[Slade]

<note>If you really want you can just skip down to where the numbers are, and skim through this post. I won't hold it against you. I know this is long, but I can't help it.</note>

Hello, fellow debators. In lieu of recent events, and past events which have sorted themselves out, I have been granted moderator powers in this wonderful debate forum. What will this mean? Will I become a crazed tyrant who simply mutes everyone who disagrees with him? Will I send a crack team of adolescent ninjas to attack your secret volcano lair with hilarity and ass-kicking because I don't like you? Will the next Star Wars Prequel be as horrendous as the last two?

I can't answer that last question for certain, but the other two are certainly "No." I am not here to stamp out ideas. I believe strongly in the principle outlined by Voltaire: "I may disagree with your opinion, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Therefore, if you absolutely must post a treatise on how George Lucas is actually a neo-Nazi in disguise, you may do so, and not be afraid of being attacked. If you want to say you support a group that uses terrorist tactics, be my guest. If you want to say that there are redeeming qualities about the Teletubbies, or that you enjoyed the lastest Star Wars movies, go to a different forum. No, I'm kidding, you can say these if you want as well, but the Star Wars stuff should be in the Star Wars forum.

So I've rambled on long enough, let me throw down some information in easily digestible little bites so I can be clear on the subject:


1) All of ChefElf's rules still apply. You DO NOT talk about Debate Club...

2) No personal attacks, whatsoever. I don't care what the person has brought up, or how absurd it is. If you feel the need to attack something, refute the person's ideas. Don't try to nullify them by demeaning him or her. I believe I have been guilty of this in the past, although I try to keep my insults lighthearted. I apologize right now for all past transgressions and will do my absolute best to avoid this in the future. If someone attacks you, let me deal with it - don't invoke Hammurabi's Code. It just makes things worse. If you've been guilty of this, your name is clear from this point on just so long as you cleanse yourself in a bathtub full of Dr. Pepper while chanting "I will not be a smacktard anymore."

3) Cite your sources. If you quote someone or something, let us know where your quote is from, by whom, and all of that. It's rather irritating when people think someone else's writing is your own. Listen to Uncle Slade, kids: "Intellectual theft is just not cool, even if all of your friends are doing it." In fact, I'll make it really easy on you by giving you the proper quotation syntax for the forum, just substitute the HTML signs <> with brackets [] and no quotation marks.

<quote="Person's Name", Month day year, time>The quotation goes here.</quote>.

So to quote me, you'd type out (if you didn't click the quote button) <quote=Slade, Dec 1 2004, 7:27 PM>I am the new moderator. Fear my power!</quote> or something like that. Now I'll do an actual example, just to make sure I've done it correctly.

I am the new moderator. Fear my power!

4) Try to refrain from really really long articles, please. Not many people
(at least the ones I've known) have the attention span to read a novel on the Internet discussing a topic. If you've taken this from an Internet site, just give us the link to read it ourselves, and then give us a bottom line or two or three. This isn't a large issue, just a curtesy concern.

However, if you've written an entire lengthy article on a subject, and you feel that it simply must be read by the people who frequent this forum, that's great, don't hesitate to put it up. Just try to break it up by skipping lines between paragraphs, using introductions and conclusions, and other things to make it more friendly on the eyes and gray matter. Coherency and cohesion help immensely. It's rather dismaying when you spend hours writing a piece and no one can decypher the first three paragraphs because they are a tangle of something that only vaguely represents standard English. To be pointlessly redundant and metphorical while providing another example: That brilliant critical analysis of the biblical allusions in the works of John Steinbeck in classical Latin may be A+ material, but if we can't read classical Latin it's not going to help.

5) Stay on topic. Or at least fairly close. I know it's rather difficult at times, due to numerous non-sequitur people (myself included) lurking on the Night Life forums. I won't yell at you unless it's a very deliberate and malicious sort of action, but I'm asking you to at least try. Do it for the children.


If you feel that I'm missing some rules, or am being too restrictive, let me know and I'll work something out. I look forward to hearing many different opinions on a variety of subjects, and hope that I'll be able to spend my time debating and not moderating. But if it comes to that, you have my assurance that I will take no action without careful deliberation on the potential rule breaking and proper punishment.

Speaking of punishment: Minor transgressions will simply be noted and frowned upon until I (or someone else) feels that it is getting out of control. For example, if you begin sliding from refuting an argument to refuting a person, I'll remind you to stick to the ideas. If you go around being deliberately ignorant, and simply insult people's opinions and/or themselves, I'll yell at you and eventually edit out portions of your posts so as to save you the embarassment of looking like an asshole to everyone around you. In all cases, you can petition in defense of yourself and/or or be judged by a jury of your peers if you'd like.

