[DISCUSSION] Rule changes and retroactive enforcement

[Luna Amore]

Wasn't that post pro-moderation, though?

(I don't remember the exact contents, so please pardon me.)

The removed post was a reply to original poster and said the OP was expecting too much from moderation. To add onto this; the ruling which led to the creation of this thread in the first place wasn't necessary imo. It seems like too much work for no reason.

If make a statement that asking any moderation staff in any game to tread through a decade's worth of posting history of an internet forum each time they are meant to message a nation on any subject matter is considered 'bad faith posting' on NS, there's not much I can do about it. It's my honest opinion, and I'm not changing that because somebody says "no, bad poster." Lesson learned though I suppose. I'll try to make such an opinion.. in better faith?

With bad faith posting, if it reads like point scoring as opposed to an earnest response, it'll get removed. Given how short and dismissive the post read to me ('you are expecting too much of moderation'), I can understand why it was removed.

Intent isn't always straightforward and the goal is to keep these sorts of discussions as productive as possible. Just something for everyone to be cognizant of going forward.

[The Black Forrest]

The removed post was a reply to original poster and said the OP was expecting too much from moderation. To add onto this; the ruling which led to the creation of this thread in the first place wasn't necessary imo. It seems like too much work for no reason.

If make a statement that asking any moderation staff in any game to tread through a decade's worth of posting history of an internet forum each time they are meant to message a nation on any subject matter is considered 'bad faith posting' on NS, there's not much I can do about it. It's my honest opinion, and I'm not changing that because somebody says "no, bad poster." Lesson learned though I suppose. I'll try to make such an opinion.. in better faith?

With bad faith posting, if it reads like point scoring as opposed to an earnest response, it'll get removed. Given how short and dismissive the post read to me ('you are expecting too much of moderation'), I can understand why it was removed.

Intent isn't always straightforward and the goal is to keep these sorts of discussions as productive as possible. Just something for everyone to be cognizant of going forward.

Thank you for that. I wanted clarification before…..

[Sedgistan]

More Bad Faith posts by Querria, and (non-Bad Faith) replies to those posts by The Black Forrest have been removed.

[Querria]

More Bad Faith posts by Querria, and (non-Bad Faith) replies to those posts by The Black Forrest have been removed.

Black Forrest was attempting to make a reasonable point about why things are enforced, in reply to a point from me that grounds for moderation actions should and not be based on emotion.

EDIT: I appear to be missing some context here. Are you acting against friends of a player that recently got the DEAT, and are raising hell? Is that what this is about? I'm a neutral third party in this conflict. In regard to the said user, I did research and it appears their deletion is entirely justified imo.

I assure you none of my posts here have been in bad faith.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

In my opinion the only correct way to address this would be to message the player reportedly violating the rules and ask them to delete the violating content, simple as. It is well known that the moderation is able to purge a large amount of messages per user, and I believe that their assistance here would be extremely helpful. Sure- his worldbuilding may be viewed as problematic in and out of context, however it is theoretically and practically impossible to go through such a large amount of posts. Either just don’t retroactively enforce the rules at all or just purge the older posts and call it a day.

[The Black Forrest]

More Bad Faith posts by Querria, and (non-Bad Faith) replies to those posts by The Black Forrest have been removed.

Black Forrest was attempting to make a reasonable point about why things are enforced, in reply to a point from me that grounds for moderation actions should and not be based on emotion.

EDIT: I appear to be missing some context here. Are you acting against friends of a player that recently got the DEAT, and are raising hell? Is that what this is about? I'm a neutral third party in this conflict. In regard to the said user, I did research and it appears their deletion is entirely justified imo.

I assure you none of my posts here have been in bad faith.

Thanks for the comment. It wasn’t a punishment for me. It was removed simply because it showed the conversation and was no longer pertinent due to the previous removal.

They aren’t “picking” on the friends so much. I did get an unofficial warning or two so far. Basically, “questionable” posts (bad faith, hostile, etc), can run afoul of the rules.

