Rules Addendum

[cityship]

Hey, everyone. Due to a recent kerfluffle last night, we've had to come up with some new policies.

We understand the "no politics in chat" rule can be frustrating at times, as it can severely limit discussions on recent events. However, you also have to realize that the OOC chat is a game chat first and foremost. It's a place for people to come in and have fun. Forcing someone who may just want to play and fool around in chat into a serious discussion about politics--no matter how important it may seem to you--is rude. Even if you feel something is very important, you don't have the right to make that decision for other people.

This is why we ban all discussions on politics in chat, as politics can often lead to very polarizing and heated arguments, which can ruin the fun of someone coming in to play the game. Banning individual discussions on a case-by-case basis would be both painstaking and inefficient, so the ban is for all political discussion.

However, that being said, we do understand that a number of people would like to be able to easily discuss recent events and even politics with fellow players, and so we've decided on a compromise in the form of an addendum to the chat rules. Basically, we will have a separate chat which follows all the normal rules of the OOC chat except the ban on political discussions. The purpose of this chat will be to provide a place to discuss recent events and politics.

The addendum in full is included here:

Addendum: Due to the need to discuss world news and events, a permanent, separate chat, meatshipworldevents, will be available. This chat follows all of the normal chat rules except the ban on political discussions. In the normal chat, you will be allowed to announce recent events that you would like to discuss in the news/events chat (ex. "Hey guys, X happened. We're talking about it in other chat."), but all actual discussion of those events must take place within the news/events chat. In addition, you are allowed to answer questions about what is being discussed in the news/events chat, so long as you don't actually go into details about the discussion itself. (ex. "Hey, what's going on in other chat?" "We're talking about X. Come on over if you want to talk about it.")

Also, just as a precaution, remember that harassing any other member for any reason, including political stance, violates our number 1 rule: Don't Be A Dick.

That is all.
--The Trans9 Mods

Comments

[ultradude.livejournal.com]

Could we turn this into a poll, and get opinions from people on both sides? This is obviously a point where there are opinions on both sides, where both sides have a point, and where neither view is held by just one or two people.

[starlightace]

To be honest, that's something that was raised, but... any poll probably wouldn't change our minds. Unless it was an absolute 100% unanimous vote to get rid of the rule - if even 5% of people would be uncomfortable with us getting rid of the no-politics rule, then I think it should stay in place. Because otherwise, are we just going to tell the people who feel uncomfortable at that talk "Hey, I guess you can leave the chat when we're talking about it"?

[ultradude.livejournal.com]

This goes back to the point of a hypothetical someone who is really, strongly against homosexuality. It's one person being made really uncomfortable about Nanoha and Fate's wedding. One intolerant person, but then, that's their belief and the thing that bothers them, and sexuality can be a very hot potato to juggle.

Then there are canons that are controversial to bring up major parts of, even in passing. Queen of Hearts had a bit of drama over just having Chikane from Kannazuki no Miko, up to and including a permissions post to tell said muse to stay away from them, and bringing her up in a chat room might have been more controversial and heated than some political discussions. Now, you can ban chat from talking about the character at all - and if you don't know the canon and want to know the controversy, I'll go into what I know - or a few people can look away

There are probably a host of other parallels, and probably many better ones, given my lack of debate skills.

Now, I'm not as thoroughly against the rule as some. I know what it's there for, and whatever you guys stick with, I'm not gonna leave the game, or stop coming to chat. However, you're saying 'such and such is the only thing that is totally forbidden' because... it's the only thing that causes people that much distress? A hard line ban on one specific thing is as offensive to a lot of people as another person going 'lol governor so-and-so is such an asshole' (which won't happen) is to someone who like that governor a lot.

Also, I imagine some people are taking it as the mods being of the opinion that we're not mature enough to handle the occasional political slant in chat, even if that's not the case. On that factor... I've seen awesome people act like total dicks over politics, so maybe that's valid; hell, I'll admit that I've been like that in the past.

[i-saw-myself.livejournal.com]

There is no way to figure out what will be hot-button or not. It varies person to person. But politics (and religion, which is why I suggested banning it too below) are at least two that widely make people uncomfortable, have shown again and again on the internet, and in the game chat in the past that they can get heated and comfortable, and are two of the biggest hot button issues in RL and in general. They are two subjects that are pretty much surefire going to make people uncomfortable and HAVE in the past. Sex is too, but that's why the no porn, and honestly, as much as I make "BOOB" Will-summons, if someone asked me to stop if it made them uncomfortable, I would.

Between banning the surefire ones, having it so people are polite if someone peeps up on individual subjects that are hard to govern by changing the subject, and having a not being a dick rule, that's the best you can really do for pre-emptive stuff.

But fine, if we DO allow it and just go on "We'll stop if someone is uncomfortable," I'm in chat a great deal of the time, and I'm probably always going to be uncomfortable. If I'm not there, or am actually comfortable discussing it for once, someone else might not be, and I care about that fact. So if you do respect others requests to change the subject, the subject will be banned anyway. If you don't, people will minimize and not be there for the discussion (in which case, what's the point?) will leave (again, what's the point?) or will probably make a separate chatroom or separate chatrooms for game discussions, effectively splitting chat into separate gaming and politics chats anyway.

If we're either going to wind up with the only people in the chat talking being the ones who'd be in the political chat anyway, and it would lead to either people ditching chat altogether and cutting off contact with their fellow players, or making a chat/chats for gaming and splitting the chats anyway, how is it any different from what the mods suggested?

If the mods agreed, you could allow politics, but there's nothing from stopping the players then from splitting off and doing a "just-gaming" chat, and there'd probably be quite a few people in it. But it's really dumb to have to do a "just-gaming" chat when we're a game and not a political forum. Just like it'd make more sense if we were a political forum to have the chat be about politics and OT stuff should be in a separate chat then.