Hi all,
I'd like to cover a couple of the topics that I've been addressing in this thread. This post won't cover everything that I previously listed, but I promise the rest will come soon, once some details are worked out. In one of my previous posts, I mentioned the reworking of our rules, and that is also the primary focus of my post tonight. Specifically, I'll summarize some of our plans for both the enforcement and presentation of the rules.
Our current rules have been in place for several years with some updates made every now and then, and while they've served us well during this time, they're overdue for a larger overhaul. This is something that will take careful consideration, planning, and writing over multiple months. In the meantime, hopefully, this post will help explain the approach we're looking to take with certain topics. We'll also stop hosting forum events until we complete this project in order to direct our full attention to it.
I've included a link to a survey that will help us consider community feedback about the approach we take, as well as some other topics that have come up in this thread.
The list below doesn't cover everything, but I've outlined five of the areas we're working on. This also doesn't touch on discussions of media created by problematic individuals or companies, but there is a question about this in the survey. AI-generated text masquerading as discussion is a recent topic here, so we haven't had a chance to discuss it thoroughly, but my instinct is that it has no place on TBT (enforcement is a more complicated topic). AI-generated images will be covered separately by Mistreil tomorrow.
1) Increased content removal accompanied by official explanations.
Individuals who clearly and intentionally advocate against human rights are currently and will continue to be banned. Expanding on this further, other forms of problematic phrasing will be removed with an explanation, and subsequent posts will be monitored more closely.
Considerations:
- We'll spend time on determining the type of content that will be removed and preparing some prewritten explanations. Our goal is to help members understand how their phrasing may come across, while also being faster to find hateful individuals who attempt to hide among regular members.
2) For minor concerns, fewer warnings, more removals with explanations.
This was mentioned in
my first post here, and the idea is to avoid worrying members about being in trouble when we're actually just trying to communicate something to them in an efficient manner. Even though we've renamed some warnings as "reminders," many people still don't like that it's coming from the same warning system.
This would apply to things such as directing someone to another board, censor bypassing, low post quality, etc.
Considerations:
- Warnings are logged for us, while simple removals are not. Repeated behavior is sometimes intentional, so we'd like to track these, which will require software changes.
Extending the software to allow us to track the removal of content will also help with point #1. While this is background functionality that members can't see, it's going to be prioritized over more front-facing features.
3) Further limiting the type of content that can be discussed on the forum.
a) Ban on political and religious discussions.
This is a topic that we have been considering for a while, and we have been going back and forth about it because it's more complicated than it may seem. Here was our previous statement about this rule change when we didn't plan to implement it:
There has been debate about whether or not we should ban the discussion of politics and religion in general to avoid controversial topics. Right now, we have no plans to do this.
We considered it as one of several options because gaming forums are not staffed to moderate these types of posts. They sometimes require an intimate knowledge of the subject matter that we may not have. We are often pressed for time as it is and having to research a politician, a law, or a court ruling that we’ve never heard of can seem daunting.
However, politics are increasingly entangled in social issues, human rights, and can have a significant impact on someone’s life. Likewise, religion is deeply personal and often enmeshed in a person’s thoughts and feelings. Deciding where to draw the line is incredibly complicated and probably more of a pain to moderate than just allowing them to exist on the forum.
Considerations:
- Statements in support of human rights will be allowed regardless of the rule, so we must decide where to draw the line, as LadyDestani said.
- Adjacent topics, such as statements about going to vote, will be allowed. Instead, this rule is meant to reduce debate and discussion of political issues, and we'll spend time to make sure that this is clearly described.
- Discussing real issues is seen as important to some- this is the world we live in, and sometimes it's tough for people to confront these topics, but they're a part of life. On the other hand, many people would point out that there are enough spaces on today's internet for these types of discussions to take place, so TBT should offer an escape from them. This is covered by one of the survey questions.
b) Ban on political rhetoric, slogans, and campaigning.
Similar to above, this would mean, for example, that you can't support a political candidate/campaign in your signature.
Considerations:
- Human rights slogans (e.g., BLM) would still be allowed.
- We would also like to be careful about being too limiting against some imagery that is heavily linked to identity for some people.
c) Ban on discussion of sexual activity.
The forum is already "
PG-13" or stricter, so this will further restrict this type of discussion. Similarly, there is the
ESRB Teen rating for games. If you're not familiar with these American rating systems but are interested in their meanings, I've included links that provide more details. While movie/gaming ratings are useful for comparison, our community rules don't need to (and already don't) match them.
Considerations:
- We must decide the level of sexual references that should be allowed on the forum. This is partially addressed with one of the survey questions.
- Discussions of media (movies, games, etc.) that contain sexual relationships wouldn't be banned.
d) Ban on asking for or giving medical advice.
We have removed these types of posts before, so this will make the rule official. Giving medical advice is better left to professionals.
e) Ban on discussions about recreational drugs, alcohol, and smoking.
Considerations:
- It could be worthwhile for the rules to leave room for support for quitting smoking, etc., within reason.
- Discussions of media (movies, games, etc.) that depict drugs and alcohol wouldn't be banned.
4) Increased enforcement of rules for off-site behavior in TBT-adjacent spaces.
Depending on severity, action may be taken based on off-site behavior when appropriate proof is provided. This can include: bullying, harassment, threats, hate speech, unsolicited sexual comments, using other platforms to organize on-site targeting of a specific member, and other violations of the site rules.
This would not apply to, for example, interactions with someone in another community or offline, and they also happen to be a TBT member. However, this could apply to playing Animal Crossing online after arranging the meeting on the forum, something that comes from a community dedicated to TBT itself, receiving a DM on Discord about TBT, etc.
Considerations:
- Some interactions may not always be simple to show/prove, depending on where and how they happened.
- When considering these cases, we'll determine what type of interactions are TBT-related or in "TBT-adjacent spaces." If two people originally met on TBT, it doesn't mean that the TBT rules can be applied to all of their off-site interactions.
5) More elaboration and specific examples for already-existing rules.
One of the things I mentioned in a previous post is the goal to elaborate on the rules and include examples for what is and isn't allowed in some cases. For example, what would be considered rude behavior enforced under the "respecting others" category? What would be considered bullying of another member? What type of statements would fall under the prohibited content rules? Etc.
Considerations:
- This could easily be the most time-consuming part of this rules update. We'll start by determining which rules will benefit most from more details and/or examples.
Finally, I'd like to touch on one more topic since there's a related question in the survey. TBT's ignore functionality comes from the XenForo software, and other forum platforms, such as vBulletin and Invision, work similarly. This means that ignoring users works the same way here as it does on most other forums, and the software designers likely did it this way due to the way traditional message boards are structured with threaded discussions. That being said, we're able to make some software changes on our own (within reason), so we'd like to hear your thoughts about this in the survey. However, keep in mind that software changes aren't something that can happen quickly.
Here is the link to the survey, which will also earn you a few bells if you don't mind including your username. Thanks!
I was able to tell the posts were AI before I even ran them through software. I know what to look for (as a writer, I have a vested interest in keeping up with it), and with a little bit of research, you can, too! 