[Nyte]

In my opinion the only correct way to address this would be to message the player reportedly violating the rules and ask them to delete the violating content, simple as. It is well known that the moderation is able to purge a large amount of messages per user, and I believe that their assistance here would be extremely helpful. Sure- his worldbuilding may be viewed as problematic in and out of context, however it is theoretically and practically impossible to go through such a large amount of posts. Either just don’t retroactively enforce the rules at all or just purge the older posts and call it a day.

That would make sense to us yes. The moderators however, deemed contacting the player involved was too much effort required on their part just like, you know, taking any intermediate steps before DEAT would be too much of a bother. That, and the retroactive use of rules enforcement on content predating said rule is why this has become an issue... Especially among those of us with a significant RP history and an older aged account that predates a number of the site's rules. We can't be sure anymore that the tiniest little rules change won't leave us trying to log in one day and find that all of our work is all gone and our account no longer exists.

[Kasja]

Hello,

since the thread I was going to post this in was locked, I shall post it here instead since I am now the OP and I (and moderation) have control over the thread and where it goes. I want to be clear to moderation, however, that I'm not interested in a "original question answered, thread locked" because I believe in openness and transparency regarding rules and their enforcement that affect all community members, rather than a ticket-based system of asking questions and having them individually answered. Mods may disagree, but that's where I stand on it.

I have a few questions and comments regarding some topics discussed here(/in that other thread) today, and I would like others who have questions related to acceptable content to ask them here too.

Correct.

1) Could you clarify why pre-2021 content is summarily declared a current rule violation and treated as such, instead of reaching out to the offending nation and putting the onus on them to fix their content to adhere to the new rules?

I think on a site like NS where a LOT of worldbuilding intellectual property can be retroactively deleted at any time by any arbitrary rule change, providing the user with a warning and allowing them to adjust the content is the more appropriate course of action moving forward.

2) Similarly, could you clarify if there are any ongoing discussions regarding adjusting longstanding members being DEAT'd for content that was made before a rule change, or at least giving members a chance to adjust to rule violations they did not make when posting, and perhaps didn't know/remember about under the new rules?

As a final final point, it is worth further clarifying that the nation that prompted this was deleted for serious and repeated violations of both obscene content (gore in extremely excessive detail across many posts and dispatches) and malicious content (glorifying Nazism, including repeat Nazi German military theming - Kreigsmarine, SS, Reichmarshall, Obergruppenführer, HauptSturmFührer, and use of Nazi imagery such as photos of Nazi German officials such as Himmler presented as officials in their nation, and images of Dachau concentration camp experimentation victims presented as experiments on members of their nation). The prohibition on content glorifying Nazism and Nazi atrocities applies as much to forumside roleplaying and dispatches as it does to nation names, custom fields and RMB posts.

There is 100% no intention to stop people roleplaying as the bad guy. There are lots of imaginative ways of doing that, and obviously lots of RL inspiration for that as well. But yes, Nazi-theming it is generally not going to fit within the rules.


The standard Moderation answer would be "we can't rule on hypotheticals", which is accurate in this case. I'm not sure that providing guidance on this hypothetical would even really help anyone?

3) Specifically on the above topic, could I ask for clarification on what the line of demarcation is here regarding how horrible the atrocities have to be before any reference to them is considered a violation?

For example, say I'm a Germanic-themed nation who uses "Reichsmarschall" as the head of my military, because the translation for that is "Imperial Marshal", and I want to have a French Empire-style Marshal of France system to reward those at the very top of my military for their long and/or meritorious service to the Germanic empire. Is it just the fact that it's in German, being used for a Germanic nation, because one (of many) Germanic regimes used specific commonplace words to describe military ranks or positions of authority that breaches the content rules, or is it specifically when the above is used to talk about replicating that specific regime?

For another example, say I'm a Chinese-themed nation who uses "中央政治局主席" as the head of state, which (I think, I don't speak Chinese) translates to "Chairman of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee", because I want a communist government that underwent similar experiences as was felt during The Long March, but told during through the lense of a Qing Dynasty-led communist party that essentially turned into Kim family communist dynasty. Given that the person who used that title is personally responsible for anywhere from 14-80 million deaths (depending on which reports you believe), let alone the atrocities committed by the Qing Dynasty, would I be allowed to use such a title given that it's not specifically referencing Nazism?

