CoC change - adding the intent.

So, I would like to see some additions to the CoC - not to change the voting regulations, but to clearly add:

- What the intent or “spirit” of a given criteria should be used for. 

- A possible explanation of what happens if someone violates the CoC but meets the spirit - or vice versa. 

I ask this because there have been several discussion and disagreements on the fundamental meaning of some of these conditions, and if everyone is assuming the intent is something else, everyone will be meeting the CoC but all implicitly different reasoning.

Right now, that is why moderation uses the warning system. By issuing warnings, we ensure that further misconduct is knowing. However, I am interested in what other's think about Ram's idea. It's an idea worth exploring.     

Moderation of content (vis-a-vis its deletion) shouldn't care about intention.

Moderation of users (vis-a-vis banning, restriction of rights) should.

The CoC and their vagueness are, to me, what's entirely wrong with the site itself no matter who the Mod is. Unfortunately on this site it's solely the Chief Mod who writes and votes on the entire CoC word for word being finalised.

In other words, The Chief Moderator on this site is all three elements of power in any democratic nation that has split the three up.

This has resulted in everything having to go through bsh1 and bsh1 being the only thing able to actually make bsh1 change anything that bsh1 does or hold bsh1 accountable. Sure, physically Mike is, but since Mike is psychologically 'I don't moderate or do anything like that here' it is thus bsh1.

Ok, that’s nice.

What I’m talking about, though, is what is the intent behind the “sources” category in the debate voting, what is this trying to say so that voters have a clearer picture of how and why to cast votes instead of everyone having their own idea.

but thanks for your input.

I do agree that clarifying and improving the CoC should be a top priority. 

The problem is mods are holding violations until they get mad at you then give you 15 violations in one pm that are up to a month old then say, look at all this you are banned. Violations should be addressed immediately and or within 48 hours then dropped. The only reason my violations are being saved up is to punish me for hurting Ms. C's feelings. Each pm and the ban came after calling her names. Each warning had more then three violation and some more than a week old. It has nothing to do with anything other than mod pride. 

Same thing happened to me, except with me it was the pride of popular members not just the mods.

You didn't hurt my feelings and I didn't report you, Poly. And no, I have no idea who did.

yeah

@Drafterman - Perhaps reiterating, Material in the debates even if "inappropriate" should generally be allowed to stand, and the mods should "moderate", with information, warnings, and consequences according to the CoC

Disfunctional material should ultimately be deleted.  

Okay. How do you think the CoC could be clearer about the spirit of source voting or voting in general?

It means that I think that the ideal is to hammer out a CoC which describes a set of rules which are widely agreed upon and to enforce the letter of the law from that CoC. Having a CoC which gives moderation overly broad powers and bans absurd things and then relying on moderation to limit the scope of their own enforcement to a level which is tolerable to the community is just much worse on so many levels. I get that you always need to make judgement calls, but the CoC should narrow the grey space to a minimum. Doing do would also reduce criticism of moderation to a minimum, because instead of constantly defending their own judgement they can just point to the CoC. They can't do that now because the CoC isn't enforced, because to do so consistently would suffocate the site. Every time someone is banned (or not banned) moderation is swamped in drama because it's viewed as capricious.

I'm still interested in an answer to my question. But fair enough. So what's an example improvement of the CoC that would minimize complaints and grey areas?

A severe truncation. Cut down the number of bannable offenses to seven: multi-accounting, cross thread contamination, call-out threads, threats, doxxing, linking to sexual content, and harassment. Define them cleanly. For example, harassment means to continue to attempt to engage with a member after they have blocked you and asked you to stop contacting them. Cross thread contamination means to bring a preexisting conflict into an unrelated thread. Limit moderation's powers in a real way so that they can't ban people outside of these situations, and make the definition of each violation absolutely clear, so that when they occur there is no wiggle room or forgiveness. Instead of relying on a mod to use their judgement to exercise laissez-faire moderation, make the CoC demand laissez-faire moderation. This way there is a strict, clean line not to cross, instead of a blurry one that people constantly toe. This way the laws ban actions, not intentions. As for post deletion, I think that they should remain for the record, but that they should be greyed out or something to indicate that the user was punished for them (unless they are doxxy of course). But I'm sure that Mike has enough on his plate right now.

I've blocked you, kindly live by your own philosophy.

Lol, I haven't initiated contact with you once. You just keep crawling back for more, constantly @ing me even though you've blocked me. Some people are gluttons for punishment, I suppose.

I was about to ask you for an example of an "absolutely clear" definition of say personal attacks, but I realized personal attacks are not in your list of prohibited behavior. You want personal attacks to be fair game then? Presumably so they'd only be moderated if they continue after a user has blocked the attacker?

How can moderation's power be limited in a "real way"?

Agree with you about post deletion.

Should this issue be MEEP'd?

Yeah, I think that it would solve most of the problems with ambiguity in moderation. Is someone insulting you in a way that is too much for you? Block them and tell them to stop. If they continue, it's harassment. There's no need for moderation to police around to make sure that everyone is 'playing nice.'

It could be limited by the site users saying to moderation when they overstep 'hey, this isn't banned at all by our terms of service' in a giant drama storm. Get enough traction and Mike, or someone appointed by him to be a sort of gatekeeper, can step in and overturn the decision. Though I imagine oversteps would be rare in any case with a clear, limited ToS.

Moderation does spend the majority of its time dealing with personal attacks. They seem to've made up, like, 80% of all the drama and messes. Legalizing them actually sounds pretty tempting. A lot of the ambiguity you're talking about seems to surround personal attacks, too.

Did airmax ever enforce the rules in DDO's terms of service or were they basically ignored?

Basically ignored. But Max also had a superhuman proclivity for manipulating public opinion, so he pretty much banned people who annoyed him past a certain point and that was that.

Y'know I've heard that, what exactly were the mechanics of this superhuman public opinion manipulation? I'll assume as his time as mod he faced criticism like our current mods do.

Have you ever read the DDO Torah?

Nope. Is that some inside joke or parody of the Terms of Use? The ToU seems to be a long list of detailed prohibitions that mean nothing and never apply in any real sense. It's like they exist to be ignored. I can begin to understand why drafter and some others are so frustrated with the idea of a pointless CoC. I mean, one of the rules in the DDO ToU is "no attacks against another member's opinion". What?