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[OLD] Rules Regarding New Members, Anonymous Members, and Drama Magnets

I have joined a few composer forums on FB where new members can't post untill they have been a member for a certain period.
Yes it is frustrating but it will stop annon from registering just to post vile things like the 'Westworld Incident'.
Yes, thet would have included me not being able to say my bit but i would have accepted that but a troll would have just left the forum. Maybe.
 
I like the fact we don't have rules. Sort of like anarchy crossed with a benevolent dictator thing going on. With Mike Greene as El Presidente....

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(Mike Greene - seen here shortly after 'moderating' some posts)​

But if we are going to have rules, we probably only need these:

1) Don't behave like a twat.
2) See rule No 1.

Problem is that not everyone will understand rule No 1.

I've occasionally dropped in and read the ongoing 'group therapy' thread in the drama zone, often with my head in my hands. I really sometimes want to post something there, but I refrain because I don't want to keep it going.
 
Stephen Limbaugh said:
Another question: what about as part of the “ignore” function that prevents an ignored member from viewing the posts you make? This could help the forum “self moderate” in the event a member continuously acts in bad faith.
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I don't think that's a good idea because it signals to the person who was put on ignore, that they were put on ignore and by whom. I see that as a new potential source of drama. On another forum I have about 3 dozen people on ignore, I wouldn't be comfortable with them all knowing about that, because I don't announce these ignores. I mostly just use them as a reminder function not to get into arguments with those people.
 
I am not so long here, maybe around one year, but I am quite active. I think I read new posts every day and join the conversations always that I have something valuable to say or something stupid to ask (most of the times)

I found that the community on VIC is mainly good people, very talented professionals and for sure loving music and virtual instrumentation. I found a lot of people joking, giving great advice and sometimes in a hot but polite discussion. I discovered some users a little bit in the troll side, but no more than 1% of the total but they are noisy.
Everybody that comes here knows who they are and most are new users.

I love the lack of strict rules because this is mainly a very cool community and most of the times are not needed. When I discovered for the first time the drama zone, I thought is a great idea to keep out threads that are maybe funny and even useful but a little bit out of control.

About the "celebrities" I am sure that they participate and read on this forum because the majority of the users just treat them like colleagues with similar passions. I absolutely agree with @Mike Greene that as constant point of trolls they deserve a little bit of care, same is someone suddenly start trolling me everyday. This is the hard work of the moderators.

Just want to point out how I love the community of VI and how much I am learning, enjoying and sharing my GAS drama with all of you.
 
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I think trolls should be kicked as soon as they troll.
Trolls are for Twitter and FB and places like that.
This is a place where people with the same passion for composing music can come and share weather we are celebs or bedroom composers.

If a celeb joins this forum, he is here for the same reasons as us but because of his status and high profile, he will be more likely to be trolled, they get enough of that on social media so they don't want it here.

So looking after them seems logical.
 
Keith Theodosiou said:
I have joined a few composer forums on FB where new members can't post untill they have been a member for a certain period.
Yes it is frustrating but it will stop annon from registering just to post vile things like the 'Westworld Incident'.
Yes, thet would have included me not being able to say my bit but i would have accepted that but a troll would have just left the forum. Maybe.
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That would be overkill, since usually when someone joins, they have positive contributions. (Like you.) They're often very timely, as well, since we've often seen instances where a person or company is discussed (positively), then that person finds out and comes here to give us more info. I don't want to restrict that.

Although the Westworld issue was a loud one, it's actually pretty rare, so I don't want to implement a cure that causes more problems than the disease. I think the three new rules should do the trick.
 
Mike Greene said:
Coming up with definitive metrics would be a never-ending task, and still not do the trick.
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Mike is articulating the "principles-based" argument, by contrast with the "rules-based."

Rules Can Be Outsmarted

The distinction matters because, no matter how thoughtful one is about "bright line rules" (like, "You can't call people a _____") is that someone will then devise a way of spelling the same word differently, or using an indirect synonym that nevertheless means the same thing.

Besides, can we picture the length any such list of words would have to reach to accomplish that task? And that's just in English.

