Make thrashing a defined thing.

[ANIME LOVER]

So, It seems i get false neg repped for thread thrashing every other week even though this time i was litterally asking a question and pursuing in a conversation with the OP, it seems as if new comers use thread thrasing as an excuse to fuck up future sales and they take it so lightly. My suggestion is to add a definition of Thread Thrashing so reports can get done easier, and these dumbos can finally be stopped

 

[Ally]

TL;DR, flesh out the rule about thread trashing.

Though I believe thread trashing is largely objective, sometimes it could be subjective to an extent. I.e. if someone doesn't want service teams to reply, then they can state it (excluding the obvious rep threat) - and not have to worry about being argued against because service teams are allowed to spam their low-quality crap.

Anyway: Imho thread trashing should be defined explicitly as any messages which don't contribute to the conversation/product at hand or have so little relevance to the thread that it literally means nothing. Also if the post is blatantly negative, devouches or slanders a product without any sufficient evidence to back it up.

 

[Justis]

There's a reason that the first section you see in any well written TOS is simply definitions of the words used within that TOS, or if such a section is not present, they are immediately clarified upon usage.
Words are a beautiful thing. They can have many definitions. Their meaning gets altered depending on the context that they're used, and more often than not, their meaning is open to interpretation.

Our rules are an extension of our TOS.

I've strongly been wanting to re-write our TOS and rules, with all of the new insights we've gained about how our community and staff team has interpreted them throughout the year.

When I re-wrote the rules the first time, I was a moderator, and a freshly made one at that. It would have been inappropriate to completely tear up the rules the moderation team had been using for years; so most of my changes were simply on the phrasing of pre-existing rules, the addition of some clarifying rules and subrules, and moving others around to more compact positions. The overall structure generally stayed the same.
Even with those minimal changes, the staff team was hesitant, and getting completely used to the new positions and phrasings alone took many months.

There are a few things I want to do to catch up with the times and the weight that our rules and TOS need to uphold under our large and demanding community.
1) Completely re-write the TOS.

A TOS is supposed to clarify and make known to a service's users the policies and practices of the service they're using, and our TOS fails to do this. Our TOS has not undergone any notable changes, besides the recent expansion of our Privacy Policy as required by GDPR law on the 25th, in over three years. Back when the site was majorly different than it is today, much smaller, and managed much more carelessly.
The link between what's written there and our actual present enforcement is so loose that you would not be reasonably able to completely understand what our policies really are.
The TOS is being used as a weapon to battle against actions we don't want on our forums far more than it's being used to actually be read and thoroughly comprehended by the people using our site, and for that comprehension to be an accurate representation of our policies and enforcement.
I believe that with a well written v2.0, we can successfully achieve both.

If our rules were to be described within our TOS, they would be listed within our Code of Conduct because that is the overall purpose for how our rules are being used.
I'd like to tie our rules strongly and specifically into our Code of Conduct, make it inherently clear that the Code of Conduct is what they are an extension of, and actually put thought into what's being repeated between both, and what is only be listed in one or the other. There should be very clear reasons for the decision of where a policy is located, and those reasons should be applicable to all policies.​

2) Restructure our rules

Unlike the TOS, our rules have undergone many changes; and under the pressure of those changes, many of the individual rules are strong and successful in their intended purpose. It would be unnecessary and foolish to change those now.
Where our rules mainly lack is in their structure.
There's redundancy where redundancy is not needed. There's a very shallow and forced relationship between the rules and our TOS. There's scope limitations where limitations are unnecessary, and lack of scope where scope should likely be acknowledged.
More words does not necessarily mean more clarification. Conciseness is also necessary for clarity, and our rules are not concise, nor do they all make clear where they are applicable. Only in certain sections? Only on site? Or off site as well?
I'd like to remove the ball and chain of attempting to stick to what we currently have and do whatever's necessary to come up with a structure that focuses around making our rules explicitly clear, concise and easy to read and fully understand. Which is the only reason for the rules' existence as an extension to our TOS in the first place.​

3) Add an official dictionary

We had a community written dictionary at one point, however, those definitions were not accurate and reliable. They were also for general conversation rather than for any sort of clarification of our rules.
There are several actively observable benefits to providing an official dictionary, besides simply having a better TOS and Code of Conduct.

a) One of the most common ways a member will attempt to avoid receiving a warning is to whip out google and provide a definition of a key word used in our rules where they would not have been in violation, or inversely, using an external dictionary to attempt to report someone for violating our rules when they are not considered to be in violation.
First and foremost, providing an official dictionary will provide a strong, sound and fair way to resolve these situations.

b) As initially pointed out by this suggestion, these words will also be used in reputation on others. "Scamming" and "Trashing" being just two examples of words that are used by members to describe situations which do not constitute their usage within the context of our service. At the very least, providing reliable definitions for what these words mean on MC-Market will enable users to fight reputation which use important and relevant words to imply things which are inaccurate by our official definitions.

c) MC-Market is growing, we've needed more staff and will likely continue to. Especially as other staff resign and are replaced. Even maintaining our current staff team, questions about our enforcement still pop up, and without something in writing, enforcement is communicated via word of mouth and personal understandings.
Providing a public dictionary to clarify what constitutes the use of the words we use in our rules and TOS will ensure that our staff team and community are on the same page even without verbally transmitting the meaning of certain words in specific contexts. It will also assist in limiting the mistakes of new staff members in misunderstandings which currently are almost unavoidable, making transitioning into a staffing position less confusing and overwhelming.
​

TL;DR -
I dislike offhand fixes. This suggestion is requesting the definition of one specific word.
I'd rather go all the way and resolve the root of this and all similar future problems.

