These look great :)

Would the other rules topics already around the forums still exist? I am asking because when I first started playing Subeta, I was reluctant to post on the forums because I was a little overwhelmed by the "Basic Site/Forum Rules" in the Help & Questions section and found them to be a little intimidating. Although as someone has already pointed out, this could be because I used to play Neopets and was worried I'd get iced straight away from breaking one of the rules unintentionally. If these rules are staying, it would be nice to see them in a similar format to these new guidelines :)

I really like where this is going~ I haven't actually been involved in anything negative on here. Any time I've posted in the forums or made a ticket I received helpful information from very kind people. Not once was I made to feel stupid, which I appreciate cuz I've asked for some pretty obvious info on things before XD

The community here (especially the shoutbox, love you guys!) is amazing and supportive. I don't think it necessary to offer rewards for being kind, but at the same time there are a lot of people who deserve it =)

I can't think of anything to add really, just keep up the good work and we'll continue to be excellent to each other =B

I notice that the headers are formatted to be links although they do not anchor any site, is this intentional? If so, will it click-through to more information, specific rules, or...?

You can go here http://subeta.net/forums.php/groups/#/home to browse groups or put a search if you know the name of one

I really like this, and the fact that's it's not just a long list of numbered rules is a plus. These are all things that everyone should know already but I think the community could use a little reminding. Subeta has always been one of the most friendliest and helpful online experiences you could hope for but it's grown a lot over the years and with more people come more problems. We needed something like this.

I've actually been targeted about how I write by a user on site just because I don't use proper punctuation or spacing,They spent an hour being a total jerk about it so eventually I blocked them.

I think the best part about the guidelines is this

"Those that habitually find that they are unable to follow the code of conduct may be unwelcome to participate in the community. Bad experiences with users (or members of staff) can be reported through the Ticket Center."

Because it encompasses staff as well,There have been a number of times where a staff member has acted in a manner that to me as a site owner would be very frowned upon and I feel like up until now the rules haven't really applied to staff in the way that they should.

When I send in a ticket to the site for help it's because I genuinely need help,I'm not wasting anyone's time and I expect to be treated in a friendly and professional manner,Unfortunately that hasn't always happened there and I've been treated rudely by staff in other areas of the site so I hope this makes a significant change to how things are in the future with both users and staff.

I come here to relax a lot after a stressful day and it's hard to do that when there is often a lot of negativity from users or drama,I'll admit I'm not perfect but I am trying to work on that and it'd be nice to have encouragement from those around me rather then more fuel to potentially cause me to add to the fire.

Great idea all around and thank you for all the time you spend on making subeta a better place to be :)

Thank you

It looks great :)

One of the reasons why I only started to write on the forum on my 8th year here, is because many times I was bullied or people were not polite to me.. and it really destroyed my days sometimes.. I felt really bad..

This is a good idea… in theory. The guidelines look good of course but rewarding ‘good behavior’ and for being helpful just seems like an invitation for a lot of spam. There are already helpful threads made, for example one in the battling forum for battlers. I think it is just putting a lot of extra work on the mods. And what of the mods that are condescending and unfriendly? I have seen this a few times and yet you can’t say anything for fear of being banned. Will these new rules apply to them as well? Then you have those that get butthurt so easily. You are probably asking for a lot of tickets that have to be looked into only to find they are really nothing.

Then you might get those that fear to post their opinions because someone else might see it as hate just because they disagreed with something. All in all you have both sides of the fence riding on this one.

I guess what I am saying is the guidelines are good, rewarding good behavior is not and consequences for hateful actions I thought was always a thing. Maybe not.

I like the rules. They are simple, and easy to understand. They are also written in a friendly way that (in my opinion) encourages the behavior that they are trying to achieve rather than offering dire warnings for the slightest misstep. And they also are written in a way that make the staff seem more approachable to me. :)

I love this idea! Personally, I've never experienced any negativity on the forums (YET) but I understand why people are scared to use the forums, because for my first 2 years playing Subeta, I avoided the forums for the same reasons. When I finally decided to poke my head in here and see what was up, I discovered that people are super nice and have only received positive interactions. Even when requesting critique on artwork, I was given completely polite and fair responses (even though I TOTALLY expected to get that pile of "Lol this sucks u noob" jerk responses). I even made a great friend when I requested critique on a CW I was working on! xD I need to go finish it one of these days...

The only amendment I can think of is to perhaps add a "Take it outside" rule (Like others have suggested). If/When bickering/disagreements start, instead of exploding the forums with your dispute, take it to sMail or profile comments, especially if you wind up getting off-topic.

OH, HERE'S AN IDEA. You know how there's a "Report Post" button on each post? What if we put a "Don't be a jerk" button nearby? This would send the poster an anonymous message/event saying something like "Someone does not approve of your behavior in the forums! Please be mindful of how you treat others!" or something along those lines. I feel like that would be a great passive-aggressive way of helping keep each other in check. (And there would be a cooldown on how often people could push that button, for obvious reasons. I think a 24 hour cooldown is reasonable, so that people actually think about it before they push the "Don't be a jerk" button, but I wouldn't object to a longer cooldown too.) Just an idea! I'm sure there are already other appropriate ways to deal with people, but doesn't pushing a button sound much more appealing than facing a drama llama?

yeah, I've come across it before, it's unfortunate when people are complete jerks over such trivial things. I don't know if the guidelines will prevent people from being jerks. With that said, I think it is a good start.

