Forum Rules Updates

[Brandon Martus]

FYI, there have been some minor forum rules changes. They are specifically in paragraph 7 of the rules, and highlighted in red/bold below:

ChiefDelphi also reserves the right to prohibit or delete discussions that are thought to violate applicable law, are NOT robotics related, or that may be harmful to other members. Please remember, you are representing not only yourself, but your team and its sponsors, as well as what FIRST stands for. Please try to practice gracious professionalism at all times.

If you have any questions about this change in rules, please ask here and one of the Chief Delphi team leaders will respond with answers.

[Jaine Perotti]

Does this mean that things that aren't robotics related, even in the Chit-Chat forum, are now prohibited?

What problem is this new rule intended to eliminate? Is it a response to the recent political discussions in the Chit-Chat forum?
I am just curious about it's intent and implications - what is an example of an acceptable offtopic discussion, and what isn't.

[Joe Matt]

Looks to be just a back up clause that will be pulled out incase any more threads come up that aren't robotics related that cause a problem. There is no way Chit-Chat will be removed, but I imagine that if someone posted another "which religion and you" thread and had it removed, they can point to this rule, which simply means, CD can do what it wants with any thread not pertaining to robotics specifically.

Of course, this is how I view it, the CD "gods" might want to elaborate more.

[Jaine Perotti]

Originally Posted by Joe Matt

Looks to be just a back up clause that will be pulled out incase any more threads come up that aren't robotics related that cause a problem. There is no way Chit-Chat will be removed, but I imagine that if someone posted another "which religion and you" thread and had it removed, they can point to this rule, which simply means, CD can do what it wants with any thread not pertaining to robotics specifically.

Of course, this is how I view it, Brandon might want to elaborate more.

Your explaination makes sense, but the clause's placement made me a little bit confused because all threads which violate the law or are harmful to other members would probably be deleted/closed unconditionally. However, not all non-robotics related discussions would be deleted/closed unconditionally. This could lead to some confusion - some people might think that having an offtopic discussion is just as serious an offense as posting about file-sharing.

But, if the rule is as Joe interpreted, I would say that this isn't a bad addition, but perhaps not as clear as it could be. Also, if the rule has the same intent as what Joe described, why doesn't that fit under the "harmful to other members" section of the clause? If a political debate is getting out of hand and people are getting upset, couldn't the thread be closed under the premise that it is "harmful to other members" instead of under the premise that it is not "robotics related"? Thats why I asked what problem this addition was intended to address.

edit:

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Chit-Chat is useful and I wouldn't expect it to be shut down, but certain topics definitely ought to be zapped if they threaten to turn from discussions to attacks.

Again, why wouldn't this fall under the "harmful to other members" section of the clause?

I don't think this rule is bad, I'm just asking for clarification about it's intended solution to a problem.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

This rule gives moderators a greater ability to control high-tension topics that get out of hand quickly. There is no longer a need for the "should we discuss politics" on CD because there is a rule stating that if it gets nasty, it gets deleted.

There are many off-topic things going on, and moderators won't read every single one, purely becasue they don't need to. However, for those cases where that kind of guideline is needed, it's available.

[Ryan Dognaux]

It's good for Chief Delphi to have a rule like this to pull out when necessary. It is, at heart, a robotics forum. The political and religious threads that get started are just a bi-product of this. This rule isn't restricting, in my opinion, because this is a FIRST forum and that's what we're here to talk about. This forum represents major sponsors of FIRST, FIRST teams, and the individuals on those teams. Having a rule that supports maintaining Chief Delphi as a welcoming forum to FIRSTers everywhere gets my vote.

[Beth Sweet]

Guys, Brandon is not unreasonable, nor are the other moderators. If I had to take a guess, this is their safety net for if something needs to be closed, that they'll have something to back themselves up. Pretty much, I doubt they'll close anything that isn't problematic, half the mods comment in those "amusing but not robotics" threads themselves.

[meaubry]

All,
I suggested this small wording change for a number of reasons. Most of which were already discussed in this thread.
The history of CD is long, most know the story already so I don't need to go over it again. The one thing that we envisioned so many years ago was that we wanted to provide a place for ROBOTICS to be discussed within the FIRST community.
From day one, it was apparent that people wanted to share ideas and sometimes there were differences of opinion among the community. Understanding that this is human nature, we encouraged the Right to share opinions as long as the discussions remained civil and no one purposefully went-out of their way to be hurtful OR harmful.
As the community grew and grew, we entertained suggestions for more and various type forum topics. We provided places for groups to congregate in an even closer knit community to discuss stuff related to or about those specific topics.
The Chit Chat fori grew out of this - it holds a wide variety of topics within it - including Games and Fantasy First. But sometimes the topics begin to sway away from anything Robotics related and into the world of politics and religion. These 2 items are the most difficult to deal with as a moderator and as the community of CD users.
So, I felt it was time to be able to re-focus the CD site back to where we as a community have a common thread - Robotics.
It will also assist the moderators in closing threads that are NOT robotics related without having to wonder "if they should have or not".
I trust the moderators know when a post or thread is not even remotely related to anything having to do with our robotics focused community and they will do a good job.
On the flipside - the number of complaints about non robotic related posts should be reduced and if all goes well, the number of people that are turned off by the non-robotics related threads will stick around and participate on this wonderful resource we have shared with all of FIRST.

