Truth, do you do it?

[PSP (Dizzy) 201]

When making moderator/admin decisions on this site, regarding banning or warning as it pertains to community interaction, what is the exact criteria? As near I can tell, the criteria is simply anything that could be interpreted as offensive or hurtful, though I would like to be proven wrong.

 

The problem with this model, if it is indeed the way things work, is that it means some individuals can be banned or warned for simply attempting to tell the truth. The truth can be inflammatory and provocative to someone who either

 

1. does not want to be wrong

 

2. does not like having their beliefs questioned

 

Because of this, simply trying to state the truth can be a source of unpleasant emotions. Do said emotions caused by attempting to state the truth override the fact that the truth is, well, the truth? And that there is nothing inherently inflammatory or menacing in trying to be truthful?

 

The first bullet on your rules is "opinion is opinion", but what if it isn't? What if an individual is attempting to make a truthful statement, and said statement is seen as offensive or hurtful, when inherently that is not the case?

 

Thank you for your time. PSP

[Simon 4,557]

When making moderator/admin decisions on this site, regarding banning or warning as it pertains to community interaction, what is the exact criteria?

 

Anything that violates the community rules found here (which are further explained in our FAQ) can lead to a warning or ban.  It sounds like you're specifically questioning what qualifies as abusive behavior or offensive content, so I'm going to try and explain those a bit for you to see if I can clarify.

 

The FAQ on Political and Religious debates clarifies this issue a bit.  Essentially what this FAQ explains is that while it's perfectly acceptable to disagree with another member of the site and have a difference of opinions, any debate or discussion regarding that difference in opinions should remain respectful.  Essentially, it's fine to explain why you disagree with someone, but the moment someone begins to attack an individual for their opinions as opposed to discussing a difference in opinions is when it crosses the line into abusive behavior and will result in a warning.   To put this another way, telling someone you disagree with them on an issue is fine, telling someone they're an idiot for having X opinion is not acceptable.  Discussions are expected to remain mature, civilized, and focused on issues instead of individuals.

 

Offensive content is a much more broad category of content.  First and foremost, anything which falls under the forum's NSFW definition will result in a warning.  Essentially, this covers anything that's not appropriate for a 13+ site.  This includes no excessive violence, excessive gore, or sexually explicit content of any kind.  Much of the stuff in the realm of offensive content falls into the NSFW rule and will be removed in accordance to that policy.  

 

Beyond things that fall into the realm of NSFW, there is a certain amount of content that will be removed for being offensive even if it's not necessarily NSFW.  Generally in my experience, this takes place in the form of either trolling or flame baiting.  Essentially what I mean by this is the majority of content which is removed as offensive is content which is clearly posted with the intent of upsetting people on the forum.  This isn't something the majority of members have to worry about because when it happens, it's quite obvious.  There's no legitimate reason to start a thread about wanting to brutally murder one of the mane 6.  The staff will also remove content which has a high likelihood of offending a significant percentage of members even if it wasn't posted with bad intentions.  As far as warnings go, what's primarily going to be considered here is the intent of the poster (whether they were actually trying to upset people) and whether they knew they were posting something that would offend others.  It's worth noting that it's quite frequent when dealing with these sorts of threads that moderators will simply send the user a PM asking them to refrain from posting that offensive content in the future.

 

Also keep in mind that the staff routinely has to remove content from the forum which has a high likelihood of leading to arguments or upsetting members.  Most content that is removed from the forums won't result in a warning, but instead is just being removed to keep threads and discussions civil to prevent situations from escalating to a point where warnings are necessary.  It's also worth noting that rule breaking posts are most always hidden from public view, so when a thread gets locked, it might appear that there was nothing wrong with the thread when in reality a large percentage of the thread was hidden by the staff.

 

The last thing I'd like to mention in response to your question is briefly discussing how warnings are actually decided on.  What many members may not be aware of is that every warning is discussed among the moderation staff in great detail before a warning is given.  Before anybody receives a warning, multiple moderators will review the thread, post what they think is an appropriate warning, and discuss how the situation should be handled.  On top of this, we have a dispute system set up to allow for admin review of warnings that members feel were not appropriate or proportionate.  The staff puts an extraordinary amount of care into making sure warnings are fair, and quite honestly I wouldn't be on staff if that wasn't the case.  I hope that understanding our rules and our procedures a bit more will help to put your mind at ease regarding these types of warnings.

[PSP (Dizzy) 201]

None of that really answers my main concern, which was about honesty. No one has to call anyone stupid, but i an individual is pointed out as being factually, truthfully incorrect, is that somehow harmful?