And anyway, sometimes people deserve to be called a "____"

Principles -- in the Eye of the Moderator(s)

By contrast, Mike's going for "principles-based" regime, which I support. That's more like, "be helpful" or "constructive," or "attack the post, not the person." Or something like that.

Most people here are grownups, so have at it. Nevertheless it's worth remembering that not everyone is, in fact, an adult. Not everyone is a man of European descent (or whatever you think the predominant tone is).

On that subject, we all should remember that some posts can be extremely fraught for one set of people even though you might hear them even on television in some places; if you or your ancestors have been victimized in one way or another, jokes or casual remarks on that topic are not so "casual."
 
Mike Greene said:
As you may know, we had some drama in the Spitfire Westworld Winner thread last weekend. Heated discussion isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except much of this drama wasn’t from actual VI-Control members. Several of the loudest voices were people who joined the same day, apparently realizing Paul and Christian are members here, so they took this as their opportunity to vent (sorry, "offer helpful suggestions") directly at them.

That’s not what this forum is for. Members (high profile or otherwise) come here to learn, share, and enjoy themselves, not to be annoyed by people they don’t know.

The challenge in moderating that thread was that we have very few actual rules to point to. That’s intentional, because this forum mostly self-moderates. 99% of the people here inherently know what’s cool and isn’t, so the “rules” are intentionally loose, since I don't want to fix something that isn't broken. (Our current guidelines, as well as my philosophy on rules, are here.)

I’m spotting some patterns in our recent dustups, though. Problem members tend to be new, with little understanding of what the vibe is here. Also, problem members tend to be anonymous. It’s a lot easier to come in guns a-blazin’ when you’re anonymous with no real ownership of your words. Lastly, problem members tend to be people who love to debate, and do so voluminously. In that Spitfire Westworld Winner thread, for instance, things were mostly cool, except for a handful of debaters who posted in such high quantity that it gave an appearance of controversy much larger than it actually was.

So here are three new rules:

1. If you are a new member (“new” is at a moderator’s discretion, and includes someone who may have joined long ago, but has little posting history), then you may not post anything that could be construed as negative (including “just offering suggestions”) about any person or company. (Critiques on products are okay, but be cool about it.) You also may not tag any member, unless you’re sure they want you to.

2. If you are an anonymous member, then be aware that you have much less leeway on any negative posts. If you’re not willing to let us know who you are, then you’re not entitled to give someone else what fer. Either own your words, or accept the fact that we may delete them.

3. If you’re someone who tends to get in a lot of long debates, and especially if you’ve been a magnet for drama, then moderators reserve the right to yank your posts if a thread is getting messy. That’s not to say you were the biggest problem in a thread, but sometimes to calm things down, we just need the overall posting to slow down a bit.

Note - These rules will probably not get enforced much. I’m only adding them so we’ll have something to point to in rare instances when we need them. You know the drill. There’s that guy who just won’t chill when you ask him to, and he instead complains, “What rule have I broken???” So now we can respond, “This rule.”

In a week or two, I’ll add these (without this explanatory post) to our Posting Guidelines thread. For now, I’ll leave this here if anyone has thoughts or suggestions.
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I think 💭 this is all reasonable, Mike. And, it’s great you are communicating clearly about this for all who appreciate the vibe of your forum.
 
I guess I'll go against the grain here and say that I very much disagree with the implementation of these rules. Specifically 1 and 2. Perhaps I am missing something, in which case I hope someone will clear things up for me.

To my eyes, these rules serve no purpose but to be vague, confusing, alienating, while simultaneously solving nothing at all.


1) Am I new? Maybe? I've been registered for over 6 years now, but I have a low post count. Is this post negative? Maybe? I'm disagreeing with people, but I would like to think I am being constructive and mostly respectful with how I am voicing my opinion. Am I breaking this rule? Possibly? Thankfully, I have been here long enough to know that even if I am breaking this rule, that nothing will happen since moderators don't tend to intervene unless things get extreme. However, an actual new user who just joined is not going to know that. They will look at these rules, take them at face value, and assume that they cannot voice their own opinion if it is negative (whatever that means). That is not how a forum should be in my opinion. We should be encouraging users of all "ages" to have and voice their opinions as long as it is done respectfully. However, instead of having a rule that simply states "Be Respectful", we have a rule that is instead putting a muzzle on anyone who dares to have the audacity to register for this forum beyond this date. That does not seem fair nor reasonable to me.

