Do I have too many rules?

[sportastephanie]

Oh thanks, I tried to focus on not making so many rule and using "Word efficiency". I will explain to my members in the rules what the consequences are for breaking the rules as well. This should help stop people from complaining about unfair punishments. Every member should be treated the same.

 

[DarkRaven]

I personally like knowing how a forum operates. I'm nearly more inclined to join a forum that shows it's disciplinary code because it's a good indication that it is a well moderated forum

:lol: A forum is any better moderated because it shows consequences /punishments for breaking rules nor is it an indication that it is.

If I read a forum's rules and find that they don't mention the disciplinary code whatsoever, then that means two things (a) they don't have one,

Maybe they don't have one. Maybe its a laid back forum and deals with different types of problems as they arise and figures out the best way to stop it from happening again based on the specific person who broke the rules. As different methods of punishment work on different types of people.
Either way, having a big list of punishments inst necessary at all for people to run a successful forum and keep it free of problems. 🙂

Thanks for ignoring my second point. 😀 However I generally do not like laid back forums. Unless a forum is well moderated and spam free it will lose it's interest to me within a day.

I know that you say that different punishments work on different people - I have never denied the fact. However there is only scope for about four or five types of punishment in any case. Some people will only need a PM, others will need an official warn note. Some people are so troublesome that they will need to be banned temporarily or even permanently. Listing these does not take away from that fact. How would it?

On laid back forums a list of does and don'ts may work. But as I said, I don't like forums like that. I've found that listing the punishments tends to allay inevitable questions later on.

Your method works for you, mine works for me. Let's leave it at that, shall we?

Oh thanks, I tried to focus on not making so many rule and using "Word efficiency". I will explain to my members in the rules what the consequences are for breaking the rules as well. This should help stop people from complaining about unfair punishments. Every member should be treated the same.

Yeah, these ones are much better. Regarding your punishment part of the rules, I don't think that you should list what warrants specific punishments. Instead explain each one. You will find that unusual circumstances pop up where you will have to break from the procedure you listed. Just make it something along the lines of:

Warning: A warning is the lowest level of disciplinary action taken against a member that breaks any of the rules listed above. A staff member will contact the member in question explaining how the rules have been broken and how to avoid further breaches. A note will also be added to the members warn record.

Temp ban: In a temporary ban, a members is denied access to All Anime Forums for a set amount of time. A temp ban can last from a number of hours, to a number of days, weeks or months depending on the severity of the offense in question.

Permanent Ban: Permanent Banishment is the final level of disciplinary action taken against a member for whom no other disciplinary action has succeeded or who's actions are so severe that they are considered a threat to the All Anime Forums community. Banned members will have their accounts and IP addresses permanently denied access to the forums.


That way you don't leave yourself a slave to the disciplinary code.

 

[sportastephanie]

Wow, that is very well written, great Idea Dark Raven, but on my board the members can be warned. There is a Warning system. If a member is breaking the rules, then a staff member can add a warning to the member and attach a note. This can happen up to 5 times. My question is, how many times should they be warned before they get a temp ban or perm ban. Some forums go all 5 before you get a temp ban then it may reset back to zero after the ban, or maybe I should go 2 warning then a temp ban on the 3rd one. I may not do what you would, but how you you use this system? And on this other forum, the warnings only last for a certain number of days, but I hate that kind of system because it only says to members that they can be sort of bad, then wait and after the points clear, they can go back to spamming or whatever they were doing.

 

[DarkRaven]

Hmm, I don't do that on my forum. When I was on Zetaboards I disabled automatic banning. The reason is that there are many reasons why members pick up warnings. The most extreme example being the member who asked me to ban him for a week because he had exams. I was a moderator on the forum in question so I did it through the warn system. He picked up 1 warn point as a result.

Say, someone has a large signature once, spams once, swears once, flames once and posts an advertisement once. There you have five warnings accumulated over six months, that's less than one warn per month. Notice how none of them are repeat offenses as well. In a case like this, I personally wouldn't temp ban a member seeing as he seems to have learned from each individual infraction.

I handle bannings on a case by case basis. I can understand how on large boards processing bans can be time consuming, but on small boards you have the luxury of dealing with each offense separately.

 

[Zero]

Its not too many but you have to sum it up. Instead of writing long paragraphs, you should put them in 1 sentence or 2 most. I didn't read half of it because there were too much and not many would even bother to read it.

 

[DarkRaven]

Its not too many but you have to sum it up. Instead of writing long paragraphs, you should put them in 1 sentence or 2 most. I didn't read half of it because there were too much and not many would even bother to read it.

