Forum Regarding Politics, the Chat, etc.

[Flo]

Just as the title says, this is an open forum for you, the members of this community, to address your concerns, evaluations, opinions, etc. on the new rules, specifically the following:

1C) The discussion of real-world religion and politics outside of that which directly relates to role play is not allowed in the chat or anywhere on the forums outside of the Gentlemen's Club and Discord. The rules for discussing such things shall be listed below in a separate section for the Gentlemen's club and Discord. We understand that the nature of nation role play means we can't preclude talk about and references to such topics through the course of discussing our own nations; however, community members shall make an effort to keep such discussions related to roleplay, and end those discussions if they drift too far away from the RP topic or become hostile.

It has been roughly four months, and I'm curious how you all feel about the new chat rule regarding politics and its relative ban from most of the board and, in particular, the chat box, as well as it's isolation to either the Gentleman's club or #politics on discord. Enforcement is another topic you can bring up as well.

If you do not want to post publically, feel free to send me a PM privately. I can't promise anything will be changed, but I can promise your message will be read and considered by the staff. Your input is important, as otherwise we have to assume how everyone feels.

EDIT: after I've gathered input, I'm going to make a post with my findings and how I feel we should proceed.

[BrumBrum]

I think if it is to work unless their is a real in game comparison then it should be politics. If a joke is political , i.e references any political party or person then it should be in politics even if its likely to move on in a comment or two. Unless its roleplay related politics stuff should it should be on the discord politics channel. Either that or scrap the whole thing entirely if political jokes are to continually be allowed. It shouldn't be a halfway house between the two.The it's just a joke its not political stick really doesn't work.

[Nentsia]

Sorry, Im not going to go specially on Discord, to the politics channel, just to say ''@Hadash Boris Johnson farted. lol.''

If you can't understand the difference between that and your own constant attempts at fuelling a political discussion for which the Mods refer you to Discord, that is not my problem.

[Lomarre]

I think mods should follow the same rules that they stupidly set up. I've seen time and time again people like Flo and Oertha talk politics yet they say it's ok. The moment someone like brum or I bring up one single thing, instant delete or "hey bring that to politics :^)".

It's the "Do as I say, not as I do," kind of garbage that the mods do all the time lately.

[Seperallis]

This is probably all going to just be a recap of what I said to Flo over chat, but I'll pitch my feelings anyway. Since I wrote the thing, this'll probably just be my feelings on how things have panned out so far.

First, regarding the rules themselves, all I can really say is that they're working as intended: with some and certain exceptions, what I see of the chat upon logging in is a drastic reduction in pointless bullshit arguments clouding more substantive discussion, and a corresponding increase in healthy and welcome talks on personal and forum matters. A return to Law and Order was the intent, and a return to Law and Order was the outcome. Obviously those who have rules enforced against them will not be happy about it, and so that is why I established clear guidelines for people to follow in the rules. Section 6 even has an entire process on how to have complaints addressed, as well as recommendations on what to do if your complaint is with a member of the administration. Good job me; I really am amazing.

Of course that brings me to enforcement matters, where I think things are the weakest. I don't believe the answer is either more strict or more lax enforcement, but consistent enforcement. For example, I have noticed a pattern where action is only taken or something is only said when the topic is about US or British politics, and often when it's something the person "reporting" the infringement quite clearly does not like either the tone or substance of what was said...which is understandable, since people will be people and people tend to more reliably be alerted to something being "wrong" when they don't agree/like it. It happens.

But, how do we make it not happen? Consistency of enforcement is pretty difficult across 3 admins, 2 mods, and 2 discord staff, as everyone has an idea of what good enforcement looks like: as an example, some like myself might be more hands-off until an actual problem/conflict arises, while others are more proactive and seek to head-off potential problems before the drama even begins. Both have their downsides - stepping in too late causes strife between members, while stepping in too early causes friction between members and admins - but I think the clear answer to the conundrum is that, regardless of the policy, community administration needs to have a uniform yard stick for when and how enforcement is brought. I don't believe enforcement necessarily belongs in the rules themselves, but it does at the least need to be a consensus between the admins, and that members need to know about it.

I don't doubt we'll still have problems of enforcement because I know we'll either not see something go down or not see it as something when someone else does, but as long as we have that public consensus on when the rules get applied (and people know about it), then we'll at least be able to have that kind of discussion without with less crying.

[Ayzek]

That, friends, is how you violate, like, all the rules at once. That right there. ^

Indeed. You have violated Section 1 of the General Community Rules. I will now proceed to issue a verbal/written warning in the name of Justice: Seperallis-senpai, that was bad and you should feel bad. It would be bad for it to happen again. It would be not-bad if you prevented it from happening again.

[Ayzek]

This is probably all going to just be a recap of what I said to Flo over chat, but I'll pitch my feelings anyway. Since I wrote the thing, this'll probably just be my feelings on how things have panned out so far.

First, regarding the rules themselves, all I can really say is that they're working as intended: with some and certain exceptions, what I see of the chat upon logging in is a drastic reduction in pointless bullshit arguments clouding more substantive discussion, and a corresponding increase in healthy and welcome talks on personal and forum matters. A return to Law and Order was the intent, and a return to Law and Order was the outcome. Obviously those who have rules enforced against them will not be happy about it, and so that is why I established clear guidelines for people to follow in the rules. Section 6 even has an entire process on how to have complaints addressed, as well as recommendations on what to do if your complaint is with a member of the administration. Good job me; I really am amazing.

Of course that brings me to enforcement matters, where I think things are the weakest. I don't believe the answer is either more strict or more lax enforcement, but consistent enforcement. For example, I have noticed a pattern where action is only taken or something is only said when the topic is about US or British politics, and often when it's something the person "reporting" the infringement quite clearly does not like either the tone or substance of what was said...which is understandable, since people will be people and people tend to more reliably be alerted to something being "wrong" when they don't agree/like it. It happens.

But, how do we make it not happen? Consistency of enforcement is pretty difficult across 3 admins, 2 mods, and 2 discord staff, as everyone has an idea of what good enforcement looks like: as an example, some like myself might be more hands-off until an actual problem/conflict arises, while others are more proactive and seek to head-off potential problems before the drama even begins. Both have their downsides - stepping in too late causes strife between members, while stepping in too early causes friction between members and admins - but I think the clear answer to the conundrum is that, regardless of the policy, community administration needs to have a uniform yard stick for when and how enforcement is brought. I don't believe enforcement necessarily belongs in the rules themselves, but it does at the least need to be a consensus between the admins, and that members need to know about it.

I don't doubt we'll still have problems of enforcement because I know we'll either not see something go down or not see it as something when someone else does, but as long as we have that public consensus on when the rules get applied (and people know about it), then we'll at least be able to have that kind of discussion without with less crying.

We should coordinate sometime. I mean, if we haven't already, which is an assertion that I will neither confirm or deny.

[Soyabarian Empire]

Is this the reason why nobody is coming on chat anymore?