Ok this is me asking a genuine question, because on more than one occasion I've seen people "banned" or blacklisted or whatever and, having seen posts by at least one, I couldn't begin to imagine why...and I can already feel a ban hammer hitting me for even asking but whatever...is there any specific set of rules that I need to be aware of? Like I'm kinda new so if there is, and frankly I wouldn't be shocked if so, then where would they be or could I get an overview? And all nice-talk pablum aside, what DOES get people banned, like what should I genuinely avoid saying or doing. Because I've seen things where people started a thread and before anyone RESPONDED they were banned and frankly I am, I guess scared is the right word? Like what should I avoid doing, what would get me banned? Is this going to get me banned? Is it because one guy I think mentioned he did pot or something? I can easily see plagiarism or something being a problem so is that it? Are there specific rules and if so could someone tell me? And for the record, cause honestly I suspect some of this is political, like twitter where I had my account blasted from existence more than once. I hear tell it's "not political" when I raised the question, but honestly if it's not to just alleviate my feeling of "looking over my shoulder-ism" what DOES get me banned here? And again for the record I'm a fairly Right leaning person, and on at least two occasions when I raised the question of politics, or criticized it, I saw threads I was directly involved in "locked". So look, I used to be a Liberal but I changed, dramatically, in the last few years, similarly I used to be an Atheist a lifetime ago but I cast that from my mind too. So just someone be honest with me is being a Conservative something I should avoid bringing up? Because honestly, I just came here to talk to people who were working on writing like me, so if I should avoid ever mentioning my religion or politics feel free to just say "Yeah, Orange Man bad, shut up!" and I swear I can just keep that in mind and never broach the subject again. I ask this because this is like the third time, I recall, since I been here that people who from what I can tell did nothing just got slammed and I can't even say I barely knew one and never met the other, but I get the indication they said or did something to get screwed. And honestly I just want to know what so I can avoid it, as I don't want to get banned or constantly have threads I comment in locked. Real Talk: If my views, or certain subjects, are in conflict with some rule set I've yet to see just say the word.
.... sigh There's no one single thing that gets people banned, unless you want to lump all the different things under the label "exceedingly disruptive behavior". The member who was banned today (last night for me because it was nigh-nigh time in my part of the world and it was a different staff member who handled it) was banned for rolling in as a hard troll. The thread that got him banned is no longer in evidence because leaving it open is like leaving a stinking pile of shit lying in the middle of the sidewalk. Do you clean it up, or do you stand there all day and direct people around it? Your question was honestly asked, so I'm going to honestly answer it: Let go of the Liberal vs Conservative litany. No one here cares about that. It's a writing forum. We're here to talk about writing. It's really, really, really important to remember that other people do actually think in other ways, and many of us don't live in those countries currently in the middle of Liberal vs Conservative cultural battles. Having an opinion is a completely different dynamic to how you present that opinion. I know, I know. That's a really hard sell in 2018, but that's what's for sale here. Don't walk along the edge of the cliff and you won't fall off. Simples.
There were two were the not ? … as far as I can tell they both broke the cardinal rule of 'don't act like a complete length.' For the OP If you spend any serious time on the internet you can see the commonalities of behaviour that cause bans in well run forums … i.e the three Ds - disregarding the rules, disrespecting the staff/members, and disrupting threads. (of course on badly run forums that can include your politics, whether you disagree with a moderator, whether you are in the special clique, your feelings about the oxford comma.... none of that shiz applies here) Incidentally if someone gets banned before they've barely started it nearly always means they are a re-member (someone whos been banned trying to sneak back in), or they are a bot/spammer padding their post count
One was just actually from a known spam source, posting in the typical way new-school spambots use to get around filters. Inoquous, barely sensible posts, and then they come back in and add links.
Ok well I'm sorry but, what is "rolled his hard troll"? Like I'm sorry but I'm genuinely like unsure of what I can and can't even say because as far as I can discern there are no set rules, or none I've yet seen, so I'm sorry if the fact people seem to get blacklisted for some unseen...things and asking why only receives a "shut up, let the men handle this". Maybe I shouldn't even ask the question, but you'll excuse me if I'm the slightest bit perturbed by unseen, unspoken laws which I've never had explained or expanded upon that may or may not get me screwed. It's like if God told us there were ten commandments then never bothered to write them down, then struck me down because I worshiped Zeus and I wasn't aware "Don't worship other Gods" was one of the top three. Not an insult, I'm being dead honest no BS.
You should have got the rules by pm when you joined https://www.writingforums.org/rules/ Also this is one of the most even handed and tolerant forums I've seen, no one gets banned for 'no reason' or because they disagreed (in a factual sense) with staff Rolling his hard troll means that he charged into numerous threads posting in a disruptive manner and trying to start arguments … its not difficult to avoid doing that tbh
I understand what you're asking, and I ain't mad at you, but what you're basically asking is how to constructively behave in a group setting vs how not to. That's a mom's job, and I'm not anyone's mom.
Ok so having gone over the rules, which I genuinely never saw before so thanks @BigSoftMoose, I am to understand that basically "don't start fights" and "don't spam" are the main problems, with variations of this. Ok cool. (I find the use of "hate speech" somewhat...troubling as "hate speech" is a word so mind-numbing nebulous as to be virtually meaningless and I've had people accuse me of "hate speech" because I said I didn't agree with socialism, while also calling me an uncle tom unironically, but I digress) So, I never spam so that's not a problem, and I guess I'll just try to be as non-confrontational as I can.
