> The Inappropriate Content rule has been amended again to hopefully
> clarify some concerns: "Posting content anywhere on the site that,
> based on moderator discretion, could be considered overtly vulgar or
> indecent in nature. This includes, but is not limited to: any content
> that promotes indecent or severely offensive/inappropriate discussions
> or viewpoints, or images/links to content that falls under those
> guidelines. Inappropriate content that is found on the site will be
> deleted with or without prior notice." This is meant to be a severe
> vio. A good rule of thumb is that if you even think something could
> potentially fall under this, ask a mod or just don't say it. Thank
> you!
It doesn't disturb me that this sort of logic has been implemented as policy. What disturbs me is that the moderators of this site, and I'm sure lucid as well, have sadly fallen victim to delusional thinking in which the concept of free speech is no longer important. This is how American principles die on the internet.
This is how you kill off basic human rights. It starts with the silencing of dissent.
It won't matter for a simple website like this. But I would like those of you who believe this is justified logic to seriously read the paragraph I quoted above.
This is not sound legal, judicial, rational, or any sort of logical thinking. There are already numerous avenues to prevent poor quality and vulgar/indecent content on the website.
This is a step not only too far, but a sign of the times.
I don't intend to change your minds. I only ask that each of you who actually believes this is rational, enlightened, evolved human thinking to take a serious step back, and question EVERYTHING you know.
If you make a discord server, you kick the person off because it's a private server, closed off from the rest of the internet by volition of the server creator.
This site is a public domain with advertisements and a registration process for any potential user worldwide to join. It is hosted by a US-based website hosting service.
What should be done versus what is legally acceptable can be argued ad naseum.
I only brought up free speech because this site tends to be pretty liberal. Or at least, it used to be. We used to think that talking sh~t in the game is not a big deal, because it's the internet and it's for fun.
The rules were put in place because there justifiably must be a limit to where that goes, such as when SnowDay posts g*atse and spams it across every part of the site.
The rule being rewritten here is not protecting anyone any further.
All it is doing is permitting the moderators on the website, who should not have more power than simply protecting users from literally harmful content and maintaining the quality of the game itself, to do whatever they want with their power of censorship.
This is literal carte blanche to censor whatever a single moderator wants to.
Beyond that blatant fact, it is frankly stunning to me that we as a global society have regressed to the point where reasonable people such as yourselves are defending such poorly written rules/policies.
>ive been here much longer than you, by the way, and i'm not whining or vehemently protesting. i am stating simply that this is not humane nor respectful of users of the site.
Because making 50+posts full of "WHY MODS NO RUN SITE WAY I LIKE" isn't whining. Sure, Jan.
I dunno, I feel like leaving people an out in the rules to use slurs isn't humane or respectful, you didn't see me making an enormous fuss until this change was implemented.
>however ALL that is irrelevant to the point that the website should ENCOURAGE users to speak freely and politely.
Then what is your problem with this rule? Literally by the words you're arguing so vehemently against, if the mods find you to be in the wrong on this rule it's pretty much by definition because you weren't being polite. Sorry, but using a slur directed at a particular group of people, whether or not someone from that group is present in the particular game, is not polite and should not be condoned if you want to encourage polite interaction. Letting it fly when the target isn't present is precedence to let if fly when they are, which is not a good look.
>what the REWRITING of this rule does is allow for mods to decide that anything that they dont like can be removed UNILATERALLY from the site.
The fact that mods/owner decides what the rules and terms of service are effectively mean they can already do this. If they decide they want to completely ban any and all mentioning of MLP tomorrow, they are already within their rights to add it to the rules and ToS because they own the property. No new power has been conferred, and the owners of said power do not have to use it the way you think they should.
If I decided to make a discord server where we praise Jesus and a member decides to talk shit about Jesus, I guess it's government's right to force us to associate with him then. In the name of freedom of speech, somehow you end up tyrannical.
