Some Thoughts On The Rules...

Submitted for discussion, two ideas. A possible reinterpretation of The Rules and a proposed New Rule:

So. The crux of this brouhaha we're in the middle of right now is that one of our posters is a public figure and her name has been prominently displayed at Wordforge. Because of a prior ruling, it has been decided that any RL information about Wordforgers gained outside of public forums of WF may not be used here. This disparity has been used successfully to attack a poster here and to prevent any response in kind. But I just realized another Rule that we're missing.

Developed because of the issue of sensitive personal nature being shared in the Blue Room, there has long been a rule that you cannot use information from the Blue Room against someone in the Red Room. Actually, unless I'm mistaken it has been a rule that any personal information shared outside the Red Room could not be used in the Red Room.

Because garamet's identity was shared outside of the Red Room, one could argue that it was inappropriate to use her name to troll in the Red Room.



Now truth be told, I hate rules. We've all agreed here, largely, that one of WF's biggest strengths is the latitude given the staff to maintain order. Because the more rules and the more specific the rules are, the more opportunity there is to manipulate them. Indeed, that is the crux of this incident. The rule used to be straightforward--monkeying about with personal information was not allowed. Hell, Tamargate 2005(?) revolved around that. So I sorta forget how we got to a point where monkeying with personal information is allowed in some cases. Anyway, I would suggest an amendment to the Rules:

RL information about another poster cannot be used here without permission of the poster in question. Punishment for the infraction is at the discretion of the staff and can range from an informal warning to permaban.

As far as execution, I dunno. Maybe we want to create a sticky page where people can say that their personal information can be used. And I imagine there is a can of worms opened by posters like Nick, who used to have his real name for a username and has since changed it.

So that's what's on the table. The way I see it, the options are:

1) It ain't broke, Fox. Don't fix it. That said, the fact that two charter members (one of which founded the place) have been banned this week would lead me to think this is not the case.

2) Interpret existing rules so that, because garamet's real name was never shared in the Red Room, it was inappropriate to use it to troll her. Rather than go through and ban everyone who did this, I'd suggest we do an amnesty. No more violation from now on, and pardon Cass and garamet (and GoldenEye and CheekyMonkey?)

3) Impose the new rule, outlined above. Again, this would suggest a pardon for previous offenders.



So there you go. Thoughts?

My thoughts are you just spent a whole lot of time rehashing some hash browns that were burnt 15 rehashes ago.

Get some new taters.

Somehow, I don't think you seem to care all that much what happen to Garamet or Cassandra (Particularly Cass, who I know had lumped you in the the "pond scum.")

It's a combination of the drugs and your bad genes.

This is awkward... but I agree with Volpone. The Red Room works best as an island unto itself.


The way it's set up right now, I can't imagine any public figure wanting to post here, let alone disclose their identity. I'm not saying we should bend over backwards to try to get notable figures posting here, but at the same time, we probably shouldn't have a policy that actively discourages them either.

Good - admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

Oh wow! Nice try dumbass! However, I haven't done any sort of drugs in the past month, besides smoking cigarettes.

So, I'm clear as hell.

Also, I guarantee that I can out-think and out-wit you any given day of the week; so far you've proven that you don't know how to protect yourself without a firearm, you're a virgin at how old?*, and you own a poodle. Are you sure you have man-parts?

Because I know I can defend myself without a gun, I'm not a virgin*, and also I've never owned anything smaller than an English Springer Spaniel.

Also, get this, I have intelligence, much unlike yourself.

*I am not saying by any-means that your manliness is measured by your sexual history.

So many words, yet so few things that mean anything.

Good for you on not being a complete loser for over a month!

Worthiness of Volpone's post aside, I think he has done a great service to George Lucas by giving him the title for his new film about the Tuskegee airmen: 'Crux of the Brouhaha.'

A complete loser? I know plenty of people that are better off, than yourself, in life that smoke every day.

Also, nice try being funny. But if you were any normal person, you know that would have been a neg.

Wow folks. He's like a dumb Garamet.

You are wrong, Anna. I couldn't resist adding in GE and CM for a couple reasons:

1) Since that meltdown happened almost a year ago and revolved around the disclosure of private information, I really HAD to mention it.

2) I like to be a bit of a bastard from time to time just to keep the staff honest.

Truth be told, I think what CheekyMonkey did was a really shitty thing to do and, while I sorta liked her as a poster, I can understand his reaction to it.