4) To put a fine point on the above examples (one of which isn't a hypothetical FYI), why are communist-related names and historical references (globally responsible for more deaths as a direct result of Marxist-Leninist political leaders such as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, the entire Kim Family, etc., and their policies/actions than any other, including Nazism and fascism as a whole) or Mongol/British/Japanese/Belgian/Chinese Empire-related names and historical references allowed given the atrocities that could be associated with their regime? If the basis for this rule is entirely based on not glorifying certain ideologies (some of which overlap between Nazism and others) or the atrocities that their regimes committed, then why are (in my opinion) the rules on which ones are deemed content violations so acute and the enforcement of them so obtuse?

Thank you for your time and considering my questions.

Hello,

in an effort to not have these questions be buried under others' comments, points and questions....could I get some clarity on these questions from last month?

Thanks.

[United Calanworie]

Not going to address #1 -- I don't have the depth of knowledge required to address it.

2) Similarly, could you clarify if there are any ongoing discussions regarding adjusting longstanding members being DEAT'd for content that was made before a rule change, or at least giving members a chance to adjust to rule violations they did not make when posting, and perhaps didn't know/remember about under the new rules?

This topic has been intertwined in the ongoing discussion that we are having, yes.

3) Specifically on the above topic, could I ask for clarification on what the line of demarcation is here regarding how horrible the atrocities have to be before any reference to them is considered a violation?

It's under internal discussion (shocker). It's a bit of a difficult topic to thoroughly address, and meanders into the realm of "what will get us in trouble with <important things for our existence>" and such things like that. As an example, we offer educators the ability to create class regions. We need to draw a line that doesn't compromise that. To your hypotheticals... I can't say "this is how we would approach them at any point in time." What I can say is that I would not consider "reichsmarschall" (the word) a violation of our Nazi ban, in a vacuum. Other factors could influence how that is ruled on. The Chinese title is also likely fine, we don't explicitly ban references to communist China during the Long March. Again though, these are not explicit rulings that you can point to in the future and say "oh, Aav said that these are okay!"

4) To put a fine point on the above examples (one of which isn't a hypothetical FYI), why are communist-related names and historical references (globally responsible for more deaths as a direct result of Marxist-Leninist political leaders such as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, the entire Kim Family, etc., and their policies/actions than any other, including Nazism and fascism as a whole) or Mongol/British/Japanese/Belgian/Chinese Empire-related names and historical references allowed given the atrocities that could be associated with their regime? If the basis for this rule is entirely based on not glorifying certain ideologies (some of which overlap between Nazism and others) or the atrocities that their regimes committed, then why are (in my opinion) the rules on which ones are deemed content violations so acute and the enforcement of them so obtuse?

As we said when we banned Nazis, and in our Malicious Content Policy, the answer is because the immediate association with communism isn't with mass graves, the execution of millions, and genocide. It's with "in soviet union, bear arms you" memes, people talking about praxis, and labor unions. The same cannot be said for Nazi Germany.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

"Communism" is also a vague term. There are different forms of Communism; too many for me to count, and most of them do not look to the Soviet Union, China, etc. as a role-model, despite banishing similar symbols. Hard to think of it as just Marxism-Leninism when one reads into it.

The same cannot be said for Nazis, who condone with dogwhistled support for pretty much any atrocity Nazi Germany has committed. 100% of the time.

I agree that comparing the Hammer and Sickle to the Nazi Swastika is false equivalency.

[Velstrania]

Not going to address #1 -- I don't have the depth of knowledge required to address it.

2) Similarly, could you clarify if there are any ongoing discussions regarding adjusting longstanding members being DEAT'd for content that was made before a rule change, or at least giving members a chance to adjust to rule violations they did not make when posting, and perhaps didn't know/remember about under the new rules?

This topic has been intertwined in the ongoing discussion that we are having, yes.

3) Specifically on the above topic, could I ask for clarification on what the line of demarcation is here regarding how horrible the atrocities have to be before any reference to them is considered a violation?

