Animation Source Forums

Well, I don't think I have added many rules recently. In fact, 3/4 of the rules were already there since the very start of the site. And they are common sense. Of course, animated gifs and oversized signatures are no real harm, but they are annoying to everyone. Most visitors don't like going to sites where there are animated gifs and giant pictures slowing down their computers and hiding the real content. This is common sense to not do this, but guess what? Many visitors don't know it, so they have to learn it, and that's what the rules are for. Same thing for SMS : I hate seeing unreadable SMS writing splattered all over the site, and many visitors think the same. If some visitors are too lazy to not even write properly, then they should stay on Myspace and co. Not here. And yes, I will not enforce the rule itself, but add some protections to reject this kind of writing out of these sites.

You're only focusing on this because, as others said, some members like to do their own police and report other members abusively. So then, what should we do about this? Add another rule?... No, the mods should only put a limit to what the visitors report.

What I don't understand, Lennox, is that I'm sure you've never been caught breaking a rule or anything. So where's the problem? I don't think you should be concerned about these rules, you're not targetted by them.

I see some very good points raised but I'll just get to the bottom of what I really mean.

When someone breaks a simple rule, I see people yelling about it in the rant board. These topics add to the litter and clog the "View active topics" queue. I don't like seeing thread upon thread stack up reiterating the same rules over and over again. It hinders the phpBB experience.


More patience with other members would do a lot of good. That's all.

Lennox, its like giving a puppy more rope. You see he wants a little more. So you give him a little bit more... Then, you see he's wanting more. So you give him more. Until your at the end of the rope. Your walking along something moves, that pooch goes CRAZY, and your at the end of the rope, and he tugs, you loose the rope, you loose the pup.

Same with the site. Steet sees the site could use a cut in the rules. And so he deducts half of them... Then all the sudden majority of balto source was complaining there were "too many strict rules" as you call them. So he deducts three fourths of whats left. Once again there was complaining and so he just cuts the rules. Then we have a problem. Lets say a kidnapper came on balto source, well, since there wasn't any rules saying that he shouldn't ever give or ask personal info, he gave out his real address, well, I think you know what would happen next...
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As for the patient thing....

So what are the mods supposed to do? Give them ''slack'' until they start cussing in the forums? Yelling? Threatening?

WesternWonder

That's the slippery slope, my friend. A very slippery slope at that.

Well here I can simplify my point. Just for the heck of it.


Rules, important, but as steet said, some members are annoyed with hot pink sigs with HUGE letters, it does no harm, yes, but its annoying. The rules, my friend, are what hold the sight together. If there were no rules, mods would loose their jobs. Not-so-good people would come onto the site, sending out inappropriate messages, attaching viruses to a PM, and possibly getting personal info from a child. The site would be a mess. Steet, with his busy life style, may not have as much time to check on the site, and when he did, it would be a freaking mess. Quite frankly, every day or so when you checked your PM's you would be like: at all the horrible, disgusting messages you had received in less than 24 hours. If you had kids, and they wanted to come on, they would be awfully mad at you for letting them, and you would be mad at yourself!!!

I think some of the rules are too strict in some areas, not strict enough in others. Or, they are too strictly enforced in some and not enough in others.
Example: I have seen people in the shoutbox discussing things which were absolutely out of line according to the Balto Source rules (I won't say what or who, except that I have it on good authority that concerned parents have e-mailed in about the matters involved, which is all that anyone should need to know) and get off scot-free.
On the other hand, I was once discussing blood cells and soft tissue found in a T-Rex femur with someone in the shoutbox, and I was banned for "religious talk." First of all, we were discussing scientific evidence, not religion. Second, I had not said anything specific to my religion; it's widely believed by many different groups that the earth may not be as old as is widely said, so there's nothing wrong there (I have asked steet about this myself). Three, I was not stirring anyone up. The person I was talking to seemed genuinely interested, the topic was well within the rules, and I would have, in fact I did, stop when asked. The only reason I even got banned was for pointing out that the discussion was not against the rules.

In that case, it could be you referred to something religious or accidentally came to mention a referrence to something religious beyond a point where you had been warned for the same thing three (in some cases two) times before.
I don't recall having seen you in the banned box except maybe one time (where I assure you the ban was legit).
Although I do believe that you might be mixing things up. I had problems remembering any detail of your last time in the banned box before I looked it up in our logs just now. I don't know.

Still, in most cases where the ban isn't legit, the one(s) affected are usually unbanned hours later/a day or two later.

Well, as I said, the ban was issued long after I had agreed to stop, and I hadn't said anything particular to any one religion. The closest, I might have said was basically that I doubted the MYA talk in textbooks, which is hardly anything particular to my own religion. It's like referring to, say, the Flood Legend. Yes, there is a global flood mentioned in a certain book we've all heard of, but you'll also find floods of the same caliber, with notably similar details, in legends all the way from Babylon to Hawaii. The Aztecs had it, some Native American tribes talked about it, and in fact nearly every major culture on the planet has a story about a world-wide flood somewhere in their lore.
You see what I mean, though. All too often we (if you'll forgive me using an analogy which has arguably religious roots) "Strain out the gnat and swallow the camel."

I think that the rules are indeed necessary for this site because I've seen how mean and nasty people can get when there are rules and I could only see people being more "internet crazy" if there were no rules. There need to be rules to ensure a certain level of decency and safety on here at all times especially for the really young members.

The only real problem that could come from this is people start to get obsessed over the rules and try to play out some mod fantasy by getting on everybody's case for the slightest thing but we have real mods to help when that happens.

Yeah, and some of that stuff's not much fun for us adults either. At least the ones who act their age.
As for getting obsessed over the rules, and the "mod fantasy" card so many people like to play, I should point out that there are cases of mods stepping over the line. And just like any case of authority corruption, sometimes one of us average Joes have to step in and, at the very least, ask the proper authorities (i.e. "head mods" and/or steet himself) to see that those involved are held accountable for their actions.

Which rules in particular?