Questions about the rules

[Sipex]

Now, as a disclaimer I'm not trying to start any fires. I just want to understand, it's natural for people to question authority.

Firstly, why are legal/political/religious topics disallowed? It seems odd because a good conversation can start to turn serious and if one of these is even touched on at best we'll get a warning and at worst we'll just get locked.

I made a suggestion a while back for a serious discussion forum, I entitled it Debate and Discourse and many of you took that to mean "Let's have arguements and be mean" which wasn't what I meant at all. It was locked before I could reply though which brings up another rule which I'm not sure where it says this but the general idea I get from it is odd. Why is it taboo to ask about why a thread was locked and is it possible to appeal after the fact?

Threads get locked a lot around here because we have such active moderators and many many people posting different things at once so some threads seem (at least, in my opinion) to get wrongly locked but there doesn't seem to be anything in place to allow us to appeal or question this.

That's all I wanted to ask really. Hope you can help clear the air.

[Zherog]

Firstly, why are legal/political/religious topics disallowed?

The short answer is, "Because Rich doesn't want them here."

The slightly longer answer is, "Because Rich doesn't want them here, given their history of starting flame wars and leading to personal grudges among members which carry over to other threads."


Why is it taboo to ask about why a thread was locked and is it possible to appeal after the fact?

I'm not sure if "appeal" is the right word, but you are always free to send a query via PM to the moderator who locked the thread.

[Kobold-Bard]

Barred topics tend to escalate to arguments, which besides being annoying can also cause grievances that can drag on into other threads. The Giant wants a peaceful forum and since he's paying for the server space he gets to make that choice for us.

Making a subforum just for religion/politics etc. still leaves us with the argument issue except they're just all kept in one place, but the lingering grudges will still hang around.

If you disagree with a mod's actions, such as locking your thread then you PM them and discuss it that way rather than in public. They aren't despots the're volunteers so I imagine they'll be quite open about explaining their actions.

If you are still dissatisfied you can PM an Admin and see what they say. Technically if you are still seriously dissatisfied you can PM the Giant, but after going through a Mod and the Jude-inator he's likely going to give you the same answer, and if he disagrees with you you'll likely end up with a stick figure boot in your digital face.

:smallannoyed: Damned alcoholic Swordsages :smalltongue:

[Sipex]

Ah, okay, that about sums it up. Thanks!