 

[ANIME LOVER]

There's a reason that the first section you see in any well written TOS is simply definitions of the words used within that TOS, or if such a section is not present, they are immediately clarified upon usage.
Words are a beautiful thing. They can have many definitions. Their meaning gets altered depending on the context that they're used, and more often than not, their meaning is open to interpretation.

Our rules are an extension of our TOS.

I've strongly been wanting to re-write our TOS and rules, with all of the new insights we've gained about how our community and staff team has interpreted them throughout the year.

When I re-wrote the rules the first time, I was a moderator, and a freshly made one at that. It would have been inappropriate to completely tear up the rules the moderation team had been using for years; so most of my changes were simply on the phrasing of pre-existing rules, the addition of some clarifying rules and subrules, and moving others around to more compact positions. The overall structure generally stayed the same.
Even with those minimal changes, the staff team was hesitant, and getting completely used to the new positions and phrasings alone took many months.

There are a few things I want to do to catch up with the times and the weight that our rules and TOS need to uphold under our large and demanding community.
1) Completely re-write the TOS.

A TOS is supposed to clarify and make known to a service's users the policies and practices of the service they're using, and our TOS fails to do this. Our TOS has not undergone any notable changes, besides the recent expansion of our Privacy Policy as required by GDPR law on the 25th, in over three years. Back when the site was majorly different than it is today, much smaller, and managed much more carelessly.
The link between what's written there and our actual present enforcement is so loose that you would not be reasonably able to completely understand what our policies really are.
The TOS is being used as a weapon to battle against actions we don't want on our forums far more than it's being used to actually be read and thoroughly comprehended by the people using our site, and for that comprehension to be an accurate representation of our policies and enforcement.
I believe that with a well written v2.0, we can successfully achieve both.

If our rules were to be described within our TOS, they would be listed within our Code of Conduct because that is the overall purpose for how our rules are being used.
I'd like to tie our rules strongly and specifically into our Code of Conduct, make it inherently clear that the Code of Conduct is what they are an extension of, and actually put thought into what's being repeated between both, and what is only be listed in one or the other. There should be very clear reasons for the decision of where a policy is located, and those reasons should be applicable to all policies.​

2) Restructure our rules

Unlike the TOS, our rules have undergone many changes; and under the pressure of those changes, many of the individual rules are strong and successful in their intended purpose. It would be unnecessary and foolish to change those now.
Where our rules mainly lack is in their structure.
There's redundancy where redundancy is not needed. There's a very shallow and forced relationship between the rules and our TOS. There's scope limitations where limitations are unnecessary, and lack of scope where scope should likely be acknowledged.
More words does not necessarily mean more clarification. Conciseness is also necessary for clarity, and our rules are not concise, nor do they all make clear where they are applicable. Only in certain sections? Only on site? Or off site as well?
I'd like to remove the ball and chain of attempting to stick to what we currently have and do whatever's necessary to come up with a structure that focuses around making our rules explicitly clear, concise and easy to read and fully understand. Which is the only reason for the rules' existence as an extension to our TOS in the first place.​

3) Add an official dictionary

We had a community written dictionary at one point, however, those definitions were not accurate and reliable. They were also for general conversation rather than for any sort of clarification of our rules.
There are several actively observable benefits to providing an official dictionary, besides simply having a better TOS and Code of Conduct.

a) One of the most common ways a member will attempt to avoid receiving a warning is to whip out google and provide a definition of a key word used in our rules where they would not have been in violation, or inversely, using an external dictionary to attempt to report someone for violating our rules when they are not considered to be in violation.
First and foremost, providing an official dictionary will provide a strong, sound and fair way to resolve these situations.

b) As initially pointed out by this suggestion, these words will also be used in reputation on others. "Scamming" and "Trashing" being just two examples of words that are used by members to describe situations which do not constitute their usage within the context of our service. At the very least, providing reliable definitions for what these words mean on MC-Market will enable users to fight reputation which use important and relevant words to imply things which are inaccurate by our official definitions.

c) MC-Market is growing, we've needed more staff and will likely continue to. Especially as other staff resign and are replaced. Even maintaining our current staff team, questions about our enforcement still pop up, and without something in writing, enforcement is communicated via word of mouth and personal understandings.
Providing a public dictionary to clarify what constitutes the use of the words we use in our rules and TOS will ensure that our staff team and community are on the same page even without verbally transmitting the meaning of certain words in specific contexts. It will also assist in limiting the mistakes of new staff members in misunderstandings which currently are almost unavoidable, making transitioning into a staffing position less confusing and overwhelming.
​

TL;DR -
I dislike offhand fixes. This suggestion is requesting the definition of one specific word.
I'd rather go all the way and resolve the root of this and all similar future problems.

this forum also needs a winner button cause you just explained all the problems i had in my head with rules

 

[Mick]

There's a reason that the first section you see in any well written TOS is simply definitions of the words used within that TOS, or if such a section is not present, they are immediately clarified upon usage.
Words are a beautiful thing. They can have many definitions. Their meaning gets altered depending on the context that they're used, and more often than not, their meaning is open to interpretation.