It's under internal discussion (shocker). It's a bit of a difficult topic to thoroughly address, and meanders into the realm of "what will get us in trouble with <important things for our existence>" and such things like that. As an example, we offer educators the ability to create class regions. We need to draw a line that doesn't compromise that. To your hypotheticals... I can't say "this is how we would approach them at any point in time." What I can say is that I would not consider "reichsmarschall" (the word) a violation of our Nazi ban, in a vacuum. Other factors could influence how that is ruled on. The Chinese title is also likely fine, we don't explicitly ban references to communist China during the Long March. Again though, these are not explicit rulings that you can point to in the future and say "oh, Aav said that these are okay!"

4) To put a fine point on the above examples (one of which isn't a hypothetical FYI), why are communist-related names and historical references (globally responsible for more deaths as a direct result of Marxist-Leninist political leaders such as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, the entire Kim Family, etc., and their policies/actions than any other, including Nazism and fascism as a whole) or Mongol/British/Japanese/Belgian/Chinese Empire-related names and historical references allowed given the atrocities that could be associated with their regime? If the basis for this rule is entirely based on not glorifying certain ideologies (some of which overlap between Nazism and others) or the atrocities that their regimes committed, then why are (in my opinion) the rules on which ones are deemed content violations so acute and the enforcement of them so obtuse?

As we said when we banned Nazis, and in our Malicious Content Policy, the answer is because the immediate association with communism isn't with mass graves, the execution of millions, and genocide. It's with "in soviet union, bear arms you" memes, people talking about praxis, and labor unions. The same cannot be said for Nazi Germany.

NS has been allowing educators to create class regions since at least the time I joined NS, which was on August 8th, 2009. Has something changed in the intervening period which makes class regions somehow relevant to this change? After all, a need to address it was clearly not felt for an entire 12 years.
At the end of the day, rpers are putting a lot of trust in the mod team. Many of us have had years of creative contributions to ns, and so a little clarity both on the line that is to be drawn and the reasons why it is there would, I feel, represent only what is to be expected as 'good faith.'

[The State of Monavia]

2) Similarly, could you clarify if there are any ongoing discussions regarding adjusting longstanding members being DEAT'd for content that was made before a rule change, or at least giving members a chance to adjust to rule violations they did not make when posting, and perhaps didn't know/remember about under the new rules?

As a final final point, it is worth further clarifying that the nation that prompted this was deleted for serious and repeated violations of both obscene content (gore in extremely excessive detail across many posts and dispatches) and malicious content (glorifying Nazism, including repeat Nazi German military theming - Kreigsmarine, SS, Reichmarshall, Obergruppenführer, HauptSturmFührer, and use of Nazi imagery such as photos of Nazi German officials such as Himmler presented as officials in their nation, and images of Dachau concentration camp experimentation victims presented as experiments on members of their nation). The prohibition on content glorifying Nazism and Nazi atrocities applies as much to forumside roleplaying and dispatches as it does to nation names, custom fields and RMB posts.

There is 100% no intention to stop people roleplaying as the bad guy. There are lots of imaginative ways of doing that, and obviously lots of RL inspiration for that as well. But yes, Nazi-theming it is generally not going to fit within the rules.

The standard Moderation answer would be "we can't rule on hypotheticals", which is accurate in this case. I'm not sure that providing guidance on this hypothetical would even really help anyone?

Sedgistan’s mention of excessive detail in describing gore got me thinking a bit about the issue of how to properly handle gore (and violence) in writing RP posts. The One Stop Rules Shop and other player resources contain some fairly specific and nuanced rules for how to handle sex, but not violence or gore, other than generally cautioning against “excessiveness” and leaving the details up to the writer’s judgment. As someone who has seen more than a few mentions of gore in IC posts since joining NS in 2006, I have come to believe that there have been times when users who had trouble discerning where “the line” is would have had an easier time avoiding getting tripped up and disciplined if they had more technically detailed rules available. The One Stop Rules Shop’s detailed “Bans on Specific Topics” section offers the kind of specificity I have in mind, and I want to believe that Moderation can draw up rules for gore and violence in the same level of detail they used to handle sexual matters. I realize that such an approach carries its share of risks; if taken too far, it may result in an excessively “legalistic” framework that incentivizes loophole-seeking and bad-faith rules-lawyering by users looking to push envelopes of acceptability or find out what precedents they can push Moderation to set so they can exploit and abuse those precedents later. Nevertheless, I believe that some revision and clarification of existing policies is more than worth this risk.