Overall, I don't think the forums are negative places, but some people are who use them. For instance, this person who just joined wanted to make an Adventure Time HA and wanted suggestions. However, the person posted in the Help section, not the Human Avatars section. I told them that they could browse shops and their wardrobe with the all items selection, as well as posting in the human avatar section so more people who are into that kind of thing would help them. This other user said to ignore me and do what they wanted, but I told them that I didn't want the OP to get in trouble and should follow the rules.

Also, that's another issue: people ignoring things you're trying to tell them. If you've just signed up, there's a little guide, but no one reads that stuff anymore. Maybe if you had an interactive guide it would help.

People are going to be themselves on the internet. Even if you do read that page, people can ignore it, or not read it at all. Plus, how do you determine if someone is being abrasive or blunt? I don't want to coddle people.

I really like the guidelines idea! It's not a hard set of rules, just a nice reminder that hey, there is someone on the other side of that screen and in reality you never really know how they're actually feeling.

And on another note, I've never seen a lot, or any, negativity? I mean, I'm sure there is rude behavior, but I seldom come across it. I just usually don't take to the boards because I'm shy. ahaha.

Thanks for this and for asking for feedback! :)

The guidelines are really nice! Short and sweet and very easy to read and understand. I completely approve of this and I really hope a lot of people read these. It'll make the forums seem like a more inviting place to new and shy users.

Though I may be preaching to the choir when I say this: I REALLY hope this doesn't turn into people bugging staff 24/7 because so-and-so said that their precious piece of art had something wrong with and they took it as some kind of personal attack or something... Seen those type a lot elsewhere and ohhh they get bothersome... c':

I like these rules, they are short and positive and for some reason, they make me feel all fuzzy and bubbly inside. They make me feel really optimistic about the Subeta community. I have actually been a part of this site for more than 8 years now, but I hardly use the forums. However, that doesn't have anything to do with negativity in the forums. To be honest, I never noticed that that was a problem here. I'm just pretty shy and I have the feeling that I am really bad at expressing myself via the internet. Therefore I never dared to try to enter groups of people that already existed, because I'm pretty scared of rejection. I always felt that Subeta was a very positive and accepting community though, and if I had tried it anywhere, it would definitely have been here.

About the rules, I really like them, especially the "don't be a jerk" rule - I also think you grasped the concept of freedom of speech perfectly, which not many other people seem to do. I think it's nice that the rules are so bubbly and short, which makes people actually read (and like) them.

However, I do have a little criticism about exactly that, too, sorry. You are planning to punish people (probably by banning them for a period) for not following these rules, which is fine. But since the rules are written in such a short and general way, they are also a little vague. Phrases like "Please don't ruin the fun with a negative attitude" and "give appropriate attention" can be interpreted differently by different people. It might therefore lead to a bit of uncertainty. I tend to be very insecure about voicing my opinion, because I like to give constructive criticism, but I am not always sure how it will be received and if it sounds more negative than I meant it to others, epsecially since English is not my native language. (This is probably only the law student in me talking though! I know it might be hard making the rules more precise and other people might find them clear enough!)

All in all I really like the idea and the positive attitude though!

Yeah, no. This isn't the feedback you were looking for, but I trust it will be allowed to stand as I am posting it in good faith and with good intentions for the future evolution of the site.

The guidelines open with "We don't want to load everyone down with rules and regulations"

Yeah, again, no. If people are going to get banned for infringing these hilariously vague and fluffy 'guidelines', then I would like to put in a plea for much, much clearer guidance and examples to be given of what would constitute a warnable/bannable offence.

Especially re the guideline on hate speech. Considering Subeta has a debate forum, posters need to have a much better idea of what the staff will warn/ban for as 'hate speech'. And to pre-empt Keith's likely answer, no, I do not think an answer of "oh the staff will know it when they see it" is good enough when you are dealing with accounts that (thanks to the site's continual push towards CS features) often cost real money and invariably represent a real investment of time and effort by the player.

Expecting us as players to abide by the rules requires us to know what those rules are. Nothing in these guidelines would tell me, either as a player or a staff member, what to do in a hypothetical situation where one player is continually insisting in a debate that gender dysphoria doesn't exist. There are people who will class this as hate speech against trans people and trans identities, and those who won't. I can reel off more examples which have actually happened on the boards in the last couple of years, but let's let those sleeping dogs lie. This hypothetical example is going to wind up as a clusterfuck, the staff will be asked to intervene, and whatever they do they will be criticised after the fact because neither they nor the users will have been able to reasonably anticipate where they broke the rules and what the punishment would be.

This is jurisprudence 101, guys, and Keith, it is monstrously unfair on your staff to expect them to take the flak for this. There are users here who are clued into social justice 101, some who aren't, and some who are deeply involved in social justice work/culture and every one of those groups is coming here with a different understanding of what hate speech and various -phobias are. Nothing in this document clues me into where you are intending to draw that bright line on which the banhammer will come down.

I don't think it's fair to ask us, as a userbase to give feedback on guidelines which are this vague (seriously, one of them amounts to "be excellent to each other!"), discipline us for breaking them, and then claim after the fact that we were consulted on the rules so it's our own fault we didn't behave. This isn't a consultation document. Draft rules, or detailed guidance to accompany this document, and put it out for consultation.

Also? For the love of [insert cosmic force of your choice], give us a formal appeal system against warnings. Just the right to have another UA/staff member look at them. It wouldn't need some massive technical fix - just run it through the existing ticket system - but it would make the policing of the social (see my point about the debate forums above) as opposed to the game aspects of the site feel (and be!) so much fairer. Scrutiny of decision-making always leads to better, fairer, more transparent decision-making procedures.