How we will break the culture of rule breaking and incivility on DU.

Skinner ADMIN

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Thu Dec-11-03 01:46 PM
Original message

How we will break the culture of rule breaking and incivility on DU.

Most of the members of this message board have no difficulty treating other people with respect, and participating in a positive manner. For that, I am grateful. Unfortunately, there is a small minority of members who either cannot control themselves, or have chosen not to control themselves. These rude people make Democratic Underground unpleasant for the rest of us, and have shown little inclination to change their behavior, despite repeated pleas from the administrators, the moderators, and the members of this website.

We believe that Democratic Underground has enough rules, and we will not noticeably improve DU by creating more rules. Our problem is that we have a small minority of people who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, because they have no real incentive to do so. There has been no accountability and there have been no consequences for disruption. Until today.

Today we are unveiling a new enforcement system, which will help encourage all of our members to be productive members of our community. We are confident that it will provide a real incentive for all of our members to learn and follow the rules. We call it the Moderator Messaging system.

Here�s the great thing: If you are part of the vast majority of members who follows the rules and treats other people with respect, you will rarely, if ever, have any problems with the system. In fact, you can probably stop reading this post right here. But if you are part of the small minority of people who repeatedly cause problems, your DU experience is going to change a little bit. Here�s how it works:

When a moderator deletes one of your posts, you are sent an automatic notification to let you know. (Note: you will not get notifications for harmless infractions like duplicate postings.) When you receive such a notification, you are temporarily unable to post. In order to continue posting, all you have to do is review the notification, acknowledge that you received it, and give us your word that you will follow the rules. If you do not wish to follow the rules, that is your choice, however, you will not regain your ability to post on the board.

The moderators can also send you messages using this system. When you receive such a message, you are unable to post until your review the message, acknowledge that you received it, and give us your word that you will follow the rules.

If you receive a notification in error, we have the ability to remove it from your record. Simply send an email to the administrators, with the text of the post, and we will review it. Please do not waste our time with rude messages, baseless accusations of moderator bias, or complaints about deleted posts that include obvious rule violations. If you do send us such message, we will add an additional warning to your record.

If you receive five notifications, you get an automatic 24-hour time-out, during which time you will be unable to post on the message board. You will also get automatic 24-hour time-outs at 10, 15, 20, and 25 notifications. When you get 30 notifications, you are automatically banned. If you have promised 30 times to follow the rules, but still continue break them, then we can reasonably conclude that you have no intention of keeping your word. You get a special tombstone to indicate that your account was shut off automatically because of your own behavior.

I fully expect to hear a great deal of complaining about this new system, which will try to paint me as unfair, biased, fascist, censorious, or Ashcroftian. These complaints will be loud and disruptive for a few days, but ultimately they are wrong. This system puts the power in your hands. If you are the type of person who tries to treat others with respect, and makes an effort to be civil, you will never have any serious problems with this system. Based on our analysis of deleted posts over the last six months, the vast majority of members would never even get one time-out. However, if you are the type of person who is intentionally rude, or if you scour the rules looking for loopholes which give you an excuse to be disruptive, then you put yourself at risk of being banned.

The power is in your hands. The only person responsible for your own behavior is you.

I look forward to participating on a more civil Democratic Underground.

Skinner
DU Admin

Important notice: We understand that this is a significant change for our members and for the moderators, and we realize that many of you will need some time to adjust. Because of this, we are starting off with a �learning period� that lasts until January 1, 2004. On that day, we will wipe everyone�s slate clean so you can start from zero again. However, please be aware that if you get a time-out during this learning period, you are stuck with it, and if you get automatically banned during this learning period, you will stay banned.

Also, there will likely be a number of technical glitches and bugs over the next couple days as we implement this system. Please be patient.