As for the matter of “Nazi-theming” Sedgistan mentioned, the examples Sedgistan cited in the above quote and various Moderator actions I have observed over the years have led me to conclude that the mere featuring of Nazi-themed content is increasingly verboten, notwithstanding certain details contained in the Acceptable Flag Policy and the Site policy on “malicious” content. In the Site policy on “malicious” content thread, [violet] explained, “Similarly, there is no ban on mentioning Nazis, or Hitler, or espousing ideological beliefs. However, a nation made up as a cookie-cutter Nazi Germany in its name, region, and custom fields (e.g. motto, currency), with no contrary context or redeeming content, is hard to interpret as anything other than an endorsement of that real-life nation's most well-known acts.” I have no doubts that some of the examples Sedgistan cited, such as Kraven’s use of SS rank titles in the original German, could be loosely construed (in the absence of “contrary context or redeeming content”) as part of an attempt to create a “Nazi-themed” nation. The rub here is that Kraven’s canon (with which I am very familiar) contains an abundance of original worldbuilding that makes such a construal untenable on a macro scale.

The alleged Himmler photo (and its context) touches on another matter that I want to bring up. The practice of using images of RL individuals as stand-ins for RP characters is a common practice in NS RP, much as I wish it was not. So is the wholesale copying of RL nations (both current and former) in lieu of doing original worldbuilding. In fact, these sorts of things are a huge pet peeves of mine, because RPing alternate versions of RL is not what NS was created for and a lot of RPers come here precisely because they want to play something that is not Sid Mier’s Civilization or Democracy 3. I am not advocating the criminalization of lazy worldbuilding (let alone occasional corner-cutting in that field), but I almost feel as if Moderation could have just deleted the offensive pictures as they came across them during their preliminary investigation instead of memory-holing a nation account’s entire posting history.

3) Specifically on the above topic, could I ask for clarification on what the line of demarcation is here regarding how horrible the atrocities have to be before any reference to them is considered a violation?

For example, say I'm a Germanic-themed nation who uses "Reichsmarschall" as the head of my military, because the translation for that is "Imperial Marshal", and I want to have a French Empire-style Marshal of France system to reward those at the very top of my military for their long and/or meritorious service to the Germanic empire. Is it just the fact that it's in German, being used for a Germanic nation, because one (of many) Germanic regimes used specific commonplace words to describe military ranks or positions of authority that breaches the content rules, or is it specifically when the above is used to talk about replicating that specific regime?

Again, some clarification would be desirable here as it would be with regard to gore and violence. Being a somewhat old-fashioned prude myself, my writing style tends to take a more-or-less “vanilla” approach to these kinds of things. I also think the translation question is a serious matter, since now that someone has brought it up, I can imagine somebody creating a “Nazi-themed” nation but getting it past Moderation’s radar by aggressively translating German technical terms into English. I actually think such an attempt could be plausible, because German-language terminology seems (at least to me) like the first thing that tips people off regarding a nation account’s “Nazi-themed” purpose and is therefore the number one thing Moderation analyzes when processing a report.

For another example, say I'm a Chinese-themed nation who uses "中央政治局主席" as the head of state, which (I think, I don't speak Chinese) translates to "Chairman of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee", because I want a communist government that underwent similar experiences as was felt during The Long March, but told during through the lense of a Qing Dynasty-led communist party that essentially turned into Kim family communist dynasty. Given that the person who used that title is personally responsible for anywhere from 14-80 million deaths (depending on which reports you believe), let alone the atrocities committed by the Qing Dynasty, would I be allowed to use such a title given that it's not specifically referencing Nazism?

