With all due respect, you quoted that out of context. The point was that any particular rule, applied vaguely, could be used as a reason to lock anything. Which is true.
Let us take his original post and deconstruct it.
Any forum rule,when applied with a heavy hand,will stifle open communication.
Only true in the most-literal sense if one counts everything stated, however vile, as open communication.
Would be true in a more than merely literal sense if phrased as something like, "any rule can be mis-applied by the malicious."
Or I suppose any number of others phrasings, other than the one actually used.
Verdict: Exaggeration.
Rule B is vague enough to the point that where an Admin or Mod can lock 90% of the posts that are found in UHall alone because they are not all sunshine and smiley faces.
Again, an exaggeration and a comparatively wild one. I disagree that out of context, taken as an empirical, descriptive point, it's even an exaggeration, it'd be a flat-out lie if intended that way.
Taken as a speculative prediction? Still exaggerating. It would take an awful lot of malice to apply Rule B to the point where any post that is not sunshine and smiley faces would be locked, and frankly it'd take a lot more negativity than we actually have for 90% of posts to be lock-able under any non-insane standard.
Verdict: As phrased, again, a wild exaggeration.
In the link that Kelmo provided,Petra stated that constant negativity harms the community.
I assume by "the link Kelmo provided" he meant the link to Rule B itself.
Using the web browser's "find in page" function I was able to run a search on the page for the root "negativ," which should encompass "negativity" and "negative."
I found the following.
ONE:
I would ask some posters to take a step back and re-examine their posts. Are your negative comments relevent and justified in the context of the thread you are posting in? Or have you just gotten into a rut of pancakes in every thread you post?
That statement does not match what the original poster wrote.
TWO (which is actually in Rule B before quote 1):
Constant negativity is destructive and depressing.
That statement does not match what the original poster wrote.
Getting closer, but seen in the light of the later Quote One, it should be quite clear that even the scarily vague Rule B doesn't apply to
any negative posts, which is what it would appear the original poster wanted to imply.
THREE:
Please stop the constant negativity and attempt to post in a more constructive manner - or just stop posting.
Again, in context, clearly must be seen in the light of One, which refers to being negative in every post. Some posters clearly fit this description,
i.e., are negative way past the point where they're actually responding to reality.
Verdict: Exaggeration.
I agree,but I also think that if we are only allowed to say only positive/neutral things here,it is pointless to even have a "community" at all.
Again, exaggeration. It would be difficult to argue that Stratics only allows positive or neutral things. Indeed I have in recent days paged on several posts that I actually consider personal attacks. (Not on me this time.)
And nothing's been done.
Honestly I was thinking Stratics had started to once-again over-compensate and actually
favor the negative.
So far the entire original post is looking like an exaggeration, and a rather wild one at that.
Let us see if anything in the concluding paragraphs can change this verdict.
Just for the Hell of it let us also include some aspects of Ra'Dian's post as well.
If all the threads here will be required to be a "group hug" then this forum will lose a lot of it's value. Which leads me to a question that I have always wanted to ask. Is the Stratics forums made for the benefit of the Admins and Mods,or the regular John Q Public member like myself?
The trouble I think some people are having at present is that even threads where there is no "personal" anything going on, because something was not "ra ra EA, gooooo Mythic," it gets locked.
Obviously, it is Stratics' forum, but stifling discussion simply because people don't agree with the changes made to UO at all times is silly at best.
Negativity can come in many forms. Sometimes it comes as expressing an opinion counter to what the developers and some members of the community believe to be appropriate. Thing is, when a thread that is fostering discussion gets locked simply because someone isn't wielding the requisite pompoms, the rules also clearly state, "Don't start a new thread about something that's been closed." And thus the subject becomes verboten.
And... not to put too fine a point on it...
Nice double standard.
Nope.
Still a wild exaggeration.
Do I like Kelmo? No. To the extent that he's aware of me at all he will confirm that I have been open that I do not like him.
Do I approve of Stratics 100%? Nope. Again, to the extent that they are aware of me at all I doubt I'm on any good boy list they might have (if they have one at all).
Do I approve of Rule B? In spirit, yes. But my worry is, and has always been, that it'll be used more against folks such as myself or Martyna's player instead of.....Others. Some applications of it have eased my worry, some have intensified it. I also think it's routinely not applied to popular folks against whom it should be applied.
But, when I see some folks citing the First Amendment to the US Constitution as though it somehow applied to Stratics instead of Congress (directly) or the States (indirectly), as I on some occasions do? When I look over this thread and see wild exaggerations and wonder what planet the poster is from?
Then a post like Kelmo's is both necessary a long-time coming.
-Galen's player
EA Mythic