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Comments
Not if said rule is "we don't mention TV Tropes. Ever."
There's a difference between letting it go and banning conversation about it, though. I would suggest that if we can't talk about TV Tropes without blowing a gasket, perhaps it would be better to re-examine our conduct rather than impose a rule that prevents potential discussion. On one hand, we've got people claiming they don't care about TV Tropes anymore, and on the other hand a few of the posts on this page have used language that indicates that some people are still frustrated with it.
The best solution to a controversial topic is to approach is calmly, not banning it outright. New members coming over from TV Tropes might not get the memo and face punishment right off the bat, and as much as we want to cut ties to TVT, that might conflict with our desire to be less insular.
I'd say the last thing we want is more tension between us and TVT due to our policies.
^^Not to be rude of anything, but give me an example where re-examining conduct for any overall Internet community has ever worked. Because personally, I have never seen it.
^Do they even care about us anymore? We should be Tuesday to them.
I take off for three damn days and what the hell happens o_0 Jiminy Christmas.
That would be a good first step, if your goal is to prevent a wide-net censorship rule on a specific set of topics.
And going off past experiences, i honestly do not believe that calm TVT threads will ever be a thing here, no matter how hard we try.
@Glenn: And we should stop caring what they think of us.
It would be in the rules, which would make it their own fault for not reading the rules.
I don't think it's a topic that will EVER be divorced from frustration, and I don't see how we could possibly fix conduct for that without resorting to bans and threadlocks. It's about time we stopped caring, and the easiest way to do that is to stop thinking about it, which, sadly, seems to mean we have to make it a taboo. They're not worth reevaluation of conduct. That would be much tougher than you're giving it credit for.
There are only about two dozen regular users here, give or take a few. That means it's much easier to have a collective discussion about this kind of thing and come to a good compromise. That's an advantage we have here; we can have a level of functional democracy that larger forums can't hope for.
I agree with this.
To be honest, in all the time I've been here, I've skimmed the rules perhaps twice. Rules make for dry reading and you can expect people to skim like I did, and most people will miss bits and pieces. It's especially easy to miss a rule like "no discussion of TV Tropes" when most newcomers will associate this forum with it right off the bat. It's just unwieldy and runs contrary to what most new members would expect.
I wouldn't be surprised if a new member, at some point, made a thread questioning the new potential ruling, and where does that leave us?
Now that I think about it, TV Tropes shit gets started primarily by ignorant newbies. So maybe we could get away with only rejecting single issue applications.
"It's just unwieldy and runs contrary to what most new members would expect."
Kind of a catch-22, isn't it? We want to sever ourselves from TV Tropes, but that's where most of our membership comes from.
Then we PM them about it or something. We don't have to ban them on a first offense.
Whatever. I've had a long day, and I'm tired and kind of pissed off and I have a headache. I'm going to bed.
Since we got rid of our problem users, pretty much all drama has been external. Between TV Tropes shenanigans and SA silliness, our biggest problem right now is that we get our panties in a knot over things that ought not directly concern us.
Definitely. Though in regards to SA, it's because we mostly can't be arsed to care about anything besides one damn thread on that site which still ties back into TV Tropes.
If they can't be bothered to read the rules in detail, I'll gladly ban them.
"I wouldn't be surprised if a new member, at some point, made a thread questioning the new potential ruling, and where does that leave us?"
It means we inform him of this site's history, as we should be able to do for a newbie.
"Now that I think about it, TV Tropes shit gets started primarily by ignorant newbies. So maybe we could get away with only rejecting single issue applications."
That's definitely part of the solution, but I doubt if itvwould be enough.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure most of us do that.
Replace "ban" with "warn" and that's reasonable.
I've been considering writing up a reworked rules post, BTW.
...I only do that if the rules are excessively long. This site's rules aren't excessively long.
^^^Flag button deals with that nicely, since then posts can be blanked before they cause too much trouble and maybe we can still make casual mention. Though that's extremely contingent and leaning towards me not even wanting to see that.
"The thing is, I'm pretty sure most of us do that."
Well, that kinda sucks, then. Like Flyboy said, there aren't that many rules to read, here.
How much of that "most of us" are perfectly willing to keep quiet if no one brings it up? I know I'm in that category. It's the fact that such a mention ends up snowballing that's the problem, not that we mention it at all.
I don't think we can enforce moving on via forum mechanics, though. That's down to us as individuals and how we react to TV Tropes related things. Basically, as long as we need rules to enforce civility about it, or as long as we require discussions like this, we haven't moved on.
Essentially, every member has to contribute by not enabling drama when it threatens to boil.
Except the silent treatment never works on the Internet. Best one can do is flag for mod help and hope they lock the thread down as quickly as possible.
Maybe the rule should be phrased as "if you have an IJBM about another site's policies, take it to that site?"
I am, personally, against a written ban against Tv Tropes discussion in favor of heavy discouragement and increased mod surveillance when the topic comes up. This way it looks less reactionary, and helps us enforce the image that IJBM is independent of Tv Tropes.
However, I am completely for forbidding users who come here thinking this is some sort of dumping ground for shit stirred up on TVT and the like.
But again, we're a very small community, and our social interactions are going to be different in nature to a larger one. Plus, there's a difference between "not enabling" and not talking about things.
Something along the lines of this is reasonable, too. Perhaps, though, there should be a chance for an appeal. If their registration is denied and they question it, we should tell them straight up that this isn't a dumping ground and they can be part of the community as long as they respect that rule.
Also, I really have stopped caring about TVTropes, Alex.
""if you have an IJBM about another site's policies, take it to that site?""
Sounds like a great idea.
"I am, personally, against a written ban against Tv Tropes discussion in favor of heavy discouragement and increased mod surveillance when the topic comes up. This way it looks less reactionary, and helps us enforce the image that IJBM is independent of Tv Tropes.
However, I am completely for forbidding users who come here thinking this is some sort of dumping ground for shit stirred up on TVT and the like."
I think at this point, this is the best we can do. Undoubtedly, a lot of us are well prepared to supply the "discouragement" part and we can word the policies to be about general site grudges rather than any specific site.
^^Indeed, Alex's solution requires an amount of good faith that is completely unfounded as of recent events.
Why can't we do both? There could be some kind of policy alteration on the subject -- although I would discourage banning the topic outright at every junction -- but that doesn't mean we can't just look at how our behaviour could become less enabling for drama.