Rules and Moderation (Split from Bart Gunshot Video)

Hey everyone.

Since the thread is gaining a bit of controversy, I wanted to comment on a few things.

Firstly: Yes, the video is wildly inappropriate. And yes, strictly speaking, it is in clear violation of our rules.

With that out of the way, I wanted to explain why we let it stay, our current moderation practices, and where we're heading in the future.

Historically, we have tried (and generally succeeded) to keep the forums family-friendly. With POTCO being a E10+ game, we thought it a worthwhile endeavor to keep the forums clean for people of all ages, especially in the days that the game was still up and running.

More recently, we have been relaxing our rules (not just with this particular rule but in general). While we still censor profanity in messages, over the past several months we have allowed videos that are not family-friendly on the condition that there was a disclaimer in place. We have done this out of recognition that the community around the game has grown a bit older, and in an effort to allow a wider range of content to be posted that members have the opportunity to view at their own discretion. We have been heavily criticized in the past for being too strict.

We haven't formally announced this change yet, which is partially a failure of my own. I have long wanted to rewrite the rules, and I was trying to wait until we could make such an effort to announce any changes. As it is today, we are now in a state of limbo where the rules are not applied uniformly.

Now, I'd also like to clarify a few things:
  • @Mike Wass is not a staff member on the forums.
  • I do indeed believe that having the video in a spoiler with a disclaimer is a fair way to allow NSFW content (within reason) on an otherwise family-friendly site.
  • As it stands today, I am okay with the fact that the thread violates the rules that are currently in place.
  • The fact that the thread is being allowed to stay has absolutely nothing to do with who posted it. Bart or anyone else could have posted it, and I personally would have voted to allow it. That said, most moderation decisions, particularly controversial ones, are made with consideration from all staff, not just myself.
  • Staff here aren't exempt from the rules.
Lastly, I'd like to talk about how we're proceeding from here. With the rules not clearly representative of our current policies, the lines become blurred, and that can cause problems. It becomes unclear what will and won't be moderated and why, which is the main reason we hadn't formally publicized this change in policy before now. I would like to thank those who pointed out this discrepancy for allowing us to start a dialogue about it. As a result, we are starting the process of rewriting and revising the rules. Once we can agree on a draft internally, we will share it with the community for feedback. One of the key points I hope to address with them is a way to allow for mature content without completely sacrificing family-friendliness.

As always, if there are any questions or comments you are free to reply to this post or start a personal conversation with me.

Thanks.

P.S. If you think something violates the rules, you can report it. We will discuss how to deal with it internally. If you are unhappy with how something is resolved, please tell me (I'm not a mind reader, unfortunately). I can't always promise things will change, but it will at least help me to be more mindful when making decisions in the future.
 
Sparky Wonderwolf said:
I'm glad this was taken into consideration by staff. I think it is a smart move by the staff and I applaud them for it. I had such this great essay ever so elaborative but uh... Kind of lost it on accidental refresh.
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear that. Drafts of posts should be autosaved every minute (but are purged after a day).

I would also recommend the Lazarus browser extension, which does something similar but on the client side.
 
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