4) To put a fine point on the above examples (one of which isn't a hypothetical FYI), why are communist-related names and historical references (globally responsible for more deaths as a direct result of Marxist-Leninist political leaders such as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, the entire Kim Family, etc., and their policies/actions than any other, including Nazism and fascism as a whole) or Mongol/British/Japanese/Belgian/Chinese Empire-related names and historical references allowed given the atrocities that could be associated with their regime? If the basis for this rule is entirely based on not glorifying certain ideologies (some of which overlap between Nazism and others) or the atrocities that their regimes committed, then why are (in my opinion) the rules on which ones are deemed content violations so acute and the enforcement of them so obtuse?

The short answer to this question is that the NS user base is heavily concentrated in the U.S. and the American education system’s curricula generally teach students very little about the Third Reich besides how atrocious its policies were. Conversely, the same curricula generally do not emphasize the atrocities of other countries and their ruling classes with the same force or dwell upon them at comparable length. If I may refer to my own experiences, the average U.S. school board thinks Elie Wiesel’s Night is a critical part of every citizen’s education in literature, but Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago is not. The end result is that the “average” NS user is likely to associate “Nazi-themed” nation accounts and symbols with loads of nasty stuff and not much else while giving “communist-themed” nation accounts a pass. This may seem very unfair to victims of communism (e.g. Kulaks, Uighurs, Chetniks, Crimean Tatars), but that is what we get for having an Americentric user base and consequent Moderation policies.

One final point I want to make has to do with Moderation’s general tightening of restrictions against “Nazi-themed” accounts over the years. The big user “purge” that occurred two years ago had a lot to do with edgy teens creating cookie-cutter accounts to troll, grief, and harass other users, which truth be told, is probably nothing new. NS has been dealing with bad actors since day one, just like any other site on the Web. At that time, I also received the impression that Moderation entertained that RL Neo-Nazis looking for a place to recruit supporters or organize unlawful activities might come across NS, create nation accounts, and use RMBs and telegrams to plan illegal activities that would result in NS getting sued or shut down. These are also valid, legitimate concerns. I think the Mods generally have strong enough stomachs and enough life experience to see Neo-Nazi NS users for what they typically are—teenage losers whose nation accounts have the shelf life (and RL threat potential) of fresh bananas. Unfortunately, the ambulance-chasing lawyers to whom society defers have a contrary perspective on things, and the end result is that Moderation has had to take a hard line on what is otherwise an issue of minimal import to the average NS user.

NSG is bad enough with the whole "fishing for reasons to report my ideological opponent" thing. Now, angry NSGers will have an even more ridiculous way of getting their detractors the nasty red text, for instance by seeing if someone has ever used the dreaded n-word in roleplay or something nearly 20 years ago.

On a separate note, if you're an RPer and you haven't moved to another medium for general worldbuilding or at the very least backed your stuff up, you're wrong. The most innocuous things from 15 years ago are going to be the swastikas of the future, and that's not even a purely NS-thing; Max Barry is a publicly known author and cancel-able, and with the purity spiral of modern culture, you will be in the sights eventually.

In line with my previous points about NS leadership doing what may be necessary to shield the site from potential liability, I think your general concern with goalpost moving is particularly salient. How many more rounds of tightening up restrictions will Moderation need to perform to keep the site secure in the long run, and what impact will these changes have on the user base? Could increased restrictions accumulate to the point that older users start feeling uncomfortable or unwelcome and stop showing up? These are all questions that come to my mind that may be worth discussing.

[Forsher]

Somewhat related... but I feel like we need a few more mods. There are several threads with reports that haven't been followed up on. This seems like a workload problem.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

Somewhat related... but I feel like we need a few more mods. There are several threads with reports that haven't been followed up on. This seems like a workload problem.

Yeah, that has been discussed in the other thread. They seemed open to the idea.

We need to nominate some.

[Forsher]

Somewhat related... but I feel like we need a few more mods. There are several threads with reports that haven't been followed up on. This seems like a workload problem.

Yeah, that has been discussed in the other thread. They seemed open to the idea.

We need to nominate some.

Other thread?

[Dimetrodon Empire]

Yeah, that has been discussed in the other thread. They seemed open to the idea.

