game girl advance: GGA Policy

GGA Policy

Hey all, I've been thinking about this a lot lately - what to do about irrelevant comments. Bascially I'd like to keep the conversations at a certain standard, and to do that sometimes we have to weed out the threads that go nowhere. Up until now I've just done this by hand, where I thought it was necessary. I hate to eliminate comments - part of the goal of the site is to have intelligent conversations, and that takes a diversity of voices.

But I'm getting pretty tired of willful sniping, personal attacks, and trolling, not to mention the damn spamming. So I've set down an experimental policy, on which I place the burden of responsibility on the editors! Thanks, guys!

This is also reprinted in the "About" section.

Terms of Use

The editors of GameGirlAdvance collectively determine the tone and tenor of the conversations we have here. While we are commited to a diversity of voices here, we strive to uphold certain standards. Therefore, please be aware that your post may be deleted and your IP banned at the editor's discretion should you post one or more of the following:

1. Off-topic or otherwise irrelevant commentary which is malicious or cruel in nature, or which comprises a personal attack against one or several other commentators.

2. Maliciously racist, homophopic, misogynist, or otherwise willfully offensive language.

3. Solicitations for off-topic websites or ventures, or spam of any nature.

4. Intentionally inflammatory remarks calculated to prolong off-topic debate, and which ceases to add new information or thoughtful critique to the dialogue.

All cases will be decided on an individual basis, by the editor who posted the story. If you feel your post has been deleted in error, you may email the editor in question in a direct appeal.

In addition, all editors will have the right to close comments on a story at any time, for any reason.

Thank you for joining us!

Posted by jane at December 01, 2003 11:11 PM

It is time, people. Jane has had nightmares about trolls on GGA. She needs to get her dreams back.

There is a truly awesome essay about this sort of thing. Unfortunately the site that I know that hosts it is down today. Humph. I'll grab the url when it's up again.

Anyway, suffice it to say that the imposition of rules of conduct is just a sign that a community is maturing, so congratulations to us all on that.

The bar is being raised, my friends. Learn to love it.

P.S. None of those rules Jane laid down says anything about profanity, although GGA, it's owners, staff, and contributers will not be held responsible if your mom washes your mouth out with soap.

Posted by: ClockworkGrue on December 2, 2003 06:06 AM

I think that the policy as outlined is a great idea.

The only way it could be better, I think, would be to set up fullblown forums so that the people who want to have long off-topic discussion about the morality of war as opposed to the issues of making videogames about wars (to pick a recent example) could have those discussions somewhere far away from me.

Or threaded comments. Threaded comments would be nice. Then we could more clearly see who was replying to what and so on. And you could just lock individual threads of discussion while allowing other discussion on the same post to continue.

Posted by: Snowmit on December 2, 2003 09:10 AM

CG wrote:

P.S. None of those rules Jane laid down says anything about profanity, although GGA, it's owners, staff, and contributers will not be held responsible if your mom washes your mouth out with soap.

So the otherwise willfully offensive language referred to in Rule 2 does not include profanity?

Also... does Jane mean homophobia in the strict sense of extreme, unreasoning hatred towards gay people, or in the more "PC" sense of any ideas or statements that GLAAD wouldn't like? ;)

Posted by: BrainFromArous on December 2, 2003 09:43 AM

"Homophobic" is for each editor to determine. The definitions of ALL ELEMENTS of the policy are for each editor to determine.

"Willfully offensive language" is not necessarily profanity in the FCC definition. If you call someone a moron for a viewpoint he or she expressed, I would consider that willfully offensive.

Shit, I fucking swear all the time. But this is more about treating other people with respect.

Posted by: jane on December 2, 2003 10:04 AM

Its a great idea jane, stick with it!
I only hope moderating won't become a burden.

Censorship is a bad idea when its a blanket policy applied by the government. It is very useful for a small community where opinions and articles would not otherwise be posted if you were afraid of verbal abuse. It should be understood that you can go elsewhere if thats not your style.

I would not advise setting up seperate forums. There are other places providing this. If the forums actually become useful, they would be susceptible to abuse and thus another thing to moderate and worry about.

I enjoy the lightweight conversation style of GGA. Threads and forums are a more involved interface, slower to skim through. The style of course is up to you. I think most visitors trust your sensbilities and will be coming back.

sweet dreams!

Posted by: mfb on December 2, 2003 10:05 AM

I can see what you mean about the forums MFB. I think that threaded comments in the Slashdot style (sans +/- moderation) would be OK (though maybe not as it would likely require a redesign of some of the layout elements of the site).

On the other hand I often come to GGA wanting to be able to quickly see if anyone's contributed to a discussion that I was following. Scrolling through screens and screens to find the most recent post (especially when the growing list of 'trackback' entries makes it so that I can't just scroll to the bottom of the page) makes me sad.

But a lot of this depends on how much time and effort the GGA admin team is willing to put into reworking the site just so that I can participate in more interesting conversations with people here.

Posted by: Snowmit on December 2, 2003 10:34 AM

I agree that regulations should be made and that this is a sign of maturation for gga.

For those of you who disagree. That type of tone just doesn't deliver gga's intentions I think. This is not to say that you cannot disagree with what is written here. But a mature and professional mind towards discussion is far more rewarding than things being said in heat. I'm just commenting to back up Jane. I read the website regularly and is pleased with it's work. Let's advance it's integrity not devalue it.

Posted by: mj on December 2, 2003 11:01 AM

Rules are good, guidelines are better, and I definitely need both sometimes. :)

I've thought about asking for forums before. Specially on Snowmits example of the war topic that went off topic. I enjoyed much of that conversation even though I know it derailed, but there was nowhere else to really take it.

As long as breaking the rules won't get me banned I'm cool with it. :)

Posted by: Draigon on December 2, 2003 11:45 AM