And all you can say is it's not against the law "yet." I guess you want us to ask you first whether someone has the right to do anything.
keep feeding me your preformulated notions of how big tech companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. are justified in removing content they don't like, without any oversight, though (read: 'learn to code').
that surely applies to a user-friendly social game forum/java site.
that surely makes it okay for moderators to be able to ban users for saying "xyz user is a weeb" and thinking "weeb" is inappropriate to someone who was traumatized in middle school for loving anime and being bullied as a 'weeb'. mind you, that person may not even exist or even be in the game where it was said, and the person can be banned under this rule for saying 'weeb' jokingly.
keep circling the argument and not defending the rewriting of the rule itself. makes you seem super logical and reasonable.
you keep going back to ToS and using it in lieu of actually defending the terribly rewritten rule.
just to put an end to that discussion, a lot of lawsuits dealing with ToSes throw out the company's argument that the ToS makes the user compliant, because in XYZ paragraph sector ZYX it is explained that ABC is not allowed. this is thrown out in court because most ToSes are illegibly hard to make coherent and actually comprehensible to the consumer of the service.
and again, this website is subject to US law, and there are numerous precedents being set in regards to Facebook, Twitter, et al online websites in terms of how they treat their users.
however ALL that is irrelevant to the point that the website should ENCOURAGE users to speak freely and politely.
what the REWRITING of this rule does is allow for mods to decide that anything that they dont like can be removed UNILATERALLY from the site.
ive been here much longer than you, by the way, and i'm not whining or vehemently protesting. i am stating simply that this is not humane nor respectful of users of the site.
anyone with a brain can see that. i dont know why you're circling the argument but it's obvious you have no defense to the rule's poor writing/formulation in codified language.
Funnily enough, this is already subject to the level of moderator discretion that you are so vehemently protesting and always has been, because since those in administrative capacity set the rules and are free to redefine them whenever they wish, they alone have say in what violates those rules and what does not, with the main owner having the absolute final word. No power has been conferred upon moderation staff that did not already exist, and if you're unhappy with that revelation, you can either suck it up or get out. No other terms of service apply to this site, and to demand that the owner/curators of property that you neither own nor help maintain submit to a different code is the real tyranny here because you are attempting to impose your will on a clearly unwilling party, as an actual tyrant would.
Stop whining about people not doing what you want with stuff that isn't yours. That's like getting mad at someone for eating a donut they bought because you're on a diet and you think they should be too.
Since you love the First Amendment so much, let me boil it down for you. It comes down to being a terms of service of sorts that says "do whatever you want so long as you don't incite chaos or crime or endanger someone's life" (which is why you'd still be prosecuted for shouting "FIRE" in a theater when there is none). Make special note that while you can SAY whatever you wish, if those terms of service are violated, you have no protection from the CONSEQUENCES of that violation! Also note that, if American values transformed completely overnight, those terms are not set in stone, either.
Epicmafia is not owned by the US govt, it is someone's intellectual property. Therefore, just like iTunes or any social network or ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY EVER, Epicmafia has its own terms of service, and it is free to craft them however it so pleases. If anyone of an administrative capacity determines that anything you say or do is in violation of those terms, they are within their rights to give out consequences, from which you have no protection. Those terms may change whenever those of administrative capacity wish it, because they own the intellectual property.
Anyone with an ounce of honest worth that knows how to write law or policy should be concerned with the language used to formulate this rule that already exists and serves its purpose for the website.
There is literally zero reason to rewrite the rule with such vague construction other than to give moderators undue amounts of discretion over what should be on the site.
> based on moderator discretion, could be considered overtly vulgar or
> indecent in nature. This includes, but is not limited to: any content
> that promotes indecent or severely offensive/inappropriate discussions
> or viewpoints, or images/links to content that falls under those
> guidelines. Inappropriate content that is found on the site will be
> deleted with or without prior notice"
Read carefully.
