Rules for LOR Chat

[Squawk]

Guys and gals of the league.

Below you will find the rules for participation in the League of Reason chat. These rules are not intended to steer the chat in a given direction in any way but simply to create a code of conduct to make the chat as pleasant and enjoyable as can be, for all participants.

The rules shall remain under review at all times and suggestions are always welcome.

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LOR IRC chat!

Server irc.leagueofreason.org.uk
Channel #lor
or click here for web based chat.


Here at the LOR we like to keep things civil. With that in mind we request that all users of LOR chat take note of the following information.

Moderators:
The #lor IRC channel is controlled by the channel operators or ops, identified by a * next to their name. Treat ops like you would any other chatter, ops are there to enforce the rules but will exercise their discretion in all situations and are simply respected members of the community. Any incidents should be reported to a channel operator either on IRC or in the forums in a private message.

The Rules:

Strictly

• DO NOT post racist, sexist or homophobic remarks.
• DO NOT bully other users or make physical threats.
• DO NOT post links to or discuss illegal downloads.
• DO NOT disseminate other users' personal information.
• DO NOT post pornographic material.
• DO NOT impersonate another member

In most cases a breach of the above will result in a warning. A second incident will result in a 24 hour ban. A third incident will result in a permanant ban.

We'd rather you didn't

• Flood the channel. If you must quote large ammounts of text, use http://pastebin.com/
• Be excessively crude, hostile or irritating
• Rickroll (much)
• Pester channel operators to gain op status
• Act excessively immature

General tips:-

• Be civil and polite to other users, even when you really disagree with them! Mutual respect is important. Attack the idea, not the user.
• You can swear all you like, but targeting abuse at an individual will be treated as bullying.
• Bring chocolate cake for the mods daily to keep them sweet.
• All topics are fair game, subject to adherance to the rules, but please bear in mind that the channel is open to all age groups.
• The chat topic will often provide useful information to the community, read it when you join the chat.

 

[CVBrassil]

Sounds good. The most important change needed: chocolate cake for ALL members.

You might want to clarify a few things. Regarding "discussing illegal downloads", do you mean no "oh I watched Inglourious Basterds today on youtube", something like that?

Also, an example of what is too much in chat might be nice.

Thats all I can think of. The rules sound fine.

 

[Squawk]

Sounds good. The most important change needed: chocolate cake for ALL members.

No. You all need to slim down. More cake for me.

You might want to clarify a few things. Regarding "discussing illegal downloads", do you mean no "oh I watched Inglourious Basterds today on youtube", something like that?

Hmm, thats a good point. It's pretty hard to define in a short one liner. It is more a case of not point each other to warez sites and the like rather than simple youtube vids, essentially trying to keep the channel legal. If you have a suggestion on wording, throw it this way.

 

[xxdjsethxx]

Also note if they are using a IRC Client the Mods/OPs might have a @ symbol next to their head.

Like how the rules look /signed

 

[borrofburi]

Moderators:
The #lor IRC channel is controlled by the channel operators or ops, identified by a * next to their name.

identified by a star, *, or an @ symbol, next to their name.

Or something like that... Because I certainly had to read that sentence twice to understand wtf it was saying.

DO NOT post racist, sexist or homophobic remarks.

This could perhaps use some clarification, I see a lot of things called by these words that are not. For instance if I were to say that men are stronger than women it is not a sexist remark, because men really are, on average, stronger than women (can facts be sexist? No. but that might require a whole other conversation)... But I suppose it'll do considering it's supposed to be one line

DO NOT post links to or discuss illegal downloads.

To clarify for CVBrassil, this is primarily to protect the LoR from legal liability and to keep it from becoming a warez hub where people just come to ask questions like "where can I get a copy of <insert copyrighted material here>". As such talking about something illegal you did, while stupid, is not the focus of this statement, rather it is to prevent people from using LoR chat to facilitate illegal activity.

In most cases a breach of the above will result in a warning. A second incident will result in a 24 hour ban. A third incident will result in a permanant ban.

Incidents within what time period? If I link to an illegal download of Braid one night and then 6 months later link to an illegal download of fight club, does that still result in a 24 hour ban? Also I think there are things on the internet that can be linked to that uh... well, I think they deserve more than a warn for a first offense.

We'd rather you didn't

Might want to say there could be consequences... I mean the point is "this is discouraged", but obviously if someone decides to post tens of thousands of characters it would make sense to kick them and possibly temp ban them. Obviously if someone is excessively crude for an excessively large amount of time on an excessive number of issues, the Ops will have to do something about it...