Like I said, I'll attempt to refrain from having to moderate as much as possible. I don't like pushing people around, please don't make me. I just want to make sure this forum remains a positive, open environment where people can say what they want to without fear of attack or ostracism.

Ok, so I guess the rules weren't exactly concise, but I tried! Ugh... now I feel like a bloody Dictator. If I came off that way, I apologize.

<afterthought>And if you're new and/or don't know me very well, I'll often be sarcastic or insulting in jest but leave off my <sarcasm> tags. Sloppy coding standards, perhaps, but that's just me. If I really want to insult you, you will bear the full force of my (arguable) wit and sting as a Scorpio; I won't just call you a wanker (or tosspot), for example. And none of that will happen in this forum if I can help it.</afterthought>

[Heccubus]

Yay.

[Slade]

Thank you for your enthusiasm.

[Jordan]

Help Help I'm being supressed!

[Slade]

See the violence inherent in the system!

You know, actually, most of the stuff that made me think about the forums needing mods were threads that were debate threads not in this forum.

Which is good. I don't want to excercise any modly powers.

[Madam Corvax]

Slade,
Thank you for discouraging me from any future participation in the Debate forums.

I have read your rules and it seems to me that in the past all I have been doing is transgressing these rules without being aware of it.

1. No personal attacks. I am not going to refrain from saying to someone that his/her argument is stupid or he/she is mistaken. Granted, you may say this is not personal attack. But people do take attacks on their beliefs as personal and fly off the handle anyway. Happen to me several times. I put it down to my bad sub-standard English, apparently I cannot express myself well enough and those people thought I was attacking them.

Besides, argument happen. Even perfectly normal people blow the lid from time to time when they are in a bad mood. I haven’t noticed that it has been a problem so far. Those who like flame-wars or offend people gradually drift away by themselves.

2. Cite sources. Sorry, I am not going to garnish my post with footnotes and references. The purpose of doing in scientific papers is to avoid people stealing someone else’s ideas and receive merits from it. What sort of merit can we receive here? If someone is interested in sources they can ask. What if I cite common knowledge from textbooks? Shall I put reference too? What if I don’t remember where I have heard stuff, but it is relevant to discussion and I agree with it?

3. Long articles. I am not going to count words. Thanks for the hints about breaking the text with empty lines. And I take personally what you say about bad English. I am really trying very hard. If it is not good enough, then I may as well stop posting, because I can’t do any better.

4. On topic. What do you mean by off-topic? If we start about society restraining people and end up discussing fashion, is it off-topic or not? Shall I ask you every time or what? Anyway, people stray off-topic, and sometimes this is more interesting that the original debate.

Considering the above, I conclude it is far better for my mental health not to post here at all.

As I am too old too change my way of posting, and also I am a law-abiding person, I’d rather not post than risk the possibility of being frowned upon/yelled at/banned/skinned alive.

Thank goodness for “Pointless random thoughts” At least nobody can threaten me for staying off topic there.

I can only add, as self-explanation to the above, that I grew up with too many rules, hence my rather emotional reaction.

[Jordan]

She's a witch, burn her!

[Chefelf]

1. No personal attacks. I am not going to refrain from saying to someone that his/her argument is stupid or he/she is mistaken. Granted, you may say this is not personal attack. But people do take attacks on their beliefs as personal and fly off the handle anyway. Happen to me several times. I put it down to my bad  sub-standard English, apparently I cannot express myself well enough and those people thought I was attacking them.

Besides, argument happen. Even perfectly normal people blow the lid from time to time when they are in a bad mood. I haven’t noticed that it has been a problem so far. Those who like flame-wars or offend people gradually drift away by themselves.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, Madam Corvax, you've never really been one to just attack people thoughtlessly. You are intelligent and will build an argument. I think what Slade is trying to discourage here is people flying off the handle and coming back with stupid posts like, "Oh yeah? Well fuck you!" That kind of thing is not constructive. Flat out personal attacks are not welcome here. IF you say something like, "I think your views are dumb and here's why..." then that's a little more tolerable.

Also, your English is in no way sub-standard. As a participant in many different online communities I can safely say your English is in the top 99th percentile.

2. Cite sources. Sorry, I am not going to garnish my post with footnotes and references. The purpose of doing in scientific papers is to avoid people stealing someone else’s ideas and receive merits from it. What sort of merit can we receive here? If someone is interested in sources they can ask. What if I cite common knowledge from textbooks? Shall I put reference too? What if I don’t remember where I have heard  stuff, but it is relevant to discussion and I agree with it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well you don't HAVE to cite sources. However you can't just say something like "95% of all Canadians smoke weed." You have to back that up with some actual credible source. If someone challenges you and your response is, "Well, I remember hearing that somewhere." that doesn't hold a lot of water. You CAN say that if you'd like, but it's not going to build a good case for your argument.