[Simon 4,557]

 

 

None of that really answers my main concern, which was about honesty. No one has to call anyone stupid, but i an individual is pointed out as being factually, truthfully incorrect, is that somehow harmful?

 

As I stated, you're free to disagree with people, respectfully correct people who have facts wrong, and the like, as long as you don't attack someone personally. 

[Sir Hugsalot 9,293]

None of that really answers my main concern, which was about honesty. No one has to call anyone stupid, but i an individual is pointed out as being factually, truthfully incorrect, is that somehow harmful?

Let me put it this way.

 

Pretty often I disagreed on some matters with some people. Sometimes I even went to a harsh sarcastic tone when someone was crossing the line really hard (not very often, actually it happened 4-5 times during my presence on forums). I even questioned one suspension on here and addressed the staff about it via private message.

 

Yet I still have 0 warning points and only got one warning w/o points for going off topic in one thread (my fault :v ). 

 

 

So - if someone is wrong You have right to point that out for as long as You have arguments to prove Your point and are not calling other person a "moron" etc. Nobody will punish You for disagreeing with people, as You see on my example

[PSP (Dizzy) 201]

You say that disagreement is fine as long as one does not directly attack another poster, but you also say that posts are removed if they offend/have a chance of offending someone. That seems like a contradiction to me. Does one of these take priority? If someone tells the truth or points out a logical flaw/factual error in a fellow poster's argument, and it offends them immensely, what then?

[Simon 4,557]

you also say that posts are removed if they offend/have a chance of offending someone.

 

That's not at all what I said.  Here's what I said may be removed as offensive:

 

First and foremost, anything which falls under the forum's NSFW definition will result in a warning.

the majority of content which is removed as offensive is content which is clearly posted with the intent of upsetting people on the forum.

The staff will also remove content which has a high likelihood of offending a significant percentage of members even if it wasn't posted with bad intentions.

 

I never stated, nor would I ever state that anything which has any risk of offending someone is going to be removed.  The concerns as far as offensive content goes is content which is going to offend a large portion of the users or content that is NSFW.  This is things likes making racist comments or saying the holocaust was fake... not telling someone you disagree with them.

 

You're also confusing removing content with content that will result in a warning.  Not all content taken down from the forum results in a warning.  Generally speaking, most content that's taken down as offensive is only being removed to prevent arguments, not because the person actually broke the rules.  The staff does reserve the right to remove anything that causes or has a high risk of causing an argument on a thread, but that doesn't mean the person is being punished for posting it. 

[Cloud Strife 928]

You say that disagreement is fine as long as one does not directly attack another poster, but you also say that posts are removed if they offend/have a chance of offending someone. That seems like a contradiction to me. Does one of these take priority? If someone tells the truth or points out a logical flaw/factual error in a fellow poster's argument, and it offends them immensely, what then?

 

Then nothing. No, your post is not viable to be removed just because someone else in the thread is getting testy about it - it's when we have legitimate concern that your post would cause distress for numerous people or your post is considered intentionally offensive.

 

See, here's the thing: the staff members here on MLP Forums are here so that everyone in the community feels safe and not like they, as people, are being threatened. It's impossible for us to guard from every single potentially offensive thing, though, so we have very specific rules on what is considered to be offensive content on a wider scale to the point that it would damage enough people on these forums who happened upon it; even then, we are a well oiled machine in that we don't often act on impulse and we consult one another on the appropriate action to take. This goes for posts we happen upon as well as ones that are sent to us upon report. Just because you have posted something inflammatory does not mean that you will be punished for it, nor does it mean that we are taking it down out of some personal grudge or disagreement with what you have said. Our purpose here is to build a community in which everyone feels that they are able to state their opinions without running the risk of being attacked on a personal level, as well as to combat against harmful/unlawful opinions that would threaten the safety of members here. We are not a totalitarian workforce. Think of us as the Shining Armor of the Crystal Empire (MLP Forums); we're placing a sort of bubble shield around the forums so bad people can be left out and not endanger our citizens.

 

Even then, if you have your post removed and you feel that it was unnecessary, or you're banned and you think you didn't deserve punishment for it, we have a dispute system and you're able to contact moderators privately, and we will listen and have a reasonable discussion with you about it. We openly acknowledge here that we make mistakes and we're not perfect, and so we open the floor to you to give us constructive criticism and let us know how we're doing. Heck, it's why this forum here even exists of giving us Feedback, because we want to do the best we can for you guys but sometimes we don't know exactly what that "best" is. We're here to protect you, not make you feel smothered or as if you have no say in how this site is run. Please bear that in mind.