New Species and Rules Revamp
Posted by Mat on 28 Jul 2016, 6:30 pm
Good evening villagers, we are happy to announce that Olde Foxbury now has its own rare species, the Saggitari! This taurian species fits in perfectly with the atmosphere of Olde Foxbury, and comes in three initial colors: Giraffe, Quagga, and Okapi.
Second, our staff has gotten together to discuss and completely revamp the Rules pages. We have condensed the three rules pages (Code of Conduct, Forum, and Chat) into one single rules page, which is linked from the Terms of Service. As the game has been open for three weeks, we have gotten an idea of what rules are necessary to keep it functioning smoothly, and have made adjustments accordingly.
Following our rules update, we will be closing our forums for approximately twenty-four hours for clean-up (but we will likely re-open them sooner). One issue we have been tackling is the sheer amount of spam that has hit our forums, and as soon as the clean-up of spam is complete we will re-open the forums for everyone to enjoy. The chatrooms will remain open if you would like to contact other players, and our moderators will be diligently watching the channels.
Have a great evening!
@arts-waifu
I'm sorry you feel that way. Suggestions for changing that can most definitely go to [email protected], as I'm not the one to speak to as far as trying to change any of it.
@MOD-Deinmaar
Sorry, but I disagree.
Nynphie
Try [email protected]. I can fix small paintie issues.
kasettetape BCPhantom @arts-waifu
Kasettetape actually states the reason we structured the rules as we did. We've not had a single religion post that didn't end in fire. And it wasn't my fire. To ban even topics that people have no choice in belonging to such as gender/mental illness/sexuality, then we no longer make this a safe place in order gain support. A lot of people go through so much in their lives and get destroyed for something that they hold no control over, and here shouldn't be more of that. Religion/Politics is on a completely separate spectrum, however.
AlexGoneLoco
They should be on the google document
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6UqPVmSlCrmSmQ2SmdpVVBvRUE
BCPhantom
Thank you, you said it better than I did and for that I'm grateful. That's exactly how I feel; topics like that are perfectly okay for private chats and messages, but not forum-wise. It's far too easy for threads to get out of control, even in the closed-beta with controlled registration there have people going in and purposely riling up other users based on the aforementioned topics. When this site officially opens to the public and the staff can no longer keep up with the influx of new users, this problem is going to amplify greatly and we're going to have a much bigger issue on our hands.
I don't want them banned entirely from the site either. Like you, I simply feel that they're not suitable for public discussion.
kasettetape
I'd like you to consider BCPhantom's post, because the point I was trying to make is summed up very well.
"the no politics or religion rule doesn't target a specific religion or political group"
And that's what I'm proposing, as well. I'm not targeting one type of kin. I'm asking for discussion or topics pertaining to ANY and ALL types of kin to be banned. ALL types of sexualities and genders. ALL mental illnesses. Which makes it no different from the rule about religion and politics, because EVERYONE is included.
And, as I mentioned earlier in this post, I only want them banned from the forums. Not from the entire site.
@arts-waifu
I didn't get to see your second comment until now but I see what you're saying about it being wishy-washy. Frankly I just don't think they should be considered problematic because they just....aren't? I suppose it's up to the mods discretion but it would be kinda strange to specifically be a really lgbtq+ inclusive site and ban all talk about it. It kind of also suggests that those people are problematic since it targets a group of people who are marginalized rather than the religion/politics ban which just says don't talk about it at all. TLDR; they'd be saying for instance specifically don't talk about otherkin, which is a specific group. Which wouldn't be cool, because the no politics or religion rule doesn't target a specific religion or political group, yanno?
@arts-waifu
Religion and politics are largely based on one's beliefs and lifestyle. These things are choices and basically one's opinion on how to live. Not only that but there's tons of better places to discuss these, they don't really belong on a furry site. Whether it was anyone's intention or not this site has become a super inclusive and safe place for people to just be who they are (since gender/sexuality/mental illness are out of one's control and not a choice) without restriction or regulation. It would be super hypocritical to ban talk of these things. Possibly what could be banned are any topics made to debate them, but just talking about them freely or in passing shouldn't be a problem. It's really important to let this be a normal thing for once instead of something that needs to be hidden away so no one has to deal with it, especially because all of these groups are so heavily ostracized.
@arts-waifu
I totally agree with you. Why ban some 'problematic' topics and not others?
The unfortunate reality is that, no matter how civil a conversation starts out, there will always ALWAYS be that one person who wants to see everyone riled up. Then the whole thread erupts into flames. Do I wanna see a place where people can talk about such topics without worry that someone is going to come and harass them? Yes.
Will it realistically happen? No.
It's much more manageable right now with such a small userbase, but once the floodgates open and you have thousands of users, there's a good chance that 1, half of them won't even read the rules and do whatever they want (ignoring the be nice rule), and probably a portion of them are going to join JUST to troll and cause drama.
It's better to stop it now than wait until its too late.
Now...I do think people should be allowed to discuss whatever it is they want PRIVATELY through the message system, so i'm not saying it should be banned from the site completely, but the forums are NOT the place to have such conversations where any old troll can come in and start a war.
I'm just saying I don't think it's at all fair to ban subjects like religion or politics for being "problematic" if you're not going to extend that ban to other, equally "problematic" subjects as well. It's wishy-washy.
kasettetape
To add to my recent comment, the trolls are the reason the religion/politics threads are now banned in the first place. If we didn't have people like this, these subjects could be talked about in a sensible manner. But the staff still sees fit to punish the "victims" in this case, rather than just deal with the trolls. So why should otherkin, gender/sexuality/mental illness, etc. topics be an exception?