Jump to content

(Very Important) Changes to Rule Enforcement on the Forums


Recommended Posts

Hey everybody,

 
I want to thank everybody for participating and contributing on the forums and to Fuwanovel in general. It’s an exciting time for the community: we have a lot of great ongoing projects (a special shout out to Ren’s great work on the FuwaCast) and a lot of interesting things are happening in the VN world. In short -- we're growing faster than ever. This is great, and we're very happy about it, but we need to realize that growth can be a challenge, too, and requires periodic changes.

 
Today I’m announcing a change to rule enforcement on the forums. It’s been in the pipeline for a long, long time, and I’m instituting it to help future-proof the community. 
 
 
Please review these points before proceeding:

  • Fuwanovel’s rules can be found here (LINK)
  • Please review how to report posts (LINK)
  • Respect violations (personal attacks, bullying, hate speech, insults, very rude or disrespectful behavior) are the most common reports we receive
  • Respecting each other is Fuwanovel’s #1 rule
  • How the current rule enforcement system works: All reports are investigated and decided by several staff members. For especially difficult cases staff members or, ultimately, Tay, stage interventions (often via PM or chat). New staff members are often surprised by how much effort we take to make sure things are handled fairly.
  • Chief Argument: Our current process simply isn’t sustainable as we continue to grow. The current system is good for fairness but it doesn’t scale well to how large the community is growing. It also takes too long – the reporting process averages >1 day for resolution, and the issue has often faded away into obscurity by then.
  • The goal of the new system is to systematize and automate the process so it’s quick and fair, and has a transparent workflow for the community's reference 

 

 

 

The New System
Goal: Systematize and automate the rule enforcement process so it’s efficient and as fair as possible.
 
Implementation (short version):

There are two categories of rule enforcement: respect violations and "everything else"

Respect Violations

  • Reports of disrespectful behavior (personal attacks, bullying, hate speech, insults, very rude or disrespectful behavior) can now be decided by a single moderator
  • If a staff member validates the report, the user guilty of a respect violation will first be given two warnings, after which the penalty will increase to bans of increasing length (first ban is 24 hours, second is 48 hours, etc.)
  • The moderator who made the decision will contact you each time to give you the warning or ban with an explanation (you are entitled to an explanation)
  • These increments are called Grief Points and will be forgiven one at a time at least once per month (see the "long version" for details)
  • There is an appeals process! (see the long version)

Spam/Pornography/Off-topic/Crime

  • These will be handled on a case-by-case basis by the staff but can be decided by a single moderator
  • Excessive spam/derailing behavior will lead to a warning PM followed by 24 hour bans which do not increase in duration. 
  • Advocacy of crime is taken very seriously and may lead to removal from the community.

 

 

Implementation (LONG version) (Details provided for transparency and for all users' benefit)


RESPECT VIOLATIONS 
Transparency into Staff Workflow:
  • A post is flagged for language/conduct which is disrespectful or abusive
  • A moderator will review the report and make a judgment call as to whether or not the report was valid (as opposed to a misunderstanding, etc.). If the moderator agrees that the post was indeed a Respect Violation, this process continues to step 3 or 4. 
  • The first two Respect Violations result in Warnings (or if the member has 0-1 Grief Points): A moderator will contact the posting member and remind her/him of the rules of the forum, a short description of what behavior/language was inappropriate, and a warning that further infractions will result in temporary bans of increasing length.
  • Further moderator-validated Respect Violations will result in the accumulation of “Grief Points”. Each Respect Violation will add one grief point to your record. For every Grief Point you have accumulated, you will be temporarily banned for 24 hours. The user will receive a PM which will be similar to the one received on their first offense, which will also give a numerical count of current Grief Points.

Demonstration of Grief Points:

  • First Violation: Warning Only
  • Second Violation: Warning
  • Third Violation: +1 Grief Point, for a total of 1 Grief Point (or a 24 hour temporary ban)
  • Fourth Violation: +1 Grief Point, for a total of 2 Grief Points (or a 48-hour temporary ban)
  • And so on. (Every moderator-validated Respect Violation increases the temp ban length by 24 hours)

Grief Point Forgiveness: At least 1 Grief points will be forgiven per month for good behavior. After all, we all have bad days. Additional points can be forgiven for service to the community.
 
Habitual Offenders: If a user has a long record of Respect Violations despite staff PMs and outreach, a team of 1 admin and 3 moderators will contact the member to inform them their membership in the community is in jeopardy and attempt to address the user’s issues. Further instances of Respect Violations will result in a permanent removal from the community (please see the Permanent Bans section below for how this is done).
 
