Introduction
Good evening and happy winter solstice! As previously announced, we have been spending a great deal of time and effort in recent months preparing new rules and guidelines for The Bell Tree. While our old rules page served us well for many years, internal staff discussions and community feedback showed that there was room to improve with clarity, enforcement, and addressing modern issues such as AI-generated content. We're glad to announce that the time has finally come to publish and move forward with this major update. All members are required to follow the rules and guidelines to participate in the community, so please be sure to take time to review the main points. While these new rules are quite elaborate, we've broken them down into multiple pages to help with readability. I'll explain more about how the pages are structured below, as well as point out some of the specific changes that were made.
Before we get started, I also wanted to touch on a few points about leaving feedback. We welcome and appreciate all feedback, so please remember to frame any opinions, questions, or concerns you may have about the rules themselves. This is not the place to bring up issues with other members or make negative remarks about the staff. These rules and guidelines touch on many sensitive topics, such as bullying and discrimination, so we expect everyone to engage in this discussion with compassion and respect. As a community, we need to come together to support an inclusive, safe, supportive, and welcoming environment. We hope these new rules make it easier to continue that mission.
New Rules
The rules are now located in the Help section of the forum and start with a main "Rules & Guidelines" page, which is linked below:
>> Rules & Guidlines <<
Fifteen separate pages in total cover various topics in greater detail, which you can find in the list of pages at the left (on desktop) or top (on mobile). Links to the pages are also referenced throughout the rules, including in the table of contents at the top of the main Rules & Guidelines page.
The Rules tab in the navigation bar at the top of the forum has also been updated so that it links to the new page.
Notable Changes
While all rules have been rewritten from scratch, most have been clarified and elaborated on rather than changed. However, there are some notable changes that I would like to highlight:
Discussions about politics and religion are no longer allowed. I understand and agree with all of the points a few of you made about this change when it was mentioned in the previous thread, so I want to spend some time explaining why we ultimately came to this decision. You may have seen that we went back and forth about this over the last few years, because the number one concern is that we can keep bigoted people out of the community and provide a place that is supportive of marginalized people and groups. Politics often intersects with these topics, especially in recent years. Finding the right balance can be tricky, but we have spent a lot of time considering our goals for the community, evaluating what works and doesn't work in other communities, and designing rules and moderation in a way that allows the community to stand against discrimination without political discussions.
Political and religious discussions were first allowed on TBT around 2008. During this time, forums were the place to discuss and learn about these issues. There was no Discord, YouTube was only a few years old, and social media was still in its infancy. These days, there is an infinite amount of spaces on the internet where politics are discussed openly. It may even be challenging to find a break from it, which was the sentiment shared by the majority of you who responded to our summer survey. We've also seen a shift on the internet over the past decade, with most gaming, entertainment, and hobbyist communities across Discord, Reddit, forums, and wikis choosing to ban political discussions.
The time and effort needed to moderate political discussions is also something that can negatively affect the site. Every opinion about a political issue needs to be properly researched to make an effective decision about the kind of views that should and shouldn't be allowed on the forum. Political content is often not obvious or straightforward. For example, a specific bill, ruling, or candidate could be referenced, requiring moderators to analyze posts in detail. In some cases, topics could also be more nuanced, putting moderators in a difficult position. The amount of time and effort required to do this effectively detracts from the community's purpose. In recent years, some large social media sites, such as Facebook, have addressed these challenges by reducing moderation and allowing nearly all political content on their platform. This is not an approach that the staff have ever considered because The Bell Tree cannot become a platform used to spread hateful views.
For our specific rules about what is and isn't allowed in regards to political content, please be sure to read Policies on Politics & Religion and Policies on Discrimination & Bigotry.
All AI-generated content is now banned. After we made a statement about banning generative AI images from events and The Museum, many of you expressed that this should go even further. For many years, TBT and its community have put a large emphasis on human creativity, and we want that to continue. It was later announced in that thread that we would be banning all generative AI images everywhere on the site. This update codifies that decision into our rules. It also makes it clear that generative AI should not be used to create text for discussion threads. See Policies on AI-Generated Content for more information.
Rules about sexually explicit content have been broadened. This past summer, we had many discussions in the feedback thread about sexually explicit content, what that means, what should and shouldn't be allowed, and how the old rules were designed in regards to this topic. We also addressed this with questions in our summer survey. Going forward, the rules are broader by prohibiting discussions about sexual relationships. This applies to both personal experiences and fictional stories (creative writing, fan fiction, etc.). See Policies on Sexually Explicit Content for more information.
