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New Forum Rules

Tim Major

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Maybe have a filter option, where by default a filter is on but you can turn it off? Endless swearing is pointless but when used sparingly, can be used to add emphasis or style.

Abusive swearing, "you're a ******* moron" would still be against the rules.
 

TDM

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Yes, right after he was banned, there was a discussion in the Random Cubing Discussion thread, which I and another mod cleaned out. The posts were deleted because there was a lot of false information.
Imo, you should've said it was false information rather than deleting everything and saying nothing about it, making it look like you were trying to hide what had happened.
 

sellingseals

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In my opinion, what it comes down to is that we're all guests here. This isn't my forum, and it's not your forum. There are rules, the same way that every website has. If you don't agree with the rules or don't think you can follow them, move on.
 

qqwref

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In my opinion, what it comes down to is that we're all guests here. This isn't my forum, and it's not your forum. There are rules, the same way that every website has. If you don't agree with the rules or don't think you can follow them, move on.
I, for one, do not particularly fancy being part of a dictatorship. Some people may think like this but the truth is that Speedsolving has been the hub of the English-speaking cubing community for a long time. It is important enough to cubing that it does not just belong to the forum owners anymore - because of all the experts who post here, all the valuable content and discussion, and the organization, this site is far more important to cubing as a resource than to the owner or moderators as a simple website. Asking someone to "move on" from speedsolving is more or less asking them to quit publicly cubing. My point is that if the people in charge care about cubing - and they absolutely do - it is not right to use their position to do something that would hugely harm the community. (And I'm not talking about Ben here, I just mean how things should be set up in general.)


About how the rules should be followed (meta-discussion?) I want to reiterate something I said before: "do we value the people who know stuff and create new things, or the people who can follow the rules?" Of course, when someone is both or neither, the decision is easy. But when you can only get one, you should value the first one. And I think historically that's what we've done, which is why Stefan and Kirjava (and others) have been around for so long.
 
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sellingseals

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I, for one, do not particularly fancy being part of a dictatorship. Some people may think like this but the truth is that Speedsolving has been the hub of the English-speaking cubing community for a long time. It is important enough to cubing that it does not just belong to the forum owners anymore - because of all the experts who post here, all the valuable content and discussion, and the organization, this site is far more important to cubing as a resource than to the owner or moderators as a simple website. Asking someone to "move on" from speedsolving is more or less asking them to quit publicly cubing. My point is that if the people in charge care about cubing - and they absolutely do - it is not right to use their position to do something that would hugely harm the community. (And I'm not talking about Ben here, I just mean how things should be set up in general.)


About how the rules should be followed (meta-discussion?) I want to reiterate something I said before: "do we value the people who know stuff and create new things, or the people who can follow the rules?" Of course, when someone is both or neither, the decision is easy. But when you can only get one, you should value the first one. And I think historically that's what we've done, which is why Stefan and Kirjava (and others) have been around for so long.

Well no, in fact this site does belong to somebody, and that somebody has given trust to certain individuals that are there to enforce the rules. There are rules for a reason. There is no reason that someday shouldn't be able to follow the rules. The guidelines set on this website are very fair, and very easy to follow. After looking them over, for the most part they are rules that enforce positive thinking and just a general positive environment. If people can't follow those rules, they are probably just being mean. I would say it again, if you can't follow these very easy to follow rules, then leave. They are not hard to follow, and they are there for a reason.
 

IRNjuggle28

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The key thing to keep in mind when posting is that Speedsolving.com is a family-friendly forum for the cubing community. The cubing community consists of many young people, and it's important that the forums are a safe place for them to post. This isn't Facebook or YouTube where you can say something offensive or harass someone and get away with it. It's important to us that users feel safe here. The Forum Rules are what they are for a reason. If you have concerns about specific Rules, feel free to address them.


Did you ever report these threads to ask why there were closed? When we close threads, they're never because we just don't like them. If we don't like them, there's a good reason behind it, and it's not always obvious.


When Brest became an Admin, he removed words like "idiot" from the filter. The purpose of the filter is to hide words that are vulgar, inappropriate, offensive and profane. If a word is hidden from the filter, you shouldn't be using them. If you think that there are words in filter that shouldn't be there, ask an Admin about it.


