masculine.

"she" refers to DLN, not NVI.

well that's awkward

NVI is masculine.

We're all women on the internet.

what's feminine Mathuva?

We're all women on the internet.

I thought we were all FBI agents posing as underage kids?
*updates the list*

there you go and blow my cover, Kat!
I need to switch to MI6.

in seriousness, is it illegal to say 'fuck [important world leader], because [reason]'?

[Luna Amore]

There's an internal discussion currently afoot, so I'm not sure what else an individual Moderator is going to be able to say here until that discussion has run its course.

[Valrifell]

There's an internal discussion currently afoot, so I'm not sure what else an individual Moderator is going to be able to say here until that discussion has run its course.

Then why did Kat even bother posting.

[Fahran]

How many times do I have to fucking clarify it?

I didn't report what they said about Biden because that was a hypothetical. However, their claims about Trump were by self admission not hypothetical, that was a genuine attack directed towards him, which 4-5 of us so far have been warned for doing.

I'm well aware of your intention behind the report. Let me elucidate my point a little bit further. The reason Farn didn't get mod-smacked is because the moderation team doesn't smack people for having and expressing negative opinions about political or religious figures. They smack people for trolling. Calling someone an ass while making another substantive point is impolite at best. Calling someone a "cunt" repeatedly, without offering anything worth actual discussion, functions only to elicit negative responses, especially in light of the upcoming elections and heightened tensions between supporters of major political parties. As I mentioned before, some of the posts that attracted mod-smacks probably deserve an appeal. At least three or four that I saw don't - because they were trolling. Framing it as "naughty words are against the rules" is missing the point entirely. Because that's not a rule and wasn't relevant to the decisions.

That said, given the mods are discussing the matter internally and that I may well be misrepresenting the official position on this, it's probably more worthwhile to wait to hear back from them than to continue our back-and-forth.

And no, I'm done trying to get another opinion on it, as it seems this "always having existed" rule isn't going to be dished out equally. Your the only ones here continually bringing it up.

The rules against trolling have always existed. They do perhaps need to be spelled out more explicitly, but that's a different matter altogether. A part of the problem in my mind is that enforcement hasn't been stern or consistent enough in the past. Another is that communication between the mods and community is lacking - as was the case with the RWDT. I didn't bring it up. I addressed what I perceived to be an unfair characterization that, when spread, would have led to negative consequences for the community, namely people not bothering to report rule-breaking by moderation.

[Fahran]

There's an internal discussion currently afoot, so I'm not sure what else an individual Moderator is going to be able to say here until that discussion has run its course.

Thank you for keeping us informed.

[The New California Republic]

There's an internal discussion currently afoot, so I'm not sure what else an individual Moderator is going to be able to say here until that discussion has run its course.

Thank you. But I hope this thread stays open, as I assume that some of the contributions by people thus far are useful and are being given consideration in the backstage discussions, and it'll give people who haven't yet said anything a chance to say their bit as well.

[Twilight Imperium]

Aside from the different names, both of these posts have exactly the same content. They have exactly the same intent. They are in exactly the same thread in exactly the same section of the forums. However, just by mere merit of there being an election coming up, the first post (I would interpret on the basis of the very recent rulings) would be actionable.[

Were any of these reported?

[The New California Republic]

Aside from the different names, both of these posts have exactly the same content. They have exactly the same intent. They are in exactly the same thread in exactly the same section of the forums. However, just by mere merit of there being an election coming up, the first post (I would interpret on the basis of the very recent rulings) would be actionable.

Were any of these reported?

...what? Both of the posts are fictional examples, I made that abundantly clear...

[CoraSpia]

There's an internal discussion currently afoot, so I'm not sure what else an individual Moderator is going to be able to say here until that discussion has run its course.

Perhaps the disconnect is partially to do with the fact that so many of these discussions occur internally? Just a thought.

[Genivaria]

So we're to understand then that negative discussion of public figures is no longer allowed on this forum?
Because it MIGHT offend followers of said figures?

[The New California Republic]

So we're to understand then that negative discussion of public figures is no longer allowed on this forum?
Because it MIGHT offend followers of said figures?

It actually seems that it both is and isn't, so there's some Schrödinger's Moderation happening here.

[New haven america]

How many times do I have to fucking clarify it?

I didn't report what they said about Biden because that was a hypothetical. However, their claims about Trump were by self admission not hypothetical, that was a genuine attack directed towards him, which 4-5 of us so far have been warned for doing.

I'm well aware of your intention behind the report. Let me elucidate my point a little bit further. The reason Farn didn't get mod-smacked is because the moderation team doesn't smack people for having and expressing negative opinions about political or religious figures. They smack people for trolling. Calling someone an ass while making another substantive point is impolite at best. Calling someone a "cunt" repeatedly, without offering anything worth actual discussion, functions only to elicit negative responses, especially in light of the upcoming elections and heightened tensions between supporters of major political parties. As I mentioned before, some of the posts that attracted mod-smacks probably deserve an appeal. At least three or four that I saw don't - because they were trolling. Framing it as "naughty words are against the rules" is missing the point entirely. Because that's not a rule and wasn't relevant to the decisions.

That said, given the mods are discussing the matter internally and that I may well be misrepresenting the official position on this, it's probably more worthwhile to wait to hear back from them than to continue our back-and-forth.

And no, I'm done trying to get another opinion on it, as it seems this "always having existed" rule isn't going to be dished out equally. Your the only ones here continually bringing it up.

The rules against trolling have always existed. They do perhaps need to be spelled out more explicitly, but that's a different matter altogether. A part of the problem in my mind is that enforcement hasn't been stern or consistent enough in the past. Another is that communication between the mods and community is lacking - as was the case with the RWDT. I didn't bring it up. I addressed what I perceived to be an unfair characterization that, when spread, would have led to negative consequences for the community, namely people not bothering to report rule-breaking by moderation.

Apparently they do now.

[Greater Miami Shores]

I Just hate using any kind of foul language, so the Moderators decision either way doesn't affect me, problem solved.

Just do I like I do and problem solved.

GMS.