Additionally this just doesn't seem like a good way to welcome new users to the forum.

2) Mike admits two replies into this thread that anonymous users aren't a problem, only "problematic users" are. Yet this rule does nothing to address problematic users, and only alienates users who chose to stay anonymous.

Some anonymous users are jerks. Most anonymous users aren't. Yet rather than have a rule that says "Don't be a jerk", we have a rule that singles out anonymous users as though we are all just waiting for our time to be an ass.

3) I don't really have an issue. I just hope it is applied fairly instead of ignoring some high profile, long time users who can, at times, be drama magnets.


To reiterate, I guess I am just having trouble understanding the purpose of these new rules. Additionally, Mike openly admits that the rules won't be enforced, which only makes me further question what the point is. It just seems confusing, alienating, and unwelcoming for no reason at all.

If Mike is just looking for justification to act on problematic users, then "Don't be jerk" seems like more than enough while also not singling out entire groups of users, most of whom have nothing to do with the problem. Of course there could be a subset of rules clarifying what being a jerk entails (racism, sexism, harassment, etc.), but this seems like a better option to me rather than having a set of rules that are merely confusing, alienating, unwelcoming, and that some users, especially new ones, will take as gospel.
 
Confuzzly said:
I guess I'll go against the grain here and say that I very much disagree with the implementation of these rules. Specifically 1 and 2. Perhaps I am missing something, in which case I hope someone will clear things up for me.

To my eyes, these rules serve no purpose but to be vague, confusing, alienating, while simultaneously solving nothing at all.


1) Am I new? Maybe? I've been registered for over 6 years now, but I have a low post count. Is this post negative? Maybe? I'm disagreeing with people, but I would like to think I am being constructive and mostly respectful with how I am voicing my opinion. Am I breaking this rule? Possibly? Thankfully, I have been here long enough to know that even if I am breaking this rule, that nothing will happen since moderators don't tend to intervene unless things get extreme. However, an actual new user who just joined is not going to know that. They will look at these rules, take them at face value, and assume that they cannot voice their own opinion if it is negative (whatever that means). That is not how a forum should be in my opinion. We should be encouraging users of all "ages" to have and voice their opinions as long as it is done respectfully. However, instead of having a rule that simply states "Be Respectful", we have a rule that is instead putting a muzzle on anyone who dares to have the audacity to register for this forum beyond this date. That does not seem fair nor reasonable to me.

Additionally this just doesn't seem like a good way to welcome new users to the forum.

2) Mike admits two replies into this thread that anonymous users aren't a problem, only "problematic users" are. Yet this rule does nothing to address problematic users, and only alienates users who chose to stay anonymous.

Some anonymous users are jerks. Most anonymous users aren't. Yet rather than have a rule that says "Don't be a jerk", we have a rule that singles out anonymous users as though we are all just waiting for our time to be an ass.

3) I don't really have an issue. I just hope it is applied fairly instead of ignoring some high profile, long time users who can, at times, be drama magnets.


To reiterate, I guess I am just having trouble understanding the purpose of these new rules. Additionally, Mike openly admits that the rules won't be enforced, which only makes me further question what the point is. It just seems confusing, alienating, and unwelcoming for no reason at all.

If Mike is just looking for justification to act on problematic users, then "Don't be jerk" seems like more than enough while also not singling out entire groups of users, most of whom have nothing to do with the problem. Of course there could be a subset of rules clarifying what being a jerk entails (racism, sexism, harassment, etc.), but this seems like a better option to me rather than having a set of rules that are merely confusing, alienating, unwelcoming, and that some users, especially new ones, will take as gospel.
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You're over-thinking this. ;)

The only real rule on this forum is, as you suggest, "Don't be jerk." The problem, though, is that there are some people who don't "get it," and don't believe they're being the jerk.

