Creation of Forum Rules

[Joshua Farrell]

Forum rules vary depending on what time of forum you come across, from roleplays to discussion boards to general talk forums, but overall the rules are the core of the forum. What you should and should not do, image requirements, post length requirements and all sorts of helpful information can be found there.

However, what are the best ways of formatting it? Often times if rules are too long they can turn people away, but one needs to make sure all the information is there. How should it be separated and organized? For a new admin especially, creating rules can be a daunting task, and they can be either too elaborate or not specific enough, written much too long or not containing enough information.

So what are the best ways to create your rules so they contain everything they need to without putting off new members or being too overbearing?

 

[Jason76]

I think common sense works well. However, over-bearing could be good for comedy! I mean, with rules like that people will just ignore or leave! What would be some rules like that? I suppose ones where people aren't allowed a few beginning mistakes.

 

[Azareal]

Four words. Don't be a jerk.

Some people like writing grandiose codes of conducts which read like a piece of legislation, however it can all be a bit much at times, although being a jerk isn't strictly a bad thing either, at-least in the programming community where quite a few thought leaders like the creator of Linux are extremely blunt.

It's a curious thing how acceptable behaviour can vary from circle to circle.

https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75
Linus is the creator of Linux, anywhere else people would be deeply offended, but there, it's normal. Bizarre.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linusrants/
There's even an entire Reddit dedicated to his rants.