On the other side of the coin, I rarely see eye to eye with Cass or garamet politically, but if they're being treated unfairly I think that isn't right.

A final tidbit. When I first came here, I had an extended exchange with garamet via PM (I think because she was a mod then, she didn't have PMs disabled). While I might not see eye to eye with her on any number of things, I have a tremendous respect for her for chasing her dream. It's pretty fucking hard to break into writing and being nationally published and actually making a living at it is worthy of a lot of respect. So if she has to have a sideline writing gig that is less glamorous but pays the bills, well I'm not going to mock that. How many people are willing to follow their dream rather than take the safe route, so who am I to mock her if she wasn't completely successful at it and has a sideline gig between books?

Actually that's something I feel a bit guilty about and almost made this post when Alphaman brought it up awhile back.

It was really, really shitty for Kirk to use garamet's personal life against here--even if it was within the rules, and I bear a share of guilt for not taking measures to tell him this (and possibly engage in rep war) when he started doing it. But the fact that garamet's responses to it (and her proactive passive-aggressive schtick) were so abrasive that I actually enjoyed seeing her buttons get pushed. Now that I think about it, I should've done something before we got to this point.

Assuming that the personal information being used was posted on Wordforge, I think that the other poster should be able to request that the person cease using whatever information it is, with mod intervention if the poster feels its necessary. Having a list of people who would allow their personal information to be used would just be uneccessary. This would allow us, for instance, to keep calling Nick "Nick" instead of his current username since most of us are more familiar with it, even if he hasn't posted in such a thread as mentioned above. If, however, he requested that we stop calling him Nick, and we don't, mod intervention would be required.

As for personal information found from non-Wordforge sources, those should still be off-limits and grounds for a possible ban.

From reading staff posts on the matter however, even if garamet had requested that they do something to stop KIRK from trolling her with personal info, the request most likely would have been denied on the grounds that her name used to be used in one of the forum descriptions. An unfortunate bias/double standard.

But I also like the idea of personal information from other forums not being allowed in the Red Room.

Uh, we can already call nick "Nick," since he has used it on the board.

What's so *)(@#%& hard to understand about "you're fair game if you've used it on the board."?

I feel the same way. I feel like I should have done something before we got to this point too. The Admins here are doing their best to maintain order while Flashy and Kirk were just exploiting a loophole to their advantage. In a way, the whole concept of rep points was to allow us to express ouselves while within the rules.

Well, it would be kind of nice to be able to post something personal in the Green, Gold or Iron Rooms without having to worry it'll be used against me in the Red Room. I come here to relax, and it sucks that I can't really let my guard down anywhere on the board without it possibly coming back to bite me in the ass.

Why not just have one rule. have the common courtesy to refer to a poster by their username.

That would solve the name issue, but what about other info people give out?

I thought that was already a rule - any info given in the the green or blue room can't be used against someone in the red room. Just expand it to include all other forums.

How about don't break the fucking rules and ya ain't got nuttin to worry about?

I think it's bullshit that a contributing member of this community can be trolled with impunity using their RL info but I don't see a fix; the more complicated the rules are made the harder it will be to apply them fairly.

I like garamet a lot and hope she and Cass come back real soon but there's no denying she tends to make these situations worse by giving the trolls exactly the attention they want.

I agree. And both broke the rules. I'm not arguing that.

I'm just interjecting my opinoin on Volpone's post.

Flashlight and KIRK were blatant in there use of real names and info.

They should be the ones banned.

MUST we go through this again?

NO.

Those guys are fuckos. Fuck em!! Fuck them and the threads they post.

Come on Mewa, its not like you start threads to troll once a while too.

KIRK and the Flashlight slipped through this by the skin of their teeth.

So you're just going to ignore the fact that troll just like they do?

If garamet didn't walk around telling everyone that she is the great Margaret Wander Bonnano and insinuating that we should all accept her authority on matters because she writes books, she wouldn't have had anything to complain about in the first place.

This was all just another one of her many, many attempts to get Kirk, something that has become an obsession for her over the past year or so.

She wants to claim authority online because of her real life job, fine. But that means that her real life is now open to discussion, particularly since writing books about Star Trek doesn't provide one with authority about jack shit.

Now, can we please stop talking about her and can we please stop finding ways to alter the rules to suit her needs?

Jesus, people.