Moderators will consider behavior in related off-site communities. Many off-site platforms are closely associated with TBT and have unfortunately been used for abusive behavior such as harassment, targeting, and bullying. Going forward, we will be more proactive in addressing these issues, even when they don't occur in spaces that we can directly moderate, such as Discord DMs. For more information, see Moderating On- and Off-site Behavior.
Rules related to hacking Animal Crossing have been narrowed. In the past, there has been uncertainty about what we do and don't allow in regards to hacking Animal Crossing. The rules state that trading hacked Animal Crossing items or bells is not allowed. However, you are free to talk about your island being hacked or search for players that use third-party software to play 3DS games online (now that Nintendo has shut down its official service for this). That being said, sharing instructions about how to hack your console is still not allowed for legal reasons. For more information, see Policies on Hacking & Accessing Copyrighted Content.
We may consider making this rule even less strict by having it only apply to the latest released Animal Crossing game. Please feel free to let us know your thoughts about that.
We are implementing a new warning point system. Those of you who are members of other forums using XenForo software may be familiar with warning points. This system works by assigning a different number of points based on the type of warning and the severity of the issue. For example, a member insulting someone could earn their account 10 points, while making a second account could earn 5 points. Once an account's total warning points cross a threshold, the system automatically issues a ban. Points expire after a set amount of time, giving members the chance to improve their behavior and avoid being banned by the system. We currently do something similar by manually evaluating warning history before issuing a ban, but this system makes that process automated, more consistent, and more transparent. Since this is being implemented for the first time on The Bell Tree, we will likely need to adjust points and expiration lengths over the next year while we find the right balance. For more information, see Warnings & Bans.
Finally, while I linked to several pages in this section, there are many more that haven't been mentioned here, so please be sure to check them out directly on the rules page.
Continued Work
While this update is now published, the work is not over! For example, the Accounts section has a newer version that didn't make it into this release. We also plan to improve formatting to help with readability. Some changes may be added this week, while other details will be polished over the next few months. Meanwhile, we'll continue to review the rules and listen to your feedback to see where further changes may be needed.
In Closing...
Thank you for taking the time to read this announcement and, of course, our newly updated rules! Feel free to ask us any questions you may have about them, either in this thread or in the private Contact the Staff board. We look forward to the upcoming year, with our small New Year's event starting this Saturday, the big Animal Crossing update in mid-January, and more changes and happenings in the works that we'll announce when the time comes.
Good evening and happy winter solstice! As previously announced, we have been spending a great deal of time and effort in recent months preparing new rules and guidelines for The Bell Tree. While our old rules page served us well for many years, internal staff discussions and community feedback showed that there was room to improve with clarity, enforcement, and addressing modern issues such as AI-generated content. We're glad to announce that the time has finally come to publish and move forward with this major update. All members are required to follow the rules and guidelines to participate in the community, so please be sure to take time to review the main points. While these new rules are quite elaborate, we've broken them down into multiple pages to help with readability. I'll explain more about how the pages are structured below, as well as point out some of the specific changes that were made.
Before we get started, I also wanted to touch on a few points about leaving feedback. We welcome and appreciate all feedback, so please remember to frame any opinions, questions, or concerns you may have about the rules themselves. This is not the place to bring up issues with other members or make negative remarks about the staff. These rules and guidelines touch on many sensitive topics, such as bullying and discrimination, so we expect everyone to engage in this discussion with compassion and respect. As a community, we need to come together to support an inclusive, safe, supportive, and welcoming environment. We hope these new rules make it easier to continue that mission.
New Rules
The rules are now located in the Help section of the forum and start with a main "Rules & Guidelines" page, which is linked below:
>> Rules & Guidlines <<
Fifteen separate pages in total cover various topics in greater detail, which you can find in the list of pages at the left (on desktop) or top (on mobile). Links to the pages are also referenced throughout the rules, including in the table of contents at the top of the main Rules & Guidelines page.
The Rules tab in the navigation bar at the top of the forum has also been updated so that it links to the new page.
Notable Changes
While all rules have been rewritten from scratch, most have been clarified and elaborated on rather than changed. However, there are some notable changes that I would like to highlight:
Discussions about politics and religion are no longer allowed. I understand and agree with all of the points a few of you made about this change when it was mentioned in the previous thread, so I want to spend some time explaining why we ultimately came to this decision. You may have seen that we went back and forth about this over the last few years, because the number one concern is that we can keep bigoted people out of the community and provide a place that is supportive of marginalized people and groups. Politics often intersects with these topics, especially in recent years. Finding the right balance can be tricky, but we have spent a lot of time considering our goals for the community, evaluating what works and doesn't work in other communities, and designing rules and moderation in a way that allows the community to stand against discrimination without political discussions.