Our rules are an extension of our TOS.

I've strongly been wanting to re-write our TOS and rules, with all of the new insights we've gained about how our community and staff team has interpreted them throughout the year.

When I re-wrote the rules the first time, I was a moderator, and a freshly made one at that. It would have been inappropriate to completely tear up the rules the moderation team had been using for years; so most of my changes were simply on the phrasing of pre-existing rules, the addition of some clarifying rules and subrules, and moving others around to more compact positions. The overall structure generally stayed the same.
Even with those minimal changes, the staff team was hesitant, and getting completely used to the new positions and phrasings alone took many months.

There are a few things I want to do to catch up with the times and the weight that our rules and TOS need to uphold under our large and demanding community.
1) Completely re-write the TOS.

A TOS is supposed to clarify and make known to a service's users the policies and practices of the service they're using, and our TOS fails to do this. Our TOS has not undergone any notable changes, besides the recent expansion of our Privacy Policy as required by GDPR law on the 25th, in over three years. Back when the site was majorly different than it is today, much smaller, and managed much more carelessly.
The link between what's written there and our actual present enforcement is so loose that you would not be reasonably able to completely understand what our policies really are.
The TOS is being used as a weapon to battle against actions we don't want on our forums far more than it's being used to actually be read and thoroughly comprehended by the people using our site, and for that comprehension to be an accurate representation of our policies and enforcement.
I believe that with a well written v2.0, we can successfully achieve both.

If our rules were to be described within our TOS, they would be listed within our Code of Conduct because that is the overall purpose for how our rules are being used.
I'd like to tie our rules strongly and specifically into our Code of Conduct, make it inherently clear that the Code of Conduct is what they are an extension of, and actually put thought into what's being repeated between both, and what is only be listed in one or the other. There should be very clear reasons for the decision of where a policy is located, and those reasons should be applicable to all policies.​

2) Restructure our rules

Unlike the TOS, our rules have undergone many changes; and under the pressure of those changes, many of the individual rules are strong and successful in their intended purpose. It would be unnecessary and foolish to change those now.
Where our rules mainly lack is in their structure.
There's redundancy where redundancy is not needed. There's a very shallow and forced relationship between the rules and our TOS. There's scope limitations where limitations are unnecessary, and lack of scope where scope should likely be acknowledged.
More words does not necessarily mean more clarification. Conciseness is also necessary for clarity, and our rules are not concise, nor do they all make clear where they are applicable. Only in certain sections? Only on site? Or off site as well?
I'd like to remove the ball and chain of attempting to stick to what we currently have and do whatever's necessary to come up with a structure that focuses around making our rules explicitly clear, concise and easy to read and fully understand. Which is the only reason for the rules' existence as an extension to our TOS in the first place.​

3) Add an official dictionary

We had a community written dictionary at one point, however, those definitions were not accurate and reliable. They were also for general conversation rather than for any sort of clarification of our rules.
There are several actively observable benefits to providing an official dictionary, besides simply having a better TOS and Code of Conduct.

a) One of the most common ways a member will attempt to avoid receiving a warning is to whip out google and provide a definition of a key word used in our rules where they would not have been in violation, or inversely, using an external dictionary to attempt to report someone for violating our rules when they are not considered to be in violation.
First and foremost, providing an official dictionary will provide a strong, sound and fair way to resolve these situations.

b) As initially pointed out by this suggestion, these words will also be used in reputation on others. "Scamming" and "Trashing" being just two examples of words that are used by members to describe situations which do not constitute their usage within the context of our service. At the very least, providing reliable definitions for what these words mean on MC-Market will enable users to fight reputation which use important and relevant words to imply things which are inaccurate by our official definitions.

c) MC-Market is growing, we've needed more staff and will likely continue to. Especially as other staff resign and are replaced. Even maintaining our current staff team, questions about our enforcement still pop up, and without something in writing, enforcement is communicated via word of mouth and personal understandings.
Providing a public dictionary to clarify what constitutes the use of the words we use in our rules and TOS will ensure that our staff team and community are on the same page even without verbally transmitting the meaning of certain words in specific contexts. It will also assist in limiting the mistakes of new staff members in misunderstandings which currently are almost unavoidable, making transitioning into a staffing position less confusing and overwhelming.
​

TL;DR -
I dislike offhand fixes. This suggestion is requesting the definition of one specific word.
I'd rather go all the way and resolve the root of this and all similar future problems.

Wow, that sounds excellent.

this forum also needs a winner button cause you just explained all the problems i had in my head with rules

Justis is actually a god.

I'll move this to pending so that I can keep Justis' response saved and have it to look back on.

Thanks so much for the suggestion.