Ah, but you see you are an experience forumer, so am I in fact. Both of us can easily disregard those few paragraphs there because we've seen it all before.

However if someone who is new to forums joined read those rules that just said:

''Minor breeches of the rules will result in warnings.''

They wouldn't have a clue how the warn system works. The goal is to explain the information as precisely as possible. Three lines is not a ''big long paragraph'' at all. I own a writing forum and I've had to do line by line critiques of pages and pages of text. Most of the paragraphs were between six and ten lines. Reading that much text is not that hard...

And as I said, if you know what a warning, temp ban and permaban are, there is no need to read it. However, it covers you in case someone joins and doesn't know what they are. Therefore, ignorance of their meaning cannot be a defense.

 

[Expired Account 2]

I read the rules from DarkRavens post... and to be honest, I would actually go out looking for loop holes and errors just to get past the rules... If you care about the rules that much then it's got to be fun poking holes throughout the whole system really. 🙂

Glad you shortened them. Hope you'll get more members this way.

Also yes I read the whole rules in DarkRaven's post, I read the rules on every forum about 3 times...

 

[sportastephanie]

Thanks for the continuing help. I know I do not want long paragraphs in my rules, but then again, as Dark Raven pointed out, I need to make the point clear to new members. I shall redo my punishment system as it is not that well constructed right now. This is what I currently have:

Now for the punishments of breaking these rules:
3-day Temp Ban: Spamming, advertising links for sites, chatspeak, etc. Placing a thread in the wrong place only creates unnecessary work for the staff.

5-day Temp Ban: Flaming, anything hateful about staff or any member will not be tolerated. Please do not do this.

Perm-Ban: Either you have broken the rules and received a 3-day ban AND a 5-day ban and still continue to break the rules or you have broken the no nudity rule.

If you have any questions please ask in Newbie Centre->Forum Help->Support Board or PM Sportastephanie.

Now here is a new punishment I added, and tell me how you feel about this as I am not sure if this is a good idea to do or would this be better suited for larger forums:

First a warning will be issues through the PM system and on the actual Warn System. A note attached will be placed saying why you have received a warning as well. After 3 months you have no further warnings or punishments, you may contest a removal of your warning. Please make a thread in Newbie Centre->Forum Help->Support Board. An Admin will carefully review your case.

Say I use this rule. Here comes along Jonny and he is new to the site, so he spams by accident, and receives a warning. He makes lots of great posts and is on a lot and gives suggestions and helps out other members. So 3 months later he makes a thread in that board. Would you remove it, I would.

Now let's use the same example, but I do not remove it. This could make Jonny mad and possibly hurt the site.

Now I will repost my new punishment system, all I did was explain a bit more into detail:

Now for the punishments of breaking these rules:

First a warning will be issues though the PM system and on the actual Warn System. A note attached will be placed saying why you have received a warning as well.

3-day Temp Ban: This is received on the 3 warning. Spamming, advertising links for sites, chatspeak, etc. Placing a thread in the wrong place only creates unnecessary work for the staff.

5-day Temp Ban: This is received on the 4th warning. Flaming, anything hateful about staff or any member will not be tolerated. Please do not do this.

Perm-Ban: Either you have broken the rules and received a 3-day ban AND a 5-day ban and still continue to break the rules or you have broken the no nudity rule.

If you have any questions please ask in Newbie Centre->Forum Help->Support Board or PM Sportastephanie. Or you may go to our chatroom. Just click on Chatroom on the navigation bar.

 

[Expired Account 2]

Hmm... well that's not bad but first off you should add that if you have just registered they get a PM instead of a warning...

Just state in the PM that they broke rule bla bla and would tell them not to do it again and link to the rules...

So an example for you would be:

Dear John;

This is a PM regarding the rules of the site. You have been found breaking rule number 5, no spamming.
You have spammed the board here;

http://www.yoursiteurl.com/forum/thread ... spampost01
http://www.yoursiteurl.com/forum/thread ... spampost02
http://www.yoursiteurl.com/forum/thread ... spampost02

This is a friendly warning to you due to the lack of time on the forum and would not like to punish you for a simple misunderstanding.

Thank you for reading this PM and I hope you will abide by the rules as of now and have the best possible time here.

~Admin.

This will make the user feel that he's been pointed in the right direction and you've showed kindness to him and accepted that he's new and wasn't a huge mistake for just registering or w/e...

Unless it's breaking the no pornography rule... if your that obsessed with it. 😉

 

[sportastephanie]

I am not obsessed with the rule, I just want to make sure that nobody breaks it, outside of the tiny area that I actually do allow it. You have to be 18+ though to be in that group with access to it.