So these new "rules" are for them. I'm announcing them here, with a wink and a nod, so that the majority of people here (including new members) who already understand "Don't be a jerk," will know that they don't need to concern themselves with these new rules at all.
 
Mike Greene said:
You're over-thinking this. ;)
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Fair enough.

I am still left wondering what the point is though. If "Don't be a jerk" is essentially the only rule, then why muddy the waters with arbitrary rules that overthinking idiots like myself will misinterpret?

If someone wants to be a jerk, then they will be. No written rule, no matter how specific is going to change that. That is what moderators are for. To deal with people who just feel like being a jerk for some reason.

If someone is not understanding of what being a jerk is, then surely having "rules" that clarify what that means is a better solution, no? Instead we have weirdly restrictive "rules" that aren't rules, but will be used as rules by the mods if those not-rules are broken.
 
Welp, I guess that explains why I'm tagged as a new member after 11 years on the forum!

Did you have any idea it was going to be so much fun when you took over this place, Mike?!? How hard is "No Asshattery Allowed" for some people?!? smh
 
Confuzzly said:
Instead we have weirdly restrictive "rules" that aren't rules, but will be used as rules by the mods if those not-rules are broken.
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they're mushy on purpose, since they're principle-based, not prescriptive. The SEC uses the principles approach in some areas so that clever people can't comply with the letter of some rule while blatantly violating its spirit.

I tried to clarify above (in this thread) the distinction between "principles-based" and "rules-based." It's talked about by lawyers with some frequency.
 
When a driver is pulled over by police and told they were speeding, or have a tail light out, or have expired tags, etc. that's usually enough for most drivers to accept that the stop was justified. But we've all seen those videos of drivers who turn into obstinate roadside lawyers. Regardless of why they were stopped, they vehemently insist the officer had no reason whatsoever to pull them over. They are of a different mindset than law and order. They take the traffic stop personally and internalize it as an act of infringement on their freedom. Some of these drivers will go so far as to label themselves "free inhabitants" and insist they are exempt from traffic laws.

Internet forum troublemakers usually share the same mindset as these "free inhabitants." When they are warned or penalized for their conduct on a forum, they don't get it. Instead of making any attempt to understand what happened and why, they internalize the penalty as an act of infringement on their freedom and hold the moderator/owner in contempt.

The new rules may or may not help, but if anything, they'll give Mike written leverage when dealing with disruptive new members.

The only thing I may suggest is that the first rule, as written, does sound perhaps a tad intimidating. I'd take out the part about not being allowed to tag another member, because it's a fundamental function of the forum that no one would assume would be off limits. I understand the meaning behind the rule, but it should probably be coded into the site itself rather than imposed as a rule.

Also, not being allowed to be negative in certain ways could be a little intimidating to new members as well. What I would do is post a rule that gets straight to the point...

"If you're a newer member whose apparent reason for joining was to bitch, whine, and throw shade, you stand a much higher chance of being suspended or banned. This especially goes for newer members posting anonymously. That kind of toxicity may be acceptable on other sites, but it's not welcome in the VI-Control community, and we will not hesitate to nip it in the bud."
 
I think i joined at a bad time. I did hear about this forum on one of Christian Henson's vlogs (didn't tag him lol) and i thought i would check it out but didn't get round to it.
Then a few days ago during the YouTube storm, i saw this forums name and i joined. Yes i did say a bit on the Westworld post as it was happening at the time and i was a part of it.
When i join a forum, it's usually because i have something in common with the members and it's great to make new friends that share my passion.

I am still a bit worried that i may do the wrong thing as i don't know the site or the members yet and tagging someone is usually a good way of getting their attention and making friends.

If that is a rule now, i will abide by it but i would need to know how long i would have to wait before i am able to if that makes sense. :)
 
Keith Theodosiou said:
If that is a rule now, i will abide by it but i would need to know how long i would have to wait before i am able to if that makes sense.
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I know this wasn't directed to me (I don't work here) but I think it's safe to say the rule was primarily designed to keep toxic newbies from overloading established members' notification alerts. Just the fact that you're genuinely concerned about the rule is enough to indicate you probably never have to worry about breaking it. :)
 
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