This isn't even true. I don't recall whether it was like this in the past, but it certainly hasn't been recently.

boastful
distrustful

No, I don't report threads asking why they're closed. I don't assume that me simply asking "why is this closed" is going to get it opened again, and am not intererested with arguing with mods just to get to post on a thread. Not worth it.

Boastful happened on a thread by Oliver Frost on how to memorize using letter pairs. Distrustful happened on Jacob Hutnyk's 23.08 4x4 single where the "fake" argument happened. Ollie's thread was not that recent; Jacob's was just a few weeks ago.

I don't think we need an automatic filter. Comments that are extremely profane are rare enough that they can just be reported individually. Sure, it's more work for mods, but I doubt many people are really going to post anything that vulgar. And if they do, they'll get banned.

It sounds like you don't know what a moderator's jobs actually are.
Yeah, true enough. I shouldn't assume that I do. Let me rephrase my statement: lots of the things that mods do publicly seem unimportant or plain annoying. I'm sure you all do plenty of good things that we never see.
 

sellingseals

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To believe it or not, there are people you would call "mean" who actually have good intentions with their "cruelty". It's just their way of expressing themselves when someone posts something not constructive or dumb. When they rebel against authority when confronted from doing so, it's because they are frustrated that the authorities fail to see their good intentions because they assume that the authorities should have an open mind to understanding a variety of different backgrounds since they put themselves in a position to lead the entire community.

There are some individuals who are (or were) ahead of their time, no matter what the subject matter is. For cubing, if we ban them from the SS forums (which, if they are especially an high-contributing and active member), we could in fact take a part of them away which fuels/drives them to discover more. Therefore banning such individuals can put a dent in the evolution of puzzle theory (including speedcubing stuff, not just math stuff) which will most likely take several years, decades, or never (if the cubing community dies like it did before) for someone else to come along, who can follow the rules, that can contribute.

Suppose the person who is able to figure out a way to find God's number for the 4x4x4 is a arrogant social misfit genius (not describing anyone in particular here, just an extreme example), but somehow being a member of this forum and being himself ("mean" to people who "deserve it" with good intentions to get them thinking) helps him (or her?) keep interest in cubing long enough to make the big discovery. If that person is banned, then his or her fuel source is put out.

If you say, "well, even if they are banned, they can still go in a chat room, exchange emails, etc.", well, first of all, not all discoveries are made when people who "get along" interact. "We are defined by our enemies" holds true in this context as well because if this misfit genius is a member of a community, he/she will most likely read more posts (if he/she is banned, it's very unlikely he/she will read the forums as often as he/she would if is an active member), and that includes "stupid" posts which can actually be a catalyst to finding something great. Someone who doesn't like you isn't going to join you in a private chat room, but when you are typing posts in front of the entire world, you're pressured to respond to posts.

Lastly, I will give an analogy.
Some parents are very sensitive to what their children watch on television. So your position on this subject is equivalent to saying "well, the media needs to change to fit my moral standards so that my child can watch TV". This means, fire very talented actors, writers, directors, comedians, etc., who make TV entertaining for mature audiences (who is the majority).

So maybe what qqwref is trying to say is that they cannot deny that it is gifted individuals who have made the cubing community as advanced and diverse (in a good way) as it is today and will help evolve it at an optimal rate for the future. Parent's sensitivity to "television" shouldn't dictate what is shown on TV. If you don't want your kids to watch it, prohibit them, because I don't think children are going to make any advancements to the cubing community at a very young age (with all due respect). Children's current life filters set by their parents should not filter out people with good brains (who's actions do not always seem to agree with set rules) and ultimately shape (and destroy) the potential of cubing knowledge and future of cubing as we know it.

Ok. I understand now. We are to allow people to be cruel to other people because they might have something else to offer, or MIGHT come up with something helpful in the future, so that makes it ok. That makes perfect sense now. When people are mean... but do it with good intentions... Yes. I agree. That is the best way to go about things. To be mean about it. A lot of sarcasm just went on there.

Your analogy isn't quite fitting either. I'm not sitting here saying people have to change for my liking. I'm saying this website seems to have some guidelines and rules that are easy to follow. For the most part, they are designed to keep this place civil and nice. You're rebuttal to that is to basically say who cares, people can be mean because they might do something worthy in time. I'm sure if it's worthy enough, people will hear about it regardless.

