4. Don't Get Personal
aka Watch the Harassment.
According to Wikipedia, "Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and it is characteristically repetitive". It would be difficult to say the Codex has a zero tolerance of harassment as we allow robust debate, during which colourful phrases such as "conservatard" and "biowhore" are thrown about by our users with gleeful abandon.
We also give users colourful tags such as "dumbfuck!"; we have two members who have been awarded the title "undisputed queen of faggotry" and we have used "village idiot" and other labels from time-to-time to identify particularly troublesome users, all of which could be considered a form of harassment.
So you are, within reason, perfectly allowed to call someone a miserable lying shit-cock of a whore, or whatever colourful language you can come up with for them, if that is indeed your opinion of them and their thoughts. Like-wise, The Management™ has the right to give you whatever colourful tag we're able to concoct for whatever reasons we deem appropriate. However, due to a few instances, we are drawing a line in the sand where we feel things have gotten too personal:
4.1. Stalker-ish Behaviour: Behaviour which we're broadly defining as anything remotely involving tracking down someone's location (such as city, town, street address, phone number) or personal info (such as real name or photos, unless disclosed by the poster him- or herself) - or harassing them on other sites such as Facebook or YouTube, especially suggesting doing things to them that would or could be considered criminal. There has been A Real Instance™, police were involved and the Administrators do not appreciate real police rocking up at their real doorsteps to ask about bullshit that happened on an internet forum. It's all fun and games until someone has to go to a Police station to try and explain the Codex. Strangely enough, it has nothing to do with any of the more recent well known stalkery threads and was one that caught us by surprise, go figure. As such, any instances of stalkerish behaviour may result in an entire nuking of the accounts involved and deletion of relevant threads - even if it's just a bad joke. As always, we're much more inclined to nuke if you're just a shit-poster.
4.2. Personal Details: There has been a recent rise in requests for admins to delete threads, usually after some moron has posted personal details about their sex life and only just discovered that the internet is not private - and that with a bit of googling and some basic information, anyone can be found. Where once we would have told you "
too bad. Crime can't be undone. And your stupidity can't be either. It is not our job to clean up after you", we are instead drawing a line in the sand here. As such, if you post the real names, images, address or other details of
anyone (be they a member of this forum or not) without their permission, we will remove it if it's been requested we do so, or if we think it crosses a line. This includes instances where we have had requests from non-members who have found images and other details of themselves posted on the Codex - in the case of such requests, those details will be removed.
4.3. Shit-posting: From time to time, we get users who, upon review of their posts, it is discovered that they have not really added anything of value to the Codex. Their posts are typically only ever in GD and their few forays into the other forums provide little insight or opinion. It's not surprising to find these users often spend all their time complaining about other users - in many cases following them from thread to thread, rather than debating or discussing actual issues. We define these people as shit-posters and we define their posts as shit-posting.
These users eventually make the mistake of pissing off one of the Moderators with their Shitposting, which leads to said Moderator advising the Administrators, which usually leads to a ban and nuking of all their posts. As a simple rule, if you've gained this much attention and we make a judgement that the Codex would not lose anything by banning you, we will probably ban you. You should note that there are some Moderators who are more than happy to bring these users to the attention of the Administrators on a regular basis and not banning half the forum is an ongoing struggle.
5. This is Our House
I'm a big believer in free speech, even if that means I disagree with 92% of what gets posted on the Codex. While I might disagree with you, I believe you have a right to say it. Even if some people find it out-right offensive. I believe the best way to deal with an issue is through debate. And it's that principle the Codex was founded upon. Don't agree with something someone said? Well, say something about it. Convince them that what they said was wrong / inappropriate / stupid / whatever.
At the end of the day though, if you feel a punishment you've received is not appropriate - that you really did nothing wrong; or that we've failed to act appropriately in dealing with something, please keep this in mind: This is our house, not yours. You are here because The Management™ let you be here. You are allowed to post your crap because The Management™ has a high tolerance for crap. And The Management™ is not easily offended.
But everything has limits. For the most part, you should expect the moderators to follow and enforce these rules but while I will happily argue with you about it until page 57 and beyond, if you are having trouble grasping who's in control here - or you think you have some legal right of appeal; that you can "rule-nazi" your way out of a hole - think again.
The best way to think of the Codex is like a pub. You're free to come in, buy a drink and chat about whatever you like with the other people you find here. As much as possible, we're not going to decide what is or isn't an inappropriate topic to talk about; or an inappropriate subject to joke about - and some of the stuff posted on the Codex is down-right offensive in that regard. But you're not allowed to trash the place, or get into a physical brawl with the other customers. Words are fine. You have rights, but your rights don't over-rule someone elses rights.
And as owners of the pub, we reserve the right to throw your ass out at any time, for whatever reason.
So while that freedom of speech has been tested over the years, as long as you keep a modicum of respect for each other, and keep that shit in the appropriate forum or thread, you generally won't have any trouble from The Management™.