There are often a lot of big claims that aren't backed up. That's fine if you don't want to but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

3. Long articles. I am not going to count words. Thanks for the hints about breaking the text with empty lines. And I take personally what you say about bad English. I am really trying very hard. If it is not good enough, then I may as well stop posting, because I can’t do any better.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

MC, that wasn't directed at you. Your English is perfect. It didn't even occur to me that you weren't a native English speaker until very recently. I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me.

Why is it always the people that speak flawless English that are sensitive about it? You never get apologies for the people that have terrible grammar and spelling.

4. On topic. What do you mean by off-topic? If we start about society restraining people and end up discussing fashion, is it off-topic or not? Shall I ask you every time or what? Anyway, people stray off-topic, and sometimes this is more interesting that the original debate.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think he means that particular topics should stay based on their topic title. A thread debating the economic policy of Albania should not end up talking about whether or not Donald Trump has a toupee even if that is a much more engaging topic.

Considering the above, I conclude it is far better for my mental health not to post here at all.

As I am too old too change my way of posting, and also I am a law-abiding person, I’d rather not post than risk the possibility of being frowned upon/yelled at/banned/skinned alive.

Thank goodness for “Pointless random thoughts” At least nobody can threaten me for staying off topic there.

I can only add, as self-explanation to the above, that I grew up with too many rules, hence my rather emotional reaction.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think Slade was trying to threaten anyone. No one is going to get yelled at or banned for anything unless it's particularly egregious. MC, you're a well respected member of this community and you have nothing to worry about. This particular forum is just likely to get emotions running high. That's why I've elected to remain absent from it. I have no interest in getting into heated political discussion.

Anyhow, I just didn't want you to think you were being singled out or anything. Things can continue as they were, just use the rules as a general set of guidelines of what to do in a political forum. People are very sensitive about these subjects and if we (read: everyone that participates in this forum) all follow a set of basic etiquette and guidelines then good-natured discussion can continue.

And remember: I love you all.

[Madam Corvax]

Chefelf,

You make me blush with your kind and balanced response to my outburst. I have been a little unreasonable, I admit. But we may treat it as a heated discussion on censorship in your little internet utopia.

Slade - I apologise. You're not a crazed tyrant or a bloody dictator. But prepare to be really flattened in the next dispute, references et al.

[Chefelf]

There's no real need for any form of censorship here. While maintaining a level-headed debate forum is important, censorship isn't AS important as the new forum has the ever-popular "ignore user" function.

If anyone is offended by a particular user they can use this feature and hopefully their troubles should melt away.

[Heccubus]

I responded in a nonplussed manner because I didn't think there was a point to a post like this. If people don't know the rules, they get a warning when they step too close to the line, and that's usually the end of the problem, for the most part. I mean, great, there's a dedicated moderator for this forum now. I thought Chefelf and I were doing fine on our own, but it doesn't matter. Now I don't have to come here every so often to check on things.

[Jordan]

Bloody hell Chef, You can really prove your point on sensitive topics without being the slightest bit offensive. I've noticed that in the past when you deal with jerks who down you for the REASONS LIST. It's kind of your thing, the soft touch.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 06 December 2004 - 07:57 PM

[Slade]

Aye. I'm going to stay non-involved as much as possible... I'm sorry that you saw my post is such an awful light, Ms. Corvax. My intent was really just "Don't be a tosspot, or I'll shake my finger at you." There really haven't been many problems here, it seems to be more or less contained to the lobby. I guess elaborating and adding some sillyness in to keep it light wasn't such a good idea in retrospect... I am deeply regretful, and humbly apologize for still not being clear enough. Most of the rules are not even worthy of finger shaking, either, just common curtesy to other members. I wouldn't censor someone for changing topics or or jusy flying off of the handle once in a while...

As regards to citing sources, I mean just let us know when the quote begins and ends, so we don't all get confused when reading the post.

Well... I've been a mod for a week and I've already royally fucked it up without even doing anything... Should I just resign now? I seem to lack any sort of clarity, coherence, eloquence, or diplomacy. I think my heart was in the right place, but my mouth didn't follow...

Or maybe I should make a new rules thing which says "Don't be a tosspot or I'll shake my finger at you." and turn this into a regular topic?

- Your friendly neighborhood, if awful, moderator.

[Madam Corvax]

Oh, no, don't resign. You are not beyond repair

Seriously, I have been taught a lesson by Chefelf and you too.
I'll try not to be a tosspot.

[Slade]

Heh... allright... but I'm watching you :-P!