Real Talk/Sarcastic Aside: And to be perfectly clear when I say "hate speech" is nebulous to the point of being literally meaningless internet slang at this point, I literally have NEVER heard a single, unified definition of "hate speech", and even when I was young and naive enough to be a Far Left Atheist Bernie Bro (I make no excuses for my past mistakes) it seems to be just a blanket term meaning "I disagree but have no objective counter argument". Again not an insult it's just kind of an eye roll scenario. I've had people tell me that GLOBALISM is a "code word" for anti-semitism and that I was secretly a Russian AI construct created to "trick" minorities into voting against Hillary in the same breath. Then pivot in place and call me an uncle tom (which is kinda odd since I was unaware AIs could have a defined race but whatever) and THEN told me considered it more in line with "hate speech" for me to say I believe there are two scientifically defined sexes. I kid you not.
Hate speech here means either using bad words for minorities - directly in forum exchange, not necessarily in your writing … like calling a gay member a faggot or calling a black member an uncle tom for that matter. Or inciting discrimination / hatred against a group or person (again in direct forum exchange). In general it's pretty easy to stay clear of because overall we are here to discuss writing, and (debate room excepted) no one is likely to be discussing those topics in a discussion about how to make a plot work, or which character works best etc. No one is going to ban you for using the term globalism , but you will get banned if you continually try to hijack writing threads into political discussions (I'm not saying you would, just as a general point) Just as Wrey said last time this was discussed its not a problem to believe that 9/11 was an Anarcho Judaist conspiracy or whatever - but it is a problem to post something that inflammatory on a thread that's not about that subject. (In the debate room - which I try not to go into- its a case of keeping ones temper and playing the ball not the man) Also in general if you break the rules you'll just be told not to do it again - unless the rule break is so heinous that greater action is necessary. I was warned a few times in my early days, mostly for losing my temper, or trying to be funny when funny isn't appropriate
And again, the topics here are narrative structure, pacing, characterization, voice in dialogue, theme, metaphor, arcs, primary vs ancillary characters, narrative POV, tense, chapters, plot devices... As long as people stick to that, there's no reason for anyone to get into any trouble. Continually bringing up all the rest you're talking about, whether it's Radical Left or Reactionary Right (and no one ever hears me when I emphasize how BOTH are equally problematic), and doing so in a way that derails the purpose of the venue, is one of the ways people get into trouble in this forum. I understand it's hard to let go of politicized engagements in 2018. I understand that. But for those who engage in that way, Blue or Red, the one thing they will find is that I will always disappoint and confuse them. They will think I sway one way one minute and the other way in the next thread and it's because they are using the wrong meter by which to measure. I've had this conversation a million times. Here's the thread I created a long time ago to express the same sentiment. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/dont-feed-the-trolls.152992/ When I am here, I care only about the things in the first sentence in this post of mine. That's it. That's all.
I nearly said that then decided not to hijack the thread - its only 60 or so years since the American right were chanting 'better dead than red'
Speaking as someone who was once banned for three months (fairly? well ...) I can say that politics won't get you banned here. Just be sure to take it to the Debate Room. Near as I can tell, although the politics of the main moderator are obvious, he doesn't discriminate in that way. As stated above, the main rule here is: don't be a dick. I'm a member of a forum ( not about writing) where anything goes, and it's such a vile swamp that I can't go there anymore. This forum is mostly fairly moderated. If you're suggesting that you don't think there is any such thing as 'hate speech', I won't disagree, but there's no place here for anything that might be considered such. There's the rest of the internet for that stuff, if it's important to posters.
That is the most satisfying thing in the business when recidivists come back all humble after the taser and testicle shrinking. They don't fukk with WF, nor with Wreybies and his most obvious falangist swinging.
@Earp Without going too deep into my personal experiences, I've long since realized that "hate speech" is a preposterously broad, nebulous-to-the-point-of-irrelevance term that seems almost engineered as to lend credence or quasi-empirical substance to someone's counter argument when they have no objective one to make beside "Nuh-uh!" So far I've never seen, heard or had articulated to me WHAT "hate speech" constitutes, WHO decided it, and more to the point, if it's not decided upon by any majority or overarching group what in God's name it means. And considering most "hateful" words emerged from people being butt hurt on the internet, to say that the "definition" of "hate speech" seems to change hour by hour based on Twitter trends is overgenerous since at least trends are based on what is popular with the majority so can be said to actually have a defined meaning, or some resemblance to it. *ahem* But I digress. TLDR: "hate speech" is a term so completely nebulous it's meaningless. If "that hurt muh feelz" constitutes "hate speech" then 99.9% of the human language is "hate speech".
OK. I'd put it a little more succinctly: hate speech (and hate crimes, for that matter) can't exist because no one can really know what's in another person's heart. If we want to continue, we should take it to the Debate Room. As much as I enjoy irony, I don't want to be banned for posts in a conversation about banning.
@Earp Lol, yeah I'll shut up now, at least found actual rules so that makes me feel less "constantly looking over my shoulder-ish".
I'm chiming in to apologize for participating in said thread well past the point where it was clear that the poster was a troll. This is not a proper apology, because a proper apology would explain how I was going to make sure it doesn't happen again. And that is a work in progress with me. This morning, I can look at last night's me and say, "For God's sake, just stop engaging!" Last night's me obviously failed on that judgement call.
I admit part of me does love watching you relentlessly destroy trolls with logic and reason and apparently unlimited patience.
Welp, the criminal code of Canada says this on it: Hate speech is proscribed in Canada by the Criminal Code and, in three provinces, by human rights acts. 1. Criminal Code The relevant sections of the Criminal Code say: Public incitement of hatred 319 (1) Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of (a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or (b) an offence punishable on summary conviction. Wilful promotion of hatred (2) Every one who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, wilfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group is guilty of (a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or (b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.[1]