We need to nominate some.

Other thread?

This: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=534393

[La Xinga]

Other thread?

This: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=534393

It said a "temporary" locking. How long is temporary?

[Dimetrodon Empire]

This: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=534393

It said a "temporary" locking. How long is temporary?

I don't know, but while I am not a moderator, this is not the topic to ask this.

I don't want this to get locked as well.

[La Xinga]

It said a "temporary" locking. How long is temporary?

I don't know, but while I am not a moderator, this is not the topic to ask this.

I don't want this to get locked as well.

I understand.

[United Calanworie]

Somewhat related... but I feel like we need a few more mods. There are several threads with reports that haven't been followed up on. This seems like a workload problem.

Here's how to nominate more.

[The Black Forrest]

It said a "temporary" locking. How long is temporary?

I don't know, but while I am not a moderator, this is not the topic to ask this.

I don't want this to get locked as well.

At this point; I would say leave that thread locked. There is a list of suggestions at the end and they offer some interesting ideas.

I don’t know if more could have been added as the nature of the topic would generate repeat posts and the arguments would happen again.

[Nyte]

This: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=534393

It said a "temporary" locking. How long is temporary?

However long it takes for this issue to quietly go away so they can go back to their usual business is my guess.

This whole issue is not that complex that it should be taking multiple weeks to come to some kind of solution... Give us a definitive answer on whether or not rules are going to be weaponized against us by targeting our old posts that didn't violate the rules when they (the posts) were made. Give Kraven an answer on his appeal as, to my knowledge, he still hasn't gotten an answer and a bunch of people are having to sit around and wait because they have no idea what is happening...Maybe throw the man a bone by giving him a copy of the 18 years of his work that you've basically taken from him or something?

The other points/suggestions/whatever that were made in the threads on this issue can come when they're properly worked out and reviewed or whatnot. The longer this gets dragged out, the more annoyed people are going to be getting, and I know there are plenty of people who are waiting for an answer to this before they ever post anything RP related on NS again, and NGL, I'm starting to think this is exactly what some of the mods want to happen.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

The longer this gets dragged out, the more annoyed people are going to be getting, and I know there are plenty of people who are waiting for an answer to this before they ever post anything RP related on NS again, and NGL, I'm starting to think this is exactly what some of the mods want to happen.

Honestly, the best that can be done at this point is having a bunch of RPers create their own forum site and invite others in the RP community to join it.

Not ideal by any means but it would prevent anything new from being wiped out on a whim by NS mods.

[Castille de Italia]

The longer this gets dragged out, the more annoyed people are going to be getting, and I know there are plenty of people who are waiting for an answer to this before they ever post anything RP related on NS again, and NGL, I'm starting to think this is exactly what some of the mods want to happen.

Honestly, the best that can be done at this point is having a bunch of RPers create their own forum site and invite others in the RP community to join it.

Not ideal by any means but it would prevent anything new from being wiped out on a whim by NS mods.

Would recommend not discussing this topic on-site any further; iirc it is forbidden and past RPers have been banned for actively recruiting to competition sites.

[Shazbotdom]

It said a "temporary" locking. How long is temporary?

However long it takes for this issue to quietly go away so they can go back to their usual business is my guess.

This whole issue is not that complex that it should be taking multiple weeks to come to some kind of solution... Give us a definitive answer on whether or not rules are going to be weaponized against us by targeting our old posts that didn't violate the rules when they (the posts) were made. Give Kraven an answer on his appeal as, to my knowledge, he still hasn't gotten an answer and a bunch of people are having to sit around and wait because they have no idea what is happening...Maybe throw the man a bone by giving him a copy of the 18 years of his work that you've basically taken from him or something?

The other points/suggestions/whatever that were made in the threads on this issue can come when they're properly worked out and reviewed or whatnot. The longer this gets dragged out, the more annoyed people are going to be getting, and I know there are plenty of people who are waiting for an answer to this before they ever post anything RP related on NS again, and NGL, I'm starting to think this is exactly what some of the mods want to happen.

You have no idea what the Mods are discussing in the backend, so jumping to conclusions is not helping the situation...at all.