I do think that the rules need to be considerably more specific. The reason being that someone who is a "Jerk" to one person, is not to another. Take any major spokesperson who covers philosophical or societal issues for example. Phil Donahue, Oprah, Bill O' Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and numerous others who have had (or still have) national platforms. There are people out there who vary from having great respect for those individuals, to those who think one or more of them are big mouthed jerks.
Despite accusations of trolling over the years, I frequently engage in debates from a pretty right wing point of view, which puts me in a minority. Like a large percentage of the population I'm not a big supporter of gay (male) rights, I support "The War On Terror", don't hate "Dubya" as much as most of our regulars, and am not shy about expressing some rather hard core opinions about entire groups of people in conflict. A lot of people really *hate* what I have to say a lot of the time (where a few actually thank me for having said some of
the things I do), and probably think I'm a Jerk. The point is that it's too subjective. That is to say nothing of being fairly critical of the gaming industry. By the same token in cases where I'm debating with people holding opposite opinions here (where I happen to be outnumbered) from my perspective they frequently come accross as being jerks especially when they try and de-rail the thread into flame wars.
Rather than putting a vague, and extremely subjective policy into place which will probably be misused at some point (and can risk turning these forums into a sort of 'cult of personality' for moderators like has happened with a lot of other sites when they decided to 'crack down'. I mean look at the drama attempts to clean up sites like "Deviant Art" have caused. The saying "The Road To Hell is Paved With Good Intentions" exists for a reason and truthfully the cure when it's something like this can be worse than the problem.
-
Hopefully Kuliani or some of the Red Guard have red this far, as I am going to present an alternate solution:
Nuke the politics and religion forum, get rid of it entirely. Ban all political discussions. Institute a "no politics" policy on articles and material produced by Escapist contributors.
Don't allow left wing positions, right wing positions, or anything else. Don't permit discussions on racism, prostitution, religion, real world warfare, and similar things. Extend discussions of these subjects to games that include them, for example don't allow a discussion of say "Modern Warfare" to act as a doorway to discuss US military policy or anything. Hammer contributors who decide to make political statements based on games, including comments involving things like "Oh hey, it's great that Just Cause 2 has a non-white protaganist. The weapon drop system is annoying though, which is why they don't call it the White Market I guess" or something like that (intended in jest or not).
The point is that if you don't want anti-gay discussion, then don't allow pro-gay discussion. If you don't want discussion against things like Affirmitive Action, don't allow people to talk about supporting it. If you don't want people to be deeply critical of The Middle East and in support of the war down there (or suggesting accelerating it), don't let people post anti-war opinions. If you don't want people to talk about the illegality of postitution being a good thing, then don't let people talk about legalizing it. These are all things that have come up over the years, and which recur, even when I'm not involved these are the kinds of threads that generate the problems. A lot of the prolems basically being people going "OMG, I can't believe someone is allowed to say something I strongly disagree with! I shouldn't have to ever hear the other side of the issue!".
Being vague and subjective is going to lead to more problems. I am suggesting that even if it lowers forum traffic, if your concerned about content to make consistant policies that apply to everyone. No religion, no politics, no social issues, period, even if attached to a game.
Either that or simply let the forums continue on as they have been, a sort of "wild west" enviroment, with only occasional moderation. Truthfully The Escapist doesn't seem to exactly be short on traffic, a lot of posts get made every single day. Sure, some people complain about the enviroment, but how many of those people are upset in comparison to the overall population?
Such are my thoughts.