 

[ImprobableJoe]

No more discussions about cannibalism? Drat!

 

[Squawk]

Some good points here guys.

I get the impression that a nice preface to the rules might be in order rather than a reworking. Something along the lines of

"This is the league of reason. You guys can think for yourselves, discretion of the ops will apply in all situations. As a general rule, if something is likely illegal, it is banned. If something is more than likely not illegal, it is probably allowed."

I will ponder on it some more.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I like the idea of prefacing the rules with a simple sort of "our house, our rules, live by them or leave the chat." You can even make it fun and snarky: "Yeah, you might get kicked for what seem like arbitrary reasons, but that's the nature of a universe which might (or might not!) contain free will, and has no apparent objective morality. All rules are ultimately arbitrary, and WE ARE THE ARBITERS!"

 

[Marcus]

DO NOT post racist, sexist or homophobic remarks.

This could perhaps use some clarification, I see a lot of things called by these words that are not. For instance if I were to say that men are stronger than women it is not a sexist remark, because men really are, on average, stronger than women (can facts be sexist? No. but that might require a whole other conversation)... But I suppose it'll do considering it's supposed to be one line.

It's a pretty tough call at the best of times. There have been occasions on the chat when folks have been pretty sexist - not in the overt "women are inferior" way, but stuff like saying essentially "wow, you're a girl on the Internet! That's so unusual" when there are women on chat. I find that damned sexist, others think it's OK.

In general, we need to ensure that the rules are more about spirit than letter. We only really need two:

1) Don't do anything that could land the LoR in legal trouble.

2) Don't be a dick.

Of course, interpretation of the second one is the essential sticking point. Who determines what is just amusing larking about, and what is actually being a dick? The answer to that question may seem to be difficult and complex, but it isn't. I do the determining. I think we can all agee to that, can't we?

 

[Squawk]

I reserve the right to ban anyone, without explanation, for extended WoW discussion.

That is all

 

[AndroidAR]

Methinks, since it is generally frowned upon to post links to 4chan (or, by extent, 7chan) material, it should be mentioned in the rules as to cut down how much we need to remind people.

 

[lonelocust]

Speaking of extended WoW discussion, could something be put in that IF a conversation that is on-topic is occurring, that chatter be taken to PMs? I have no problems with chatter, but it can be distracting if there's either extended WoW discussions or lots of "Hugs" "No U!" "Snugglecuddledoom" "OMG FIVE THOUSAD DPS IN THE NAX!" when there's relevant conversation occurring between it.

 

[Zylstra]

think you should hire the mods from here to help keep the boards in top form

 

[stratos]

I would like to hope that in a league of reason you could just ask people to be reasonable, but having been in the chat already I understand that is pretty much an impossible request.

However I would say that making specific or even hard rules is pretty much useless. It would be better to set general guidelines and leave the rest up to the digression of the mods. This of course will give the mods a bit more power, but it also makes it easier to fight unwanted elements.

Which leads me to me second point, which is to make mods accountable. Outline ways and a clear escalation path to address arguments between a user and a mod. So that if someone feels he has been kicked or banned for unjust reasons he has a clear path to follow to get heard.

this should probably include first seeking contact via private messages with said mod to solve the problem directly, but if that doesn't fan out there should perhaps be someone to be liaison between the mod and the user to hear both sides of the stories with preferably some logs supplied by either side to see if what happens was just or not.

I don't think anything has happened yet that would warrant that, but having a set protocol in place now could save some grief later on, and it isn't exactly rocket science anyway.

 

[borrofburi]

Which leads me to me second point, which is to make mods accountable. Outline ways and a clear escalation path to address arguments between a user and a mod. So that if someone feels he has been kicked or banned for unjust reasons he has a clear path to follow to get heard.

good point

with preferably some logs

Hard to provide logs after getting kicked/banned (unless of course you have it set to auto keep logs). Though I think Reezn keeps logs.

 

[Squawk]

Thats a pretty good point right there. Not sure if leaving things up to my digression is a good idea though. I do like to digress muchly.

Sorry, couldn't resist. I think a route to appeal might be above my pay grade, so I may defer to AW or Spork on that.

I'll be publishing an update shortly.

 

[nasher168]

...Articulate of you.

 

[PatrickTheScienceGuy]

err is it just me or is chat down? as of 24-4-2010 @ 18:55 BST
edit:
working now

 

[Squawk]

I think mibbit died for a lot of people earlier