Unwritten rules? Are they a thing?

[mav3n]

So when you start a forum, one of the first things you should do is come up with rules that are fair and reasonable for your niche.

With that said, are there also unwritten rules? Your guidelines cannot take every eventuality into account and there are some things that are obvious and shouldn't need to be said, however, common sense isn't a thing that is easily understood by all.

Do forums have unwritten rules? Should they? What do you think some of these rules are?

 

[Joshua Farrell]

I always find a few forums that tend to have unwritten rules, because the admin thinks that everyone understands that that rule happens to be a rule of his forum, when infact it is the opposite when it comes to the written rules.

I don't think forums should have unwritten rules, unless there is a rule that states that moderation has the ability to do certain things if something is found to be objectionable.

 

[Poultryghost]

Certa

common sense isn't a thing that is easily understood by all.

^ This.

Most things SHOULD be obvious but you may as well spell everything out if you have a list of rules.

 

[pandaa]

I think the rules should be broad enough that they could be considered principles, instead of being about each individual case. For example, you don't need to have a rule about being abusive to staff members if you already have a "no bullying" rule. If it really falls outside of the scope of the rules that you have, then you should either add a rule or consider broadening the phrasing of your current rules.

 

[ddoesmc]

I see them, but I don't use them. I like to make things fair and write down what is and isn't acceptable on my forum.

 

[Deleted member 17779]

I think the rules should be broad enough that they could be considered principles, instead of being about each individual case. For example, you don't need to have a rule about being abusive to staff members if you already have a "no bullying" rule. If it really falls outside of the scope of the rules that you have, then you should either add a rule or consider broadening the phrasing of your current rules.

I'm in agreement with pandaa on this.

 

[MasterA]

I think the rules should be broad enough that they could be considered principles, instead of being about each individual case. For example, you don't need to have a rule about being abusive to staff members if you already have a "no bullying" rule. If it really falls outside of the scope of the rules that you have, then you should either add a rule or consider broadening the phrasing of your current rules.

I agree with pandaa here. If you make rules more ambiguous, then you can cover a larger scope.

 

[Geoffrey]

I'm a fan of "use common sense" and "don't be an annoying pest." You can't easily say those in a rules topic without being blunt or sounding like an ass, but you can usually find one of your actual rules a user is breaking to "cite" if one of the former two is really the issue.

Honestly, I think 99% of forum users know how to behave on a forum and don't cause issues. It's the 1% that create the trolls, the spam artists, the flamers, etc. and I'm not going to create a laundry list of things not to do for them when it could discourage my good 99% from posting or even joining.

 

[Cierra]

Common sense is an unwritten rules of my forum, but we also have all lot of those ideas covered in our rules, because not everyone has that.

 

[Deleted member 17779]

I am a big fan of common sense as well, however, one thing I've learned is that not not everyone is blessed with it. Stuff that you may think is common sense stuff, won't be common sense to someone else. So I try to make sure that the rules are broad enough that they cover everything or at least as much as possible.

 

[Thomasss]

Sometimes you almost need a supreme court to interpret the rules. 😛

Personally, they should not have unwritten rules. Everything that you do not want to happen needs to be in the rulebook, because you'll have that one person that isn't blessed with the knowledge of common sense and will do the stupidest thing, and you'll end up being the bad guy because there is no rule forbidding it.

Leave it to the common senseless to ruin it for everyone else. 😛