"based on moderator discretion" --> not based on anything other than any particular moderator's opinion
"could be considered" --> theoretical victim/audience that doesn't exist in the context
"but is not limited to" --> this is literal carte blanche
"promotes" --> anything that is even adjacent to said content
"severely offensive/inappropriate discussions or viewpoints" --> take above and apply to this.'severely' offensive/inappropriate is based on moderator's opinion and the theoretical, nonexistent victim, meaning it can be applied to anything out of context.
"viewpoint" --> define viewpoint in terms of content. what constitutes a viewpoint versus simply content? this is another way of broadening the spectrum unnecessarily
"with or without prior notice" --> discussions/viewpoints that apply to this broad spectrum can be removed without any feedback from another moderator, even without notifying the person who made the content or asking for context, and without any further involvement from a person reporting the content - or, there doesn't even need to be a report at all (this is true of the old rule, too, but the explicit wording here encourages active implementation)
It's a privately owned website with terms of service that you agree to by using it, just like Twitter or Facebook or Reddit, it's a benevolent dictatorship by definition. Mods do what they wish with this because they curate the site to their vision of how they think it should ideally operate. That's the entire point of the job. If it bothers you that badly that mods are allowed to do what's in their job description, vote with your feet and leave, darken our doorsteps no more.
It sounds to me like you're afraid someone's going to report you for tossing out homophobic slurs at them or something and I hope they do because tolerance of intolerant views like that is itself intolerance and I'm not here to be called slurs. I'm here to play mafia. Go back to 4chan if you so desperately crave ad hominem, you can be just about as (legally) crude as you wish there. Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences from those in authority over you when it comes to the private sector.
Case example. And as I have said, people learn things from this site and adapt that knowledge. Especially the vulnerable younger ones who are supposed to be protected by this rule, but are instead censored and marginalized in their speech by it.
It is simply not a good message or formation of law.
And no, I strongly believe in a soft-regulated free market system.
There is no sanity in a corporation bidding human body parts between insurance agencies and healthcare providers without any legal protection for the owner of said body parts or how said body parts are acquired, etc so forth.
Regulation is inherently necessary to maintain a successful free market system, lest you let the system consistently destroy itself and its environment via impulse.
If he wants the site to be hosted on a US-based hosting service, there are certain prerequisites for doing so.
The most obvious being: do not scam your users, do not deliver trojans/malware via your website, etc so forth. As far as freedom of speech goes, it is not ruled on - yet.
It is a sign of the times, Vapid, because we are walking back on the freedoms we have helped manifest and institutionalize as basic fundamental human rights.
This is not a step forward. It is a step backward.
None of that changes the successes of recent times compared to the past. But it does mean we are ignoring the lessons of the past and regressing to a state other than what we have now.
Literally the worst thing that can happen based on these rules is that the, usually and mostly fair regarding inappropriate content, moderators decide to hand you a violation that only contributes to your potential banning in the future
I just don't understand why Orly thinks the rules on a dying mafia website need to be taken as seriously as law
deletedabout 5 years
i thought the world was about to change according to some insider at the trump administration that posts on 4chan. wasn't that supposed to happen 8 months ago
I don't disagree that freedom of speech is important, but your idea that the world is going to shit for not upholding it completely, but really only the U.S government specifically, not even its people have ever truly upheld it. Yet you claim that one private site not being true to it (which is completely legal btw) is a sign of the end of times and pure evil. Your black and white view is nothing short of arrogant.
Plus I'm sure that you're the type to care for free-market economics. And this is all that is. A person should have the right to cater to whatever type of people they want, and provide whatever type of service they want. If someone doesn't like it, they can leave it, boycott it, whatever. Only the government needs to uphold freedom of speech.
"This is a step not only too far, but a sign of the times."
Do you really believe people had more freedom at any time in history than the last few decades? Black people would be lynched in the U.S for whistling at white girls only a few decades ago but no, THIS is the sign of the times.
Before the internet, everything was censored on T.V and people weren't free to do and say whatever they liked without serious repercussion. You know you can't just walk out on the street, start talking shit, and not expect someone to kick your eventually, and this has always held true.
