Forum Moderation Guidelines - Read before posting!
by admin » Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:33 am
CDS FORUM MODERATION GUIDELINES REVISION 1.3c
Article 1: PURPOSE
The CDS forums are intended to promote the exchange of information and ideas about the Neufreistadt projekt
in Second Life. Specifically, the forums are used to:
* distribute the task of answering questions among many people.
* get to know each other in order to promote informed voting.
* discuss present and future city policies.
* answer questions and address concerns.
A secondary purpose of the forums is to give CDS residents a chance to meet and socialise informally
independently of the natural constraint that different time zones impose upon in-world SL interaction.
Article 2: PARTICIPATION
Non-citizens are invited to participate keeping in mind that the best posts are constructive, concise and to the
point in dealing with specific issues of current interest in the CDS.
New residents are encouraged to use the forum to introduce themselves to the rest of the community.
The forum is actively moderated in accordance with the principles outlined in this document.
Article 3: NETIQUETTE
The usual guidelines apply for posting to a public discussion forum on the internet. They can be broadly
summarised as follows:
3.1: Limit your post to only discuss one subject or several issues that belong naturally together. If you want to
raise several non-related issues, post them as separate threads.
3.2: Make sure that the topic of your post falls within the subject of the forum in question. Notice that some
forums are intended for announcements or questions only and thus have certain restrictions on who may post
there.
3.3: When responding to a post, consider if the topic has drifted away from that of the original post and if so,
consider posting your reply as a separate thread.
3.4: Before posting a question make sure to check if there is already an answer in the archive. Use the search
button for this. Alternatively, an answer may be already on the website:http://www.neufreistadt.info
3.5: When disagreeing with another poster make sure that your response takes issue with the arguments rather
than with the person behind them. Abuse and personal attacks will not be tolerated.
3.6: If you are interested in the CDS and have a question to ask on the details of it consider whether your
question might be better answered by attending one of the scheduled in-world introductions to the CDS.
For a more thorough walkthrough of the general considerations to take into account when posting please refer to
internet document RFC 1855 "Netiquette Guidelines", section 3.0: "One-to-Many Communication": http://
http://www.rfc.net/rfc1855.html
Article 4: MODERATORS
The forums are monitored and moderated by the appointed chairs of the CDS Scientific Council
(hence "moderators"). The chairs are currently:
Callipygian Aliasi Stonebender Delia Lake Arria Perreault Lilith Ivory Soro Dagostino
No one else is entitled to appear as a moderator or 'observer' in this forum.
Article 5: VIOLATIONS AND SANCTIONS
5.1: In case of a violation of the abovementioned principles a moderator may choose to issue a warning to the
violator in question.
5.2: Repeated violations may result in a temporary suspension from posting to the forum or in cases presenting
severe circumstances of repeated, malicious breaches of the principles despite previous warnings a moderator
may issue a permanent ban of the violator from posting to the forum.
5.3: In metering out sanctions a moderator is encouraged to use his own good judgement and to be guided by
the principle of proportionality, input from his fellow moderators and previous judgments passed by the Scientific
Council.
5.4: Except in the cases mandated by the Second Life Forum General Guidelines posts will not be edited or
deleted by moderators in this forum. Instead contributors with posts deemed to be in violation by a moderator will
be asked to back up their claims or modify their posts themselves within a period of three days. Should they fail
to do so sanctions will be issued but the post will still not be modified.
5.5: A moderator may proactively decide to lock a thread if it has drifted from its original topic, contains posts
that are bordering on being in violation with this document or are in other ways deemed to be detrimental to the
purpose of the forums. The moderator will post a message in the thread giving justification for locking the thread.
Article 6: MODERATION POLICY
It is in the interest of the community of the CDS to give citizens a very wide-ranging freedom of
expression to ensure that the relative merits and drawbacks of differing opinions are exposed. Moderators will
generally strive to avoid handing out sanctions against citizens for expressing their opinions also when these
take place under heated circumstances. However, contributors are asked to remember that in Second Life,
words can generally cause more damage than weapons. Moderators will therefore not hesitate to pass sanction
on posters using the forums to cause harm or grief, which includes but is not limited to:
6.1: Postings in violation of the Second Life Forum General Guidelines as they are represented here:http://
forums.secondlife.com/faq.php
6.2: Abusing the forums by addressing issues that are a simple dispute between two parties. These matters
should be solved by contacting directly the individuals in question and in cases where this fails to bring a
resolution the matter should be brought before the SC for arbitration.
6.3: Making libelleous statements intended to defamate a person or group; put into jeopardy his standing within
the community or to appeal to the sympathy of the forum in an ongoing dispute, which is better solved through
private conversation or by arbitration with the SC.
6.4: Abusing the forum by excessive posting of nonsense, messages purely advertising commercial services
irrelevant to any ongoing discussion, personal attacks or messages broadly defaming a specific group of people
delimited by ethnicity, gender, belief, age or sexual orientation.
6.5: Posts containing extremely profane language. If you can't say it in a PG Sim, don't write it here.
6.6: Physical threats against or harassment of another member
6.7: Novice contributors who are not citizens of the CDS and who have no prior history of posting to this forum
are advised to be prepared to back up controversial or provocative postings with argumentation showing a
thorough understanding and/or eagerness to learn about the history and workings of the CDS.
6.8: Non-citizen contributors posting repeated instances of provocatory statements without showing the will to
engage in a dialogue aimed at mutual understanding may be banned by the moderators without previous
warning. Trolls are not welcome in this forum.
The inspiration from the above stems in part from an earlier document of informal guidelines for the forum ("The
Stand"), which has been revised and updated to reflect the current policy of increasing sanctions and the
possibility for appeal.
Article 7: APPEAL
7.1: The decision of a moderator is subject to peer review if so desired and the citizen affected by a sanction
may therefore lodge an appeal through written notice to any member of the Scientific Council or the SC archivist.
7.2: A non-citizen personally affected by the verdict of a moderator may lodge an appeal by email or note card in
world as in the above.
7.3: Any citizen observing irregularities in the handling of the appeal procedure may ask that the matter be
brought before the consideration of the SC sitting in ordinary session by written notice to the Dean.
Last edited by Gwyneth Llewelyn on Wed Nov 06, 2013 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Changed to reflect the current composition of the SC/forum moderators
admin 3 Thu May 25, 2006 7:38 am Confederation of Democratic Simulators