Thanks, for listening.
Mike Aubry

[Matt Krass]

I definitely support this, anyone who knows me knows I can be very vocal about some of the controversial debates that come up on these forums. I'm glad to see the ChiefDelphi team reacting quickly and decisively and simply solving the problem without a lot of fuss. Some of the discussions lately have been not only violent, but pointless and rapidly degenerating, I'm happy the moderators are on top of the job and I don't see a problem with this ruling change. CD Moderators are smart people, not robots (Excuse the irony), they know when a thread should be closed and when it's safe to leave it open. I don't imagine our normal chit-chat discussions will suffer, but this should help curb the radical political and religion flamewars started by members.

I say more power to the moderators, they're doing great!

[Mike]

As far as I'm concerned, this type of clause isn't necessary at all. Brandon, Delphi, IFI, 47 and co. are providing you a service by having these forums. Therefore they can delete, change, edit to whatever they please, for no reason whatsoever.

Anyone who disagrees can be shown the proverbial exit door.

[TimCraig]

Originally Posted by Mike

Therefore they can delete, change, edit to whatever they please, for no reason whatsoever.

Anyone who disagrees can be shown the proverbial exit door.

If they want to delete a post of mine, that's fine. However, I have a problem with someone editing what I've said and leaving it under my signature. I also wan't very happy when I had a post of my pulled from a thread where I'd resonded to someone and using it to start a new thread where it looked like I'd gone out of my way to broach a touchy subject.

[Michelle Celio]

Originally Posted by BurningQuestion

What problem is this new rule intended to eliminate? Is it a response to the recent political discussions in the Chit-Chat forum?

I have a feeling that you're right and this may have to do with the amount of Political topics that came up recently. I for one saw them, didn't read them so I don't really know what happened inside. But from what I hear they we're fairy controversial.

I don't think chit-chat section should be prohibited and we can leave that discussion here

Though, something I've seen aren't entirely 100% appropriate. One thread for example is the one about Adam Richards and myself (which is now closed). I look back on that now and it just seems so...childish? And actually, I'd like to say that I'm sorry for allowing that thread to get so big, I should of requested that it be closed it along time.

Yes, Chief Delphi is a FIRST Forum but does everything have to be about it...not really. Just a quick browse threw the chit-chat forum and you see allot of threads that carry on stories about a certain topic that may be a spin off of something FIRST related. And then you see some things about what people who are in FIRST may have in common (AP Test scores, watching the world cup..etc, etc) they have nothing to do with FIRST but yet give us a common place to discuss something we may or may not know about.

I think in the end, it's all up to Brandon and the moderators. We shouldn't take advantage (not calling anyone out, just a statement) of what they're providing for us by posting things that could incriminate FRC 47, their sponsors or anything, anyone or any form of any I may have missed.

Just my $0.02

[Kims Robot]

I have to echo Jaine's question.

Does this mean that CD can arbitrarily delete anything they feel like in the chit-chat section? It sounds like movie discussions, TV shows, philosphical thoughts, as well as religious & political debate are now open for deletion.

I do see the caviot that it "reserves the right", but it seems like shaky ground, instead of prohibiting all non-robotics related, its wishy-washy and could easily lead to a "this moderator doesnt like me" or something like that.

While personally, I think CD moderators do a good job currently of monitoring debates, I think the change to this rule either does nothing other than make it public that they have free will to do whatever they want with threads, or it shuts down (or scares) the entire chit-chat section. To one person, myspace might be a really heated topic, to another, politics might be... while I realize its difficult to define, it would be more understandable to define what is acceptable and what isnt.

With the heated discussions recently, if it bothered me, I would turn off chit-chat, everyone has that option.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by BurningQuestion

Does this mean that things that aren't robotics related, even in the Chit-Chat forum, are now prohibited?

The rule doesn't prohibit them. It merely marks them explicitly as off topic for the ChiefDelphi forums, and provides a safety valve for legitimately removing discussions that might otherwise hover at a subjective boundary between appropriate and inappropriate topics.

I think making the phrase "robotics related" part of the rules is a good thing. This is supposed to be a forum for discussing robotics. It isn't set up as a forum for discussions on pop culture or current events among people who happen to have robotics in common. Chit-Chat is useful and I wouldn't expect it to be shut down, but certain topics definitely ought to be zapped if they threaten to turn from discussions to attacks.