I can see you thought this through, and you seem like an intelligent person, but unfortunately I can't understand the logic you have presented. Let them be mean because they might be mean with good intentions, even though they could just as easily been nice about it instead, therefor not breaking these easy rules to follow, just in case they happen to have something to offer later on. That makes perfect sense.
 

Christopher Mowla

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Ok. I understand now.
That's great. My post wasn't for anything else but to try to give you a different perspective of what possibly is going on here besides the idea you have that people are just being rebels.

I personally do not like this kind of behavior we are talking about, but I have both seen victims and have been a victim of this behavior (so I have had a lot of time to think it over and try to understand why this phenomena happens besides resorting to the easy assumption of rebelliousness), but who said that the rules are easy to follow for everyone? Maybe for you and I, but not for everyone. Try to be in someone else's shoes...you don't know who they are or where they have been.

Even I, a person who depends on rules to follow, can remember many times when I got into an argument on this forum, even if I carefully tried to write something so it wouldn't seem offensive, I still would fail: people would misunderstand me. So now, I learned that when you want to be "nice" in everyone's eyes, you have to pretend you're talking to a sensitive 5 year-old. With me even saying this, I have to think, "is this really necessary?". Of course, the answer is "yes", but there is an urge in me which begs to differ. It is in that moment of aggravation, disbelief, and blood boiling that I have to imagine that I have the power to kill someone with words or tickle them to death with words. Either way resolves the issue, so at that point I just choose the latter because big brother is more happy with that one...

However, when I read my posts a month or two later, I understood how someone still might take my posts to be offensive if I pictured them having a negative picture of who I am. But for people who cannot learn as fast as I can or are unable to change as fast as I can will have problems learning to write like this in time before a ban, especially if there is a flame war.

Ever heard of Genie the wild child? That's a little extreme to describe members here, but that should give you an idea that some people really can't help/hold themselves from behaving a certain way based on their environment. We cannot expect everyone to be as tamed as we are.

EDIT:
Being nice to people with words on the forum who deserve otherwise kind of reminds me of this episode of the Twilight Zone, if you have ever seen it. I have become pretty good at restricting what comes out from my fingers, but it's not a practice everyone is accustomed to or feel that it's really necessary to do because they have hope that the person they are talking to just might have the capacity to understand what they are trying to say without them spending 15 minutes on a post that should be writable in 2 minutes.

You've probably noticed, but my posts are long and detailed (can I get an "amen", Stefan? LOL). Another good practice is to write longer posts which explain your intentions and, of course, constantly apologize around any sentences which could be taken as offensive. People who do not want to type out a lot of text might be taken to be offensive because they do not take the time to explain their intention but make the assumption that the other person understands their intention.
 
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elrog

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"To believe it or not, there are people you would call "mean" who actually have good intentions with their "cruelty". It's just their way of expressing themselves when someone posts something not constructive or dumb. When they rebel against authority when confronted from doing so, it's because they are frustrated that the authorities fail to see their good intentions because they assume that the authorities should have an open mind to understanding a variety of different backgrounds since they put themselves in a position to lead the entire community."


Many times I see this situation happen when a new member/inexperienced is asking a dumb question. Anyone who thinks being mean or cruel will teach them better is completely mistaken. People are more likely to listen if you explain things to them and they will learn better when they listen. You make the argument that we shouldn't be driving these people off, but what if that "misfit genius" if allowed to stay would have drove off another "genius" before they got fully indulged into the forums?

As for the filter, I don't see why it is ever necessary to use vulgar language. There is no situation that you should need to use vulgar language to emphasize anything (assuming it is cubing related). If you did get rid of the filter, you'd also see a lot more people using vulgar language just because they could. The filter is fine and it needs to stay.

I am really surprised at the reactions to this thread. I am completely on the moderators side from everything I've read in this thread up to this point.
 

Escher

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Funnily enough, the last 8 hours of posting here provide a perfect example of why moderation on this forum is necessary, even Godwin's Law was observed (but from what I've seen I think Dene does that on purpose <3 ).