Political and religious discussions were first allowed on TBT around 2008. During this time, forums were the place to discuss and learn about these issues. There was no Discord, YouTube was only a few years old, and social media was still in its infancy. These days, there is an infinite amount of spaces on the internet where politics are discussed openly. It may even be challenging to find a break from it, which was the sentiment shared by the majority of you who responded to our summer survey. We've also seen a shift on the internet over the past decade, with most gaming, entertainment, and hobbyist communities across Discord, Reddit, forums, and wikis choosing to ban political discussions.
The time and effort needed to moderate political discussions is also something that can negatively affect the site. Every opinion about a political issue needs to be properly researched to make an effective decision about the kind of views that should and shouldn't be allowed on the forum. Political content is often not obvious or straightforward. For example, a specific bill, ruling, or candidate could be referenced, requiring moderators to analyze posts in detail. In some cases, topics could also be more nuanced, putting moderators in a difficult position. The amount of time and effort required to do this effectively detracts from the community's purpose. In recent years, some large social media sites, such as Facebook, have addressed these challenges by reducing moderation and allowing nearly all political content on their platform. This is not an approach that the staff have ever considered because The Bell Tree cannot become a platform used to spread hateful views.
For our specific rules about what is and isn't allowed in regards to political content, please be sure to read Policies on Politics & Religion and Policies on Discrimination & Bigotry.
All AI-generated content is now banned. After we made a statement about banning generative AI images from events and The Museum, many of you expressed that this should go even further. For many years, TBT and its community have put a large emphasis on human creativity, and we want that to continue. It was later announced in that thread that we would be banning all generative AI images everywhere on the site. This update codifies that decision into our rules. It also makes it clear that generative AI should not be used to create text for discussion threads. See Policies on AI-Generated Content for more information.
Rules about sexually explicit content have been broadened. This past summer, we had many discussions in the feedback thread about sexually explicit content, what that means, what should and shouldn't be allowed, and how the old rules were designed in regards to this topic. We also addressed this with questions in our summer survey. Going forward, the rules are broader by prohibiting discussions about sexual relationships. This applies to both personal experiences and fictional stories (creative writing, fan fiction, etc.). See Policies on Sexually Explicit Content for more information.
Moderators will consider behavior in related off-site communities. Many off-site platforms are closely associated with TBT and have unfortunately been used for abusive behavior such as harassment, targeting, and bullying. Going forward, we will be more proactive in addressing these issues, even when they don't occur in spaces that we can directly moderate, such as Discord DMs. For more information, see Moderating On- and Off-site Behavior.
Rules related to hacking Animal Crossing have been narrowed. In the past, there has been uncertainty about what we do and don't allow in regards to hacking Animal Crossing. The rules state that trading hacked Animal Crossing items or bells is not allowed. However, you are free to talk about your island being hacked or search for players that use third-party software to play 3DS games online (now that Nintendo has shut down its official service for this). That being said, sharing instructions about how to hack your console is still not allowed for legal reasons. For more information, see Policies on Hacking & Accessing Copyrighted Content.
We may consider making this rule even less strict by having it only apply to the latest released Animal Crossing game. Please feel free to let us know your thoughts about that.
We are implementing a new warning point system. Those of you who are members of other forums using XenForo software may be familiar with warning points. This system works by assigning a different number of points based on the type of warning and the severity of the issue. For example, a member insulting someone could earn their account 10 points, while making a second account could earn 5 points. Once an account's total warning points cross a threshold, the system automatically issues a ban. Points expire after a set amount of time, giving members the chance to improve their behavior and avoid being banned by the system. We currently do something similar by manually evaluating warning history before issuing a ban, but this system makes that process automated, more consistent, and more transparent. Since this is being implemented for the first time on The Bell Tree, we will likely need to adjust points and expiration lengths over the next year while we find the right balance. For more information, see Warnings & Bans.
Finally, while I linked to several pages in this section, there are many more that haven't been mentioned here, so please be sure to check them out directly on the rules page.
Continued Work
While this update is now published, the work is not over! For example, the Accounts section has a newer version that didn't make it into this release. We also plan to improve formatting to help with readability. Some changes may be added this week, while other details will be polished over the next few months. Meanwhile, we'll continue to review the rules and listen to your feedback to see where further changes may be needed.
In Closing...
Thank you for taking the time to read this announcement and, of course, our newly updated rules! Feel free to ask us any questions you may have about them, either in this thread or in the private Contact the Staff board. We look forward to the upcoming year, with our small New Year's event starting this Saturday, the big Animal Crossing update in mid-January, and more changes and happenings in the works that we'll announce when the time comes.