 
Challenging a Ban (Very Important!): If you were banned for a Respect Violation and you disagree with the judgment, you should contact a staff member with your complaint and reasoning. That staff member will bring your challenge to the staff forums where a formal process for challenging a ban has been established. The current ban will not be shortened or canceled, but if the staff process agrees that your ban was unjustified, then the Grief Point accumulated from the report will be immediately forgiven. If you feel uncomfortable contacting the staff, or don't believe they will effectively mediate for you, you should PM your ban challenge to me directly (Tay).
 
 
Permanent Bans: All Permanent Bans will be processed by and executed by me (Tay). This is to ensure that all members have a final opportunity for appeal and dialog, for which I have always advocated. I believe my track record proves that I will do everything in my power to make sure this is a fair process. This further guarantees that all perma-bans are ultimately my responsibility, protecting both the staff and other members from reproach. 
 


 
 
A few Notes:

  • This isn’t a crackdown on content. Moderators cannot issue grief points based on your opinions. Our job is to keep things civil and as friendly as possible, not whitewash or brainwash the masses ;)
  • The system guarantees that you always have a recourse and appeals process
  • The vast, vast majority of you won’t have to deal with this. Don’t stress about it. All of these details are meant for transparency’s sake (so you know exactly what’s supposed to happen, how to appeal, etc.)
  • That’s it!

I’ll be around to answer questions if you have any! Thanks for your time!
Tay
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you accumulate a grief point the next month when it is forgiven do you go back to zero warnings or does it set back at two warnings? Also when you do get a grief point and another with in the same month resulting in a 48 hour ban how does that show on your profile? After a month do both go away or does only one and you are left with a remaining grief point?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Grief points are tracked by the staff -- it wont show up on your profile. 

 

Point forgiveness: Think of the two warnings as grief points, too. You will get at LEAST one grief point forgiven each month. The consequence of getting a grief point depends on how many points you have total.

 

Example:

First offense = +1 grief point = 1 total grief point, given a warning

Second offense = +1 point = 2 total points, given a warming

Third offense = +1 point = 3 total points, given a 24 hour ban

Month changes, one point forgiven, 2 total points now

Fourth offense = +1 point = 3 total points, given a 24 hour ban

Month changes, one point forgiven, 2 total points now

Month changes, one point forgiven, 1 total points now

Fifth offense = +1 point = 2 total points, given a warning

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it might be a good idea to make the ban time double each time as opposed to increase by 24 hours. That way 4 offenses past warnings will result in over a week in ban time, which in my opinion gives a bigger incentive to avoid it than a 4 day ban. Just my 2 cents, it's a good system regardless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think this is a good new system. I am glad the staff has worked on this and put it out into action now. Gives a new meaning to Mare watching us all from the top of the site, haha.

 

 

One thing I wondered about. Does this 'new' rule change the old one? (Meaning it only applys to pictures directly on this site)

  1. No pornography (genitals, nipples, sexual acts)

As currently as I understood it. We could post ero pic's as long as we only gave a link to the site with the pic if we had a NSFW warning beside it. Not hotlinking the image to the site so it wouldn't be shown here. So does this rule now mean ero is not allowed anymore?

 

Edit: Got it Steve, thanks for the clarification. ^^

Edited by Bolverk
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does this 'new' rule change the old one? (Meaning it only applys to pictures directly on this site)

  1. No pornography (genitals, nipples, sexual acts)

As currently as I understood it. We could post ero pic's as long as we only gave a link to the site with the pic if we had a NSFW warning beside it. Not hotlinking the image to the site so it wouldn't be shown here. So does this rule now mean ero is not allowed anymore?

 

 

No its the same rule just written differently. As explained before it depends on the content of the topic - if it is not an off-topic image (so for example you are posting in a Loli image topic or Cute image topic), you can even post some peek-a-boobs in spoiler tag. Just try not to post some direct H scenes and such without big and proper warning - safer way is putting it as a link.

 

Any discussion of H scenes including all the acts there and such is still allowed, just like it has always been (even I was discussing the awesome oniichan sharing H scenes :P).

The rule is not to censor the forums for ero content (we after all share EROge), but to make it possible to read it comfortably wherever you are, if people are reading it from school and suddenly there would be H scenes all over the place they would not be able to read it, if its hidden inside a link inside a spoiler, with proper warning, people will be able to read it at work or at school and know not to click the link or spoiler.

 

 


 

And to add to the main post:

Basically this new rules topic shouldn't even concern most of you, since you were following the classic logic anyways. It is there only for the more problematic members.

Most people will never receive a single warning so you should not be worried about this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...