My personal view is that profanity, while an awesome section of language and should be used liberally with great vigour most of the time, is not a good thing to have on a community for people who just left primary school, simply for the parental factor. I don't want overly protective parents to be stopping young new cubers from joining this community because they see some profanity. I still think being sensitive to cursing is extremely stupid in general but I don't mind sacrificing that privilege here.

I don't browse enough to feel at all justified in throwing my personal opinion out there on Ben's ban, but there's probably a bit more going on if he has as yet unpoliced alts via proxy. I'm happy with the current rate of bans, and Kirjava's is probably a 5 day one fyi. Personally I'd rather the ban lengths in general were a little shorter, simply because the banning criteria can't explicitly rule out things that are 'clearly jokes' and must still punish them if they are relatively significant infractions.

Regarding the argument Cmowla brought up about evolution of the sport and whatnot - I don't think talent has anything to do with it. I would much rather we waited another couple of years for someone to come up with 'x needed program/method' than have one released now written by a bully who thinned out the field of new members to this community through his attitude. I remember when several people who are now considered the best of the best joining this forum, and some of them were complete nabs. There are plenty of users here who would be ashamed if you dug into their submitted threads history and went way back to around their joining date. Point being growth of the hobby > increasing depth of current knowledge, since the former eventually improves the latter.

As for the final argument... It's rarely a case that new users need yelling at. I think a stern detailed PM from a moderator does more than some other user/s publicly telling them they're an idiot for say, not understanding how EO works and spamming their method idea in 10 locations. Most of the time, if 'not being rude' is apparently equivalent to 'acting like pansies', I think it's pretty much fine to be a community of pansies.
 

qqwref

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I don't want us to become a community that rewards people who can post nothing pleasantly. I'm not the only one who remembers how it used to be, and it's not unreasonable to occasionally be frustrated or annoyed at people who have several hundred posts of misspelled garbage. Sure, it's possible that moderators send "a stern detailed PM" and get people to improve, but I doubt it. I tend to see the same people making low-quality posts for months or longer, which just makes me think nothing is being done. Escher claims everything will be developed eventually, so there's no loss. Will it, though, if we get rid of those who are looking for worthwhile discussion? The fact is, smarter people want to be with other smarter people, and have less tolerance for stupidity. And drama happens. Ban people for a few days if they need to chill out, sure, but when bans get to a month or longer it brings up the question of what we want the forum to look like.

I don't want to be embarrassed when I see other cubers. I want to be in a place where there is room for smart people even if they may not have perfect social skills or make friends with everyone they meet. I want to be in a place where people care about post quality, and where interesting debates can come up without having to worry that everything they say might offend the other side, or that the whole thing will get deleted for not precisely adhering to the title of the topic. And speedsolving being what it is, there is no great alternative, so we should work together to improve the community, by fixing the problem rather than the people who are frustrated by the problem.
 

Escher

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Escher claims everything will be developed eventually, so there's no loss.

(I agree with most of your sentiments btw)

More of a loose assertion than a statement of fact - I just think that if the assertion is true that more conduct rules = less developers, I'd rather have a growing community composed of a wide variety of people benefiting from cube developments as opposed to a smaller community with more developments but less scope for growth.

Sure, there's an argument that the 'smarter, obsessed but rude' group would get more total enjoyment than a diluted group might but I'd rather we had more people to spend money and drive hardware developments and public visibility. I really do think the environment of speedsolving.com has a pretty reasonable effect on the growth of the future economy of the hobby, and for that reason I think being careful about allowing too much 'anti-social behaviour' is wise.

It's just I agree completely with the 'spirit' of the rules and the reasons they exist are imo quite important - I don't want that to be forgotten if the community voice calls for a rework.

There's nothing inherently wrong with noobs/newbs. I was a horrific poster in 2008, but it was only a couple of years later I went on a thread spree and I think I helped the community build a foundation for discussing deliberate practise. To me it's just a case of creating a few well-policed environments for those who want small/closed, expert discussions to happen.

As an aside, as much as I think it myself, I do find those 'the old days of this community were better' sentiments quite amusing - it seems to be a mainstaple of any old poster on pretty much any small and growing online community - I've seen it in so many obscure subreddits and forums.
 

IRNjuggle28

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An idea I came up with is having the profanity filter be an off/on account option. Anybody who doesn't want to see it can choose to turn profanity into ****, and people who don't mind